Mincemeat and Marzipan Festive Crown

Ah Christmas, how we love you - and how fat you make us. But in this case it was worth it! This recipe combines sweet zesty fruit with crisp pastry and crunchy nuts, far superior to stodgy stolen in my opinion!

This is my take on tv baker Paul Hollywood's Christmas Couronne, or crown (here for the recipe). It's a yeasted dough, rolled out flat and layered with orange marzipan and my home-made mincemeat, rolled up and then twisted into shape. Once baked I topped it with almonds, cherries and water icing with a hint of orange flower water. Delicious.

After icing

Five minutes later...

White Chocolate Mince Pie Croquembouche

I wanted to make an attractive and tasty centrepiece for my party so I set myself a change: the dreaded Croqembouche, a tower of profiteroles filled with a mincemeat cream, held together with crunchy caramel and drizzled with white chocolate.

It consists of several scary things I've never done before: choux pastry, caramel, creme patisserie, and using a piping bag! I've always been a bit terrified of all four but gave it a go!

Choux pastry

I remember once watching tv cook Lorraine Pascal, who I otherwise love, talking about how choux was allegely "the easiest pastry"! Having done it now I suppose that's true: you don't have all that cutting and roll, but you do need a strong arm for mixing and constructing anything from it is very fiddly.

Choux involves boiling up milk, adding flour, then slowly stirring in eggs to a smooth paste. It's slightly hard work but quite easy. I recommend fellow amateur baker and Great British Bakeoff alumnus Ruth Clemens' choux recipe, it's easy to follow and gave exactly the quantity I wanted, which was about 70 smallish profiteroles. I made them a couple of days before.

Creme patisserie

"Creme pat" is basically egg custard with some added flour, There are so many creme patisserie recipes around it was hard to know which to use! I made mine slightly thicker than usual, then mixed with some leftover mincemeat which I'd blitzed to a paste.

Piping... I've never piped before and that was probably the worst part. Getting a creamy mixture into profiteroles without them bursting or being underfilled was a real pain. I guess it just takes practice!

Caramel

Caramel always scared me because I've seen horror stories of people burning it, burning themselves, and making a terrible mess of their surfaces! I followed some good advice from a trusty old book: use a sugar thermometer to raise the temperature to 154C rather than doing it by eye, and wear rubber gloves so you don't burn yourself!

Assembly

The caramel is used to weld the profiteroles together into a pile - the trick is using enough caramel so they stick together, but not too much so they're impossible for your guests to pick apart! As a rookie I used too much, particularly the ones at the bottom (when I was just starting), so they had to be chipped apart with a knife!

A great trick I saw on Youtube was making spun sugar using two forks. I have to say spun sugar really does look beautiful with its golden hairlike strands. Dip two forks into the caramel, stick them together by the profiterole pile then pull them apart, forming fine hairs you wrap around as decoration. I'll definitely use that trick again.

Finally I briefly zapped some white chocolate in the microwave, left it to melt, then drizzled it over the pile. Piping would've been prettier but after 70 profiteroles I was sick of piping by that point!

Festive party snacks

It's well into the party season and Merry Christmas to you all! I had my festive party at the weekend so thought I'd share a few snack ideas which are easy to make and should satisfy your guests! The centrepiece is a Croquembouche or profiterole pile - that's more tricky so I'll cover it in another episode!

Mince Pies

So many people say they don't like mince pies because they've only ever eaten those Mr Kipling-types with thick claggy pastry and mincemeat that tastes of nothing! A really good mince pie should have crisp pastry and a really rich flavoursome filling, oozing festive cheer.

I've already covered my mincemeat recipe, which is rich and zesty with citrus. And rum. I won't reinvent the wheel by giving you a pastry recipe, Paul Hollywood's sweet shortcrust pastry recipe is what I used and it's great. Some people like big deep-filled mince pies, but for parties I prefer smaller, bite-sized ones you can just pop into your mouth. I use tart tins, a dozen to a tray. With nice thin crispy pastry, Paul Hollywoods recipe makes several dozen.

