Episode 1 Mary Berry's Absolute Christmas Favourites

I just love Christmas, it's my favourite time of year.

But it can be so busy, I'm going to share with you some great tips

for getting ahead, so actual Christmas is stress free.

I have some wonderful easy recipes.

That's just perfect.

And I'll also be finding out how everyone else is

preparing for Christmas.

That really takes the wind out of my sails, it is magnificent.

Christmas has always played a huge part in my life!

Since my children have moved away from home, it's become even

more special to me, as it's a time for everyone to be together.

But it's not just Christmas Day that I love,

it's the wonderful build up to it.

Tonight, I will show you how to feed all those extra family

and friends over the holiday season.

My warming beef casserole.

A breathtaking pie.

A perfect winter crumble.

And a lusciously rich mousse cake.

But first, a dish perfect for a frosty Christmas Eve!

My mother used to make it and have on standby

when we arrived on Christmas Eve and now I'm doing exactly the same.

I've got half smoked haddock and half ordinary haddock.

350g of each.

I'm just going to dice that up into reasonable-sized pieces,

so just about the amount that you would eat in one mouthful.

Be wary for the odd bone and that's it.

To make the sauce for the fish pie, I like to use leeks.

They're at their best in winter and add a perfect subtle flavour.

You notice, I don't do it as quickly as the chefs do...

..but I get there in the end.

Fry them off in 50g of butter until they're nice and soft.

Add 50g of flour and slowly whisk in 600ml of hot milk.

Watch it getting thicker and thicker.

Don't add all the milk at once.

If the sauce is a little bit too thick, you can

always add a little more milk.

That's it. Now I'm going to add salt and pepper.

I like pepper.

There we are, a little bit extra.

Then I'm going to put the juice of half a lemon,

that just sharpens it up. In goes the dill.

If you're not a lover of dill, you can always put chopped parsley in.

Then in goes the fish and the fish will cook in the hot sauce.

The lovely smell of this fish, slightly smoky,

just makes me think of Christmas.

Once the fish begins to turn white, it's ready for the baking dish.

Why do I grease the dish?

Because it makes it much easier to clean afterwards

and it's usually me that's washing it up.

Doesn't that look good?

And now to the hard-boiled eggs.

Yes, I'm generous with the hard-boiled eggs.

I think I've got more in than Mum does and, you know,

all my family love fish pie but my husband,

if I don't put hard-boiled egg in, I'm in trouble!

That's it...and now for the souffle topping.

This is not only delicious, it's totally different

and wonderfully crisp.

Start by cutting five slices of stale bread into croutons.

Then melt 75g of butter

with the same amount of mature cheddar cheese.

Add 50g of cream cheese over a low heat.

Lastly, whisk one egg white until light and frothy.

And put the egg white in.

That's the souffle topping, here come the croutons.

In they go.

Don't tell people it's bread, just say it's souffle,

they'll think it's pretty grand!

There it is, all ready for the oven.

Bake at 180 fan for 25-30 minutes

until it's crisp and golden.

Mum didn't have a glass door, I can have a glance and see

if everything's all right.

How about that, then?

Who wouldn't be tempted to eat this on arrival on Christmas Eve?

All piping hot, crispy topping, they'll all be starving for this.

Because there's so much to do at this time of year,

it's good to have a few delicious meals prepared in advance.

And on a cold winter's day,

this next recipe is the perfect thing to come home to.

So, to start with, I've got 1.5kg of leaned stewing stake here.

And I'm going to fry it.

Now, there's a lot of meat, so I'm going to be doing it in batches.

No good putting all of that in, cos you'll never get it brown at once.

Keep moving it about and the idea is to get it brown,

that gives the extra flavour and it seals the meat in.

If you look down the bottom there, there's a bit of crust coming.

All that will add to the flavour.

That's it.

Add three roughly chopped onions

and six cloves of crushed garlic to the same pan.

It's taken up the juices from the bottom, which is

all adding colour to my casserole.

Now, I'm going to add the stock.

I'm using 300ml of beef stock and to thicken the casserole,

a mixture of 50g of flour and 300ml of white wine.

Then the meat goes back.

Three tablespoons of Worcester sauce.

