Since Christmas is around the corner, you might be wondering what to prepare for dessert. If your family is not keen on a traditional Christmas pudding, this blueberry pie will be a lovely alternative. Made with sharp blueberries and soft-textured apples, these pies ooze out a crimson colour that is perfectly suited to Christmas. A word of warning, though: be careful not to overcook the apples when you have them in the pan as they will become rather mushy during the baking.

Ingredients

You will need 450 grams of short crust pastry to make enough blueberry pie for six. The following ingredients are required for the filling: 550 grams of cooking apples, 100 grams of caster sugar, the zest and juice of one lemon(grate the zest as finely as possible), 150 grams of blueberries, 25 grams of butter and one egg at room temperature (lightly beaten).

Have some extra flour at hand in order to dust your work surface and some extra castor sugar to sprinkle over the pie. Whipped cream will work a treat for the serving.

Preparation

The apples are to be peeled, quartered and cored. They should then be thickly sliced. Place the slices into a bowl with the lemon juice and zest, as well as three-quarters of the sugar. Stir everything together very gently.

Lightly butter a 22 cm pie dish. Alternatively, if you’d prefer to make six individual blueberry pies, grease six dariole moulds of 7.5 cm. Dust your work surface and roll out two-thirds of the short crust pastry.

Set about cutting out discs: make them larger than your moulds so that they will fit properly. Ease the circles into the moulds and line the dish or moulds accordingly.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Fill and finish

Place the butter into a pan on a medium heat in order to melt it. Add the rest of the caster sugar and stir before adding the sliced apples. Cook for four minutes before adding the blueberries. Stir gently and cook for a couple more minutes before removing the pan from the stove.

Allow the filling to cool and then spoon it into your prepared pastry-lined dish or moulds. Roll out the rest of the pastry and cut out discs that are about 1 cm larger than the top of your dish or moulds. Place the pie top or tops over the filling and seal the edges by gently pinching them together.

Prick the pastry top or tops with a fork in order to allow the release of hot air. Brush the top or tops with the beaten egg and dust with caster sugar. Bake for a quarter of an hour or so until golden brown. Your pie may need more or less time depending on your oven and the size of your container or moulds.

Tip: If you’d like to decorate the top for Christmas, roll out the pastry trimmings and cut out Christmas leaves.

Richard Bertinet’s Czech assistant Zdenek introduced him to these gingerbread biscuits. Z, (as he is most often called) got the recipe from his grandmother. It’s a tradition for him and his family to bake the biscuits at Christmas time. Richard’s family have also taken to them. He explains: ‘My children like this recipe so much that we cut the dough into shapes, make little holes in each one, then thread them with ribbon after baking and hang them on the Christmas tree.’

Preparation

You will need a biscuit cutter (or a selection of them) and a baking tray or two. Prepare your baking trays by lining them with parchment paper and buttering them lightly. Allow half an hour of preparation time, 20 minutes of resting time and 20 minutes of baking time. Richard recommends that you refrain from freezing them. Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Measure out the following ingredients to make about 30 Christmas tree gingerbread biscuits: 425 grams of plain cake flour (sifted), 100 grams of icing sugar (sifted), 125 grams of butter (softened but not melted), 100 grams of honey, 1 large egg (at room temperature), 1 large egg yolk, 1 tablespoon of milk and a pinch of salt.

You will also need half a teaspoon each of the following: bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon, ground allspice and ground ginger. Then, to make an egg wash, beat an egg (at room temperature) with a dash of salt.

Make the Christmas tree gingerbread biscuits

Place everything (except for the egg wash of course) into a large mixing bowl. Combine the ingredients well by mixing them together until you have a dough. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave for about 20 minutes in a draught-free place at room temperature.

Once the dough has rested, lightly dust your work surface with some flour. Roll out the dough so that it is about half a centimeter thick. Use your cookie cutters to press out different shapes. Alternatively, use a sharp knife to cut out your own original shapes. A skewer will come in handy to cut out a hole near the top of the cookie. That’s if you’re keen to use the biscuits as Christmas tree decorations.

Brush the egg wash over your biscuits and allow the glaze to dry. Brush them a second time with the egg wash and then lay them out onto the baking trays. Be careful of egg running onto the tray as this will cause the biscuits to stick. Richard advises to ‘decorate the biscuits by dragging the prongs of a fork across the surface of each biscuit to form ridges.’ They can then be baked for 18 to 20 minutes and transferred to a wire rack to cool.

Tip: Click here to see how Antonia of Food, Glorious Food decorated her Christmas tree biscuits by piping them with icing. She was inspired by Nigella’s Christmas and the biscuits created a wonderfully ‘snowy effect’ on her tree.

