Xmas recipes

This is an adaptation of my Great Great Auntie Alice's gingerbread recipe. I'm lucky enough to have her hand-written recipe notebook, dated December 1912 (not sure about the tongue omelette recipe though - no jokes please). I've given it a modern twist by 'borrowing' Nigella's idea for the muffins.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Add the ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt. Set aside. Put the butter in another bowl and add both sugars. Whisk with an electric whisk until light and fluffy.

Remove the turkey from the fridge 1-2 hours before cooking to bring it up to room temperature. If you are stuffing your turkey, weigh it after stuffing to calculate cooking time. Use bathroom scales if your kitchen scales are too small

Tip all the dried fruit into a bowl with the orange zest. Then pour over the orange juice and whisky and leave to soak for an hour.

Break the Christmas pudding up into little pieces into a bowl. Pour over the brandy or apple juice and set aside.

These are lovely and light and with all their warming spices have a delicious Christmassy flavour. Line a cupcake tin with paper cases. This recipe makes 12-16 depending on the size of the cases. Preheat the oven to 180C.

Cut the carrots into batons. Bring a pan of water to the boil, add carrots and salt and cook, covered until tender.