Might have been a good idea to take the top off.

So, leave that on a very, very low heat or in a low oven

and cook it until it's almost tender, about two hours.

In that time, of course, you can be doing

all the other things you have to do at Christmas.

Gently bubbling there...chestnut mushrooms, 500g going in.

This is a lot of gravy here and, I can tell you,

my husband is a gravy man.

He has it with sausages, he'll have it with steak.

There has to be gravy.

So, there's plenty here.

Leave to simmer gently for another half an hour and for extra kick,

the all-important three tablespoons each

of Dijon mustard and horseradish cream.

Everybody seems to like chillies. There's no chilli in sight here.

This is really flavoursome but not hot spicy.

It really is perfect for a winter's day.

Do you know, that is a really mellow flavour,

very warming and for my taste, that's just perfect.

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if my cupboards weren't bursting

with my favourite sweet indulgence...

..chocolate.

And nobody knows more about it than William Curley,

four times British Chocolatier of the Year.

Hello, William, I've heard so much about you

and your chocolate creations.

It's Christmas time and I can't imagine Christmas without chocolate.

Is it a very busy time for you?

Gosh, Christmas - it's the busiest time of the year!

Specialities such as the Dundee cake, our mince pies,

port truffles...

Which is the thing that you like best?

We love making one of the classic French patisserie,

buche de Noel.

The buche de Noel, or Yule log, is served traditionally in France

as their Christmas pudding and dates back to the 16th century.

I've made Yule logs myself but never anything quite like this.

If you just take the mousse and run it up the side,

like such.

I bet you do this like lightning when you do it.

I must say, if I was doing this, I'd like to do several at one go,

put them in the freezer...

Just knock them out, yeah.

And everybody who came to supper in the next year would get

it as their pud, whether it was Christmas or not.

If we're going to all this effort, I'd want to show off!

This wonderful creation is a combination of a creamy

hazelnut and creamy meringue centre...

You've done this before.

And you know exactly they're going to fit.

..chocolate sponge...

-So, that is rum with a sugar syrup.

-Indeed, yeah.

These are crystallised chestnuts.

..surrounded by a rich chocolate and chestnut mousse,

a meringue base all covered in a dark chocolate glaze...

It's just a river flowing.

..a final few festive touches...

Well, that looks amazing, just look at that!

..and the masterpiece is complete.

Do you know, William, I have to stand back

and say that really takes the wind out of my sails.

It is magnificent!

Thank you very much, Mary, it's very kind.

Why don't we go upstairs, have a little cup of coffee

and wee thin slice?

-Do you know, you've twisted my arm. Come on, then.

-Let's go.

This is luxury personified.

It is so chocolaty and it's full of surprises as you get to the layers.

Textures, different flavours coming through.

Oh, so good and oh, so memorable!

All that remains, William, is to wish you a very,

very happy Christmas and you'll only have made about 1,000 of these,

come Christmas Eve.

Thank you, Mary, merry Christmas to you.

That buche Noel looked amazing, but if you haven't the time or

the skill that William has, I've got the perfect recipe for you.

So, the cake, very simple to make

and the strongest chocolate flavour you will get is from cocoa.

To 25g of cocoa, add three tablespoons of boiling water.

Aim to get a paste...

a bit like soft butter, you'd spread it across.

There it is.

Then add two eggs, 100g of caster sugar,

100g of self-raising flour and a level teaspoon of baking powder.

Don't make it heaped, it must be level

because if you put too much in, it'll rise up and fall down again.

And lastly, 100g of baking spread.

Beautifully mixed, all one colour.

Spoon the mixture into a greased tin,

lined with non-stick baking parchment.

Chocolate goes so well at Christmas time, I think.

Just one of those times where we can be indulgent.

It only needs 25 minutes in the oven at 160 fan.

When it starts to shrink away from the sides of the tin, it's done,

and should be nice and springy to the touch.

That looks perfect!

To make it extra special, a little brandy over the top,

about two tablespoons.

A bit difficult to know where you've been

when it's a chocolate cake but I think I'm remembering.

There we are...and that for luck!

Right, now to the chocolate mousse topping.

Slowly melt 300g of chocolate.