Every Christmas you can count on getting at least one gift you really don’t like. Standing in return lines in shops isn’t fun, and some gifts are just so bad you can’t bring yourself to upcycle them and give them to friends come their birthdays or next Christmas. The good news is there are plenty of people out there who might just love that gift you can’t stand. Here’s how to find them.

Freecycle

Freecycle is a non-profit network with over 7 million members worldwide. Members of the network sign up to get (and give away) goods for free in their towns and cities. Freecycle is all about reusing things that don’t belong on landfills. Click here to find your local Freecycle group. Once you’ve joined, send an email to your group’s Yahoo address to post a message or click ‘messages’ on your local group’s home page.

Exchango

Exchango is very similar to Freecycle, but puts less emphasis on local groups. Items are displayed as they would be on a classifieds listing, and you contact the owner via an anonymous email, arranging a time and place to pick up – or give away – the item. When it comes to items that need shipping, all you pay for is the shipping cost, with either your credit card or PayPal. To pick an overseas item, all you need to do is click ‘get now’, then fill out your shipping details and pay for the shipping costs with your credit card or via PayPal.

Gift Card Exchange

Gift Card Exchange allows you to trade unwanted gift cards for cash, and Amazon gift card, PayPal funds, or to donate their value to a charity of your choice. Gift Card Exchange is very upfront about the ‘exchange rate’ they offer (92 per cent) and there are no hidden fees for processing or shipping.

There’s no excuse for letting unwanted gifts gather dust – or take up space on landfills.

Weight watchers beware – this post is in celebration of all things sweet and nice around Christmas time. Herein you will find links to brilliant recipes for two of the most iconic Christmas desserts that make this season the ‘sweetest’ of times, as well as a failsafe in case your family isn’t as fond of the confectionary as we are.

Fruitcake

There’s something about fruitcake that’s so ‘Christmas-y’, it feels wrong to eat it any other time of the year. Maybe it’s that bittersweet, savoury taste – much like how we feel when our families are gathered under one roof. Or perhaps it’s that healthy sputtering of red cherries that blends in so well with the overload red everywhere we look that makes it feels like Santa’s desert of choice. Fruitcake is as close to must-have Christmas dessert as one gets. And, if you have decent skill in the kitchen, they’re quite easy to bake, too.

Mince pies

Photo: dbtelford / Flickr

Mince pies are devilish. It’s as if the liberal coating of sugar is a teasing primer for what’s to come once you take a bite to the middle. And then, boom! Your taste buds do a dance, twist and jive! They’re fantastic. It’s no wonder that its traceable to as far back as the 13^th century – it’s a timeless Christmas dessert if ever there was one.

When in doubt

Even though mince pies and fruitcake taste amazing to those in the know, they do get a bad rap in that they’re highly divisive. There is no middle ground here. You either love them, or you hate them. Just so everyone is catered to, it’s always best to buy a muffin tray and bake a fresh batch so that everyone has at least some dessert. After all, who doesn’t love a good muffin, right?

Non-stop Christmas carols playing over sound systems in stores around the country, red and white decorations, and nativity plays at many a school are confirmation enough that Christmas is nigh. For those who’ve happened upon Boney M. playing on radio, Christmas is certainly here. And for parents all around the world, the stress of finding appropriate gifts for your little ones – for which a grey-bearded man with a pot belly in a red suit takes all the cred – has come to bear. Fear not, though, for if you have little girls under age six, some gifts will never fail you.

Tea set

Even if mummy doesn’t always have friends over for tea parties, your daughter sure will. Tea parties are a notable pastime for little girls, with Mrs. Dolly, imaginary friends, and occasionally you, the parent, invited over. Any number of tea sets will make for the perfect Christmas gift for girls.

Fluffy toys

You might recall that friend you had in college who had an impossible collection of teddy bears cast all across her bed. Remember her? Growing up she was just like you and loved all manner of teddy bears and thought they made for great gifts. The only difference is, while you began to ‘outgrow’ teddies at around eight, she didn’t. The point is if you have a daughter under the age of six, fluffy toys make for the perfect Christmas gift for girls.

Themed clothes

Most little girls at different points in their lives have considered themselves princesses, ballerinas, or fairies. Thankfully for parents, princesses, ballerinas, and fairies all wear pretty similar clothes. As long as you remember the cute winged attachments, and it comes in pink or white, you’ll be a hit this Christmas with your daughter.

We hope these failsafe perfect Christmas gifts for girls helps you out if you’re at a loss for ideas regarding what to get your daughters. And remember, sometimes as a parent it’s very easy to over think these things, when all children really want is something nice that Father Christmas and the Elves picked out for her specifically.

What would Christmas be without family, gifts, a tree, goose or turkey dinner, and of course that Christmas pudding or cake. However, if you plan on enjoying a bit of brandy beyond just brandy sauce or butter over the festivities, then you’ll want to check out the following Brandy Blazer cocktail recipe from JJ Goodman.