Crostini

I covered crostini in my Summer party recipes. You can make these bits of crunchy toasted bread several days before, then top with anything you fancy: cream cheese, Stilton, roasted cherry tomatoes, roast vegetables: go wild. I topped mine with mushroom paté, with a grating of nutmeg just to keep it festive.

Palmiers

Palmiers look so pretty on a plate and people assume they're complicated with their pretty swirls, but actually they're really quick to make! If you're pushed for time buy sheets

of pre-rolled shortcrust or puff pastry.

This time I lightly blitzed a mixture of sundried tomatoes, olives, rosemary and goats cheese into a thick chunky paste, and spread it evenly over a rectangle of pastry. Take one side of the longest side and roll it up tightly, like a Swiss roll, until it reaches the middle. Turn and do the same the other side, so you have two rolls next to each other. Pop in the fridge for half an hour to firm up, cut into slices, pop them onto a backing tray and cook in a hot 200C hot oven for about twenty minutes until golden.

Dips

Dips are an essential part of any buffet, great with corn chips, crisps and sticks of carrot, celery and cucumber. Plain yoghurt is an exellent base for dips: I often mix it with fresh herbs, especially mint or dill, garlic, maybe lemon juice and a sprinkling of salt.

Tomato salsa is always a crowd pleaser but the stuff you buy often seems a bit funny to me and goes off quickly. I use half a tin of tomatoes, a handle of cherry tomatoes, a couple of spring onions, a few small fresh or dried chillis, a little bit of garlic, salt, possibly a splash of wine vinegar, and chop them all up together. Make it as chunky or smooth as you like.

Cucumber bites

These are really the easiest thing in the world. Top and tail a cucumber, slice it in half and use a teaspoon to scoop out the centre of each half. Fill the scooped core them with a topping: cream cheese, hummus, paté, anything you fancy, then chop into finger-width slices. Arrange on a plate and dust with black pepper, cayenne or herbs for that final touch. Simple!

Homemade mincemeat

I'm making mincemeat - I know, I left it really late! Fortunately my method of warming through the fruit helps it along. Best made a month or so in advance, but even if not, it's still way better than the sickly sweet stuff you buy in jars.

The smell of citrus, dried fruit and spices really gets me in the festive mood. I like mine citrusy and not too sweet. Candying your own peel seems a pain but it's really pretty quick. Lemons are great but grapefruit adds a sharpness and a floral note. I use butter instead of suet - you can get vegetable suet but it's just palm oil, butter tastes much better. I like using rum instead of the traditional brandy, in practice it doesn't make much difference.

• 150g currants
• 150g sultanas
• 150g raisins
• 2 oranges
• 1 grapefruit
• 1 cooking apple, peeled and grated
• 190g soft brown sugar
• 1 nutmeg
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 100g butter, chopped
• 100ml spiced rum (or brandy)

1. Peel the citrus fruit and chop the peel.
2. Squeeze the remaining flesh to make juice.
3. In a small saucepan heat 100g (roughly half) of the sugar with the juice of a grapefruit.
4. Put the chopped peel in the hot syrup - add a splash of water if it doesn't quite cover the peel. 
5. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until the peel is translucent and tender.
6. In a larger pan, add all the remaining ingredients, excluding the alcohol. Pour over the candied peel mixture and stir.
7. Warm on a gentle heat for about ten minutes so the butter and sugar melt. There's no need for it to boil, just a gentle heat so the fruit plumps up.
8. Leave to cool, then stir in the alcohol.
9. Put in a small covered bowl or container and leave for 2 days before bottling in sterilised jars.

Mincemeat is great in mince pies but you can also use it in flapjacks, baked apples, pastries, any other number of recipes. Before using it, loosening up the mixture with some fresh lemon juice gives it an extra fresh kick.

Variations

Many people add chopped almonds or cranberries to mincemeat - try it if you like but I consider these nasty surprises when encountered in a mince pie!

I prefer using spiced rum but the traditional brandy is fine, or sherry. For an alcohol-free alternative, add the juice of an orange at the end.