I find using 50% cocoa solids is best,

it adds just the right amount of sweetness.

While the chocolate cools, whisk 450ml of whipping cream

until frothy.

Fold that in and you get the easiest and quickest chocolate mousse...

..and it's still a lovely, frothy mixture.

I'm going to put that on top of the sponge now.

I'm going to chill it overnight in the fridge, that will

firm it up and then turn it out.

A little sieved cocoa over the top

makes a professional finish.

This is the sort of thing that William would've done

with his buche de Noel.

And I think that really is quite a sort of show-stopper, isn't it?

Everybody'll go "ooh" and "ahh", when you walk in with that!

And they won't know how long it took you to make.

Not too long.

And then a little sieved icing sugar

makes it even more special.

Also, it makes you think of snow at Christmas.

That's my special, indulgent chocolate pud.

That is so easy to make but it's got the Christmas wow-factor!

Have a go.

There are so many festive delicacies to enjoy, but my Christmas shopping

wouldn't be complete without a very British favourite...

Stilton.

I've come to rural Nottinghamshire to meet Robin Scales,

whose family has been in the cheese business for over 160 years.

-Hello, Robin, very nice to see you.

-Hi, lovely to meet you, Mary.

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Stilton

and I'm fascinated to know exactly how it's made.

Well, you've come to the right place.

Come inside and we'll show you exactly how Stilton's

made at Cropwell Bishop.

What's special about this place is that everything here is done

using methods that have changed very little since the 17th century.

So, this is right at the beginning of the process.

The milk came into the vat about three hours ago,

we added all the different ingredients to the milk

that include the rennet, which clots the milk

and eventually turns into curds and whey as we see here.

We take a nice big ladle of the curd away.

We then transfer it into the draining table.

So, the whey goes away?

The whey goes away and it's drained off and then we basically continue

to do this until we've transferred all of the curd and whey.

-You do it all by hand?

-All by hand.

And it's literally a case of just scooping it out

and then into the draining table.

-How deep is this?

-Quite deep, you won't touch the bottom.

-Oh, OK. So...

-You won't fall in either, don't worry.

Gentle down.

Really gently, yeah.

-Spot on.

-And then down again.

-It's quite therapeutic, this, isn't it?

-It is!

-The trick is to be really gentle with it.

-I was really gentle.

And you've got it completely spot on,

so, you know, you have a job here any day, Mary.

All right - but I'll tell you,

you needn't put me on here cos it's a bit too much hard work.

The next step is to pack the curds into moulds and, five days

later, they are set and ready for a process called "rubbing up".

We're trying to seal the cheese,

so no air or oxygen can get inside the cheese at this point.

We want the cheese to condition over the next four or five weeks

before we encourage any of the blue mould to grow.

If you don't make that nice and smooth

and there are air holes, what happens?

The blue mould may start to grow

and would become quite strong at the end of its maturation.

So, Kerry is flattening it down, a bit like icing a cake, really?

It looks simple but it is an art and

years of practice goes into this.

Kerry's been doing it for many years.

-How long have you been doing it?

-12 years.

-12 years?!

She doesn't look old enough to have been doing that for 12 years!

After five weeks of maturing,

the Stilton takes on a nice golden crust.

It's then pierced,

which allows the air in and the distinctive mould can finally grow.

Two weeks later and the beautiful blue marbling has taken hold.

It's very rich and creamy and you

do have luxury things at Christmas

and I think maybe that's why it's so popular.

-What about Howard?

-I have Stilton every day, really.

You have it on your pie at lunch, don't you, sometimes?

HE LAUGHS

-Yeah.

-You have it on your pie? How do you put it on your pie at lunch?

I just put it in the microwave.

-Then it melts.

-This is advanced cooking, this is.

You look really well on it, anyway.

What do they call it, aphrodisiac?

I won't go into that detail, but thank you very much.

Well, there's a lot more to making Stilton than I thought.

But it's definitely worth the effort!

Just like my recipe, which is a real show-stopper.

There's something really spectacular about a raised pie.

When you cut the first slice, it's a real show-off pie.

I'm going to make hot water crust pastry.

You may not have made it before but it is very easy to make

and it is the traditional one for a raised pie.