Cocktail expert weighs in

For those not familiar with his work, JJ Goodman is a renowned bartender and bar owner, best known for winning the BBC2 programme The Restaurant, back in 2009. Obviously the man knows a thing or two about mixing cocktails, and he has the perfect Brandy Blazer recipe for staying warm over the holidays. For a how-to guide be sure to watch the video below, and also to have the following ingredients on hand:

Ingredients

• Brandy (obviously)
• A brandy glass
• Fried apricot
• Raisins
• Orange (for the orange peel)
• Lemon (for a lemon slice)
• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• Mineral water

Perfect Christmas drink

As you can see from the video below, the Brandy Blazer is fairly easy and quick to prepare. The flaming concoction will also be guaranteed to warm you and your guests on chilly evenings over the holidays. For one final tip, few things go better with the Blazer cocktail than a side of fruit and nut mix to complement the beverage’s flavour.

According to a new survey of 3,000 British mums, 85% are feeling the financial strain this holiday season, being forced to spend around £100 less, on average, on their Christmas shopping compared to last year. Fortunately, we have some tips for making the upcoming Christmas day just as enjoyable as ever, even with less money.

Mums make do with less

A survey conducted by LittleWoods.com found that mums UK wide are more focused than ever on conserving and saving money this Christmas shopping season. With spending budgets on average down to £505 this year, compared to £604 last Christmas, they have to be. Moreover, the study also found that around half of all mums had been saving for up to 6 months (whilst 15% had even been saving all year) to make this festive season a memorable one for their families. Thankfully, even though they might have less to spend, by being a little inventive, UK mums can make Christmas 2010 just as fun-filled and enjoyable as any year previous.

Money saving tips

Personal financial guru Jasmine Birtles of MoneyMagpie.com has come up with a particularly resourceful, and helpful, list of money saving tips for the festive season, as you can see in the video below. Keep reading for our summary of her frugal advice, as well as some of our own additional tips on doing more with less.

Regifting

Birtles’ first piece of advice is one we’ve actually already covered extensively, namely, the act of regifting. Every Christmas we inevitably receive that very well-intentioned, but completely-not-what-we-wanted gift, that we graciously accept so as not to hurt the gifter’s feelings. Rather than just tossing the item in the rubbish, one very economical move is to save the unwanted item, without opening or using it of course, and regift it next Christmas. Some might find this move a little dishonest or tacky, but as long as the gift you’re giving is something the person probably wants, and not just a case of you trying to rid yourself of excess garbage, then there’s nothing wrong with it – after all, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

‘Negative’ shopping

Jasmine’s next tip follows in the same vein as the first, where, if something you already possess won’t make a great Christmas gift for a special someone in your family or circle of friends, then you can put it up for sale on eBay. Then, with the proceeds, you’ll have a larger budget to go Christmas shopping with. Of course, with December well underway and Christmas inching ever closer, it might be a little late for any eBay auctions, although you can always estimate the amount you would earn and add that to your Christmas budget, before actually selling your items online.

Photo: Playmobil

Best things in life are free

Her third tip is easily my favourite and echoes the saying that more than anything, it’s the thought that counts. If your wallet is truly empty, then you can simply make use of any manner of ‘free gifts‘. These can be anything from a promise of a picnic in the park, to dance lessons, or an offer to teach any other skill that you may have, be it music, a language etc to the person in question. In short, the promise of quality time spent with a certain person can be more worthwhile than any inanimate gift. Though to make sure you don’t forget or renege on your promise, it’s always good to actually write out an IOU for the activity in question on a piece of paper.

eCards

If you need to send a lot of cards to extended family members, work colleagues, old friends etc., then you might also consider going the eCard route. It’s cheaper, easier, and lets you choose from a huge selection of different themed cards, ranging from animated pre-made ones to personalised options you create and design yourself.

Write to Santa

It’s a tradition for kids to write to Santa, but did you know that the Royal Mail will actually organise a free reply? Just be sure to address the letter to Santa’s official address at:

Santa/Father Christmas
Santa’s Grotto
Reindeerland SAN TA1

And your kids will be sure to get a reply back from Father Christmas himself, at no cost to you. But be sure to hurry up and get those letters in, as Santa won’t be able to write back to anything sent later than December 15th.

Discounts and vouchers

Beyond repackaging gifts or ebaying, another key piece of advice for saving this festive season goes without saying: find the discounts. Discounts can take many shapes and forms, including loyalty programmes which help you earn back as much as 10% depending on how much you purchase, to buy one get one free schemes or even 50% vouchers.

Photo: Argos

Buy online

Finally, rather than centre all your shopping around the high street, it pays to beat the cold and the crowds by going online. Not only will it be easier to shop from item to item, but it’s also much simpler to find voucher codes, plus many discounts are only available online. Online retailers Amazon or Currys, for example, are offering Manic Monday and Black Friday deals which see as much as 50% off of highly in-demand electricals, ranging from cameras, to iPods, to laptops. If you’re focused on a single product that would make a great gift, then you’ll want to use a price comparison service to compare its cost across dozens of online merchants and find the cheapest one.