Dissolve 100g of lard in 100ml of hot water.

Then add it to 250g of plain flour.

And I'm going to just finish that off by putting my hand in.

Now, if you worried about my nails, they're gel

and they won't come off.

I was brought up not to ever wear nail polish when I'm cooking

and at college, it was absolutely forbidden - but things have changed

and it is Christmas.

Put aside one third for the top of the pie

and roll the rest quite thinly.

Now, I think that's about quite right.

And now for the filling.

I've got some gammon here, some chicken,

pickled walnuts...I think they give a lovely texture, lovely flavour.

Hard-boiled eggs and sausagemeat.

Cut the gammon and chicken into strips.

Then add lemon zest and fresh thyme to the sausagemeat.

And don't use dried thyme.

Dried thyme is a totally different thing

and I don't think it adds to recipes at all.

Mix a third of the sausagemeat with the gammon strips to make

the bottom layer of the pie.

And then, you can imagine,

as you cut through, you get beautiful results.

Press it down firmly to remove any air before poking in a few

of the pickled walnuts.

If you don't like pickled walnuts,

you could put pistachio nuts in it, you could use stoned olives.

Lay the trimmed hard-boiled eggs along the centre

and surround them with the sausagemeat.

And then press it down very gently but firmly, no arguments.

So, I've got here the chicken and it's the same principle,

I want long pieces of chicken,

so that when I cut through the pie, when it's cooked, it looks good.

It takes time but it's very rewarding.

And the last third of the pastry will become the pie lid.

That looks about the right size to me, let me just check.

Would be very stupid if it didn't reach, wouldn't it?

Stick the lid on with a with a little beaten egg

and then crimp the edges.

You can do any decoration that you like and I'm going to do

three leaves over the top.

Make a small air hole in the top and bake

at 180 fan for half an hour and then 160 for the final hour.

When it's ready, let it cool and then leave in the fridge overnight.

And this is it.

I think it looks pretty good.

I can tell you, I'm chuffed to bits with that.

I think it looks really perfect.

What could be more impressive, more Christmassy?

It really shows that you've pushed the boat out for all your family

and friends.

The wonderful thing about food at Christmas time is that it can be

so indulgent and I have the perfect winter pudding that will

spoil everyone.

I like my puddings to be special

and this is my take on blackberry and apple crumble.

I've already made a flan case.

It's 28cm wide and I've baked it blind,

so it's ready to receive this blackberry and apple filling.

I'm using four Bramley apples for the filling, they tend to work best.

Add a couple of tablespoons full of water four

and a 150g of caster sugar.

Just give that a stir.

Simmer on a low heat, with the lid on, for about ten minutes

until the apples start to soften.

Right, time to add the blackberries.

Take about five minutes of gently stirring.

That looks absolutely right to me.

A good tip is to drain the juice from the fruit filling,

otherwise your pastry will get too soggy.

There we are, it's pouring down

and that will be lovely just reduced a bit and served with it.

And now the crumble topping with a difference.

Start with 175g of plain flour and 100g of butter.

This, honestly, isn't worth getting a machine out to do

and you just lift it up.

This is a wonderful thing to do with children, they absolutely love it!

For extra crunch, add 100g of demerara sugar,

50g of porridge oats

and 50g of coarsely chopped hazelnuts.

Adding the nuts and porridge oats gives such an interesting texture

and at Christmas time, it's really a time when you use nuts, isn't it?

So, all I've got to do now is assemble it.

Lots and lots of fruit.

That's it.

And then the crumble topping.

You've really got the best of both worlds, with very thin pastry

underneath and then you've got the crumble on top.

You've got double whammy, really!

Cook for about 25 minutes at 180 fan

until the top is wonderfully golden and crisp.

That looks a bit of all right.

You can hear, listen to this.

What a lovely crisp top.

Serve with a dollop of cream and the reduced fruit juices.

That is sheer heaven on a plate.

I could eat all that in one go and I'll diet tomorrow.

So, there you have it, five dishes you can make in advance to

help you create the perfect Christmas.

Next time, I'll show you how to take the pressure off the big day itself.

Christmas doesn't get better than that!

You notice I take the drink first.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media