Artificial Christmas tree

These deals don’t just extend to electronics, with everything from Christmas trees to pudding being sold online as well, often for a substantial discount. Speaking of which, purchasing an artificial, and reusable, Christmas tree can be another major money saver as well. Though normally considered a little tacky, fake Christmas trees are easier to manage, and often provide just as much ambiance and Christmas spirit as the real thing. They come in all shapes, sizes, and even colours too, ranging from traditional green, to black or white, to fibre optic ones that light up with the flick of a switch.

Photo: dklimke / Flickr

Enjoy the occasion

Hopefully you’ve already gotten most of your shopping done by now, as must-have items, be they Heston Blumenthal Christmas Pudding, Zhu Zhu hamsters, or iPods, tend to sell out quick. If not, then it’s time to start hunting for those bargains before the best ones go first. We hope these tips will be of some use for stretching your quid during the festivities; however, regardless of your shopping budget, nothing should get in the way of making Christmas 2010 an enjoyable and memorable experience with your family and closest loved ones.

As Christmas rolls in, folks all around the world are planning what gifts to get their family, and where to go for the festive season. While the obvious places like the glitz of North America, the tropics of the Caribbean, and the festivities of Spain always spring to mind, there are some amazing places all around the world that you could visit instead, and get a unique experience the obvious places won’t give you.

Abu Dhabi or Dubai

While crossing a few miles in Europe will see you land up in the snowy peaks of Austria, if you’re really looking for an adventure, head out to Abu Dhabi or Dubai. These Middle Eastern countries have become the playgrounds for the rich, and in the process, have built up impressive reputations for absurd activities. Looking to buy a snowboard and desperately wanting to use it? Have you ever gone snowboarding in the desert? You can in Dubai. And that alone is worth checking out.

Nairobi, Kenya

Kenya is one of the most fascinating countries in Africa. This unconventional holiday destination gets its ‘unconventional’ billing because in many ways it encompasses a little bit about everything that is happening in Africa. In terms of commerce, especially in the mobile devices industry, it rivals fast emerging South Africa, yet it has the idyllic, almost natural persuasions of the less developed nations on the continent.

And, most importantly, for our money, it has among the friendliest people in the world.

South Korea

If you have a love for technology, and the concept of the modern society, one step in Seoul, South Korea will forever alter your expectations. The city has an almost mesmerising juxtaposition that sees the traditional ways of older society crash with how modern and how advanced the nation is technologically.

Just hooking up your laptop to their 50mb/sec internet line speed, while looking out at the cityscapes and observing the people on the road will make you feel like you’re in an alternate universe. It’s almost impossible to explain in a way that will fully satisfy visiting this unconventional holiday destination yourself.

Stop going to the obvious places when you go abroad by trying somewhere you may never have thought of going.

As the year draws to a close it is time to open up your home to friends and family. At this time of year you may feel an urge to clean out your house. With the economic depression it is also time to embrace the idea of minimalism. Take some tips on how to de-clutter your home, and your life. By clearing out the clutter you can clear your mind and start afresh this festive season.

Your home

Take a look around your home and start loading all the bits and bobs that don’t seem to have a real place in a box. You can then sort through this box, decide what you want to keep, and find a specific place for it – as for the rest sell it or give it to charity.

Clean out your closet and decide what you wear and don’t wear then host a clothes swapping party – what is your trash might be your girlfriend’s treasure. You can also pack away summer clothes and do the same with your winter things when summer hits, it will be like you just went on a shopping spree when you unpack each season.

Some other things

When it comes to de-cluttering it may not just be your closet and home that need a clean out. Recycle your mascara, throw it out or place dried out mascara in hot water for 30 seconds and voila – good as new. Look at your fragrances and finish one bottle before buying a new one. Don’t be afraid to buy fragrance on specials as it sometimes will save you money to buy two instead of one but only if you know you will use both.

Go through your make-up and sort it into different categories or colours and throw out what you no longer wear, for instance that black nail-polish from when you were going through your goth stage. Have fun with de-cluttering, get your friends involved and through clearing your home you may just refresh your mind and soul.

While every family pretends Christmas is a completely harmonious time with the whole family entertained, the dirty truth is that it isn’t nearly as peaceful as we make out. Some children don’t want to be at Aunt Jane’s for Christmas, nor do some of the adults necessarily enjoy all this ‘family time’ with family they may see twice a year at best. Even then, though, Christmas is a time for family, and we should always make the most of it.

Here’s a bulletproof guide to making Christmas jolly.

Group folks by age groups

While this may sound ridiculous – and something of an obvious non-starter – you need to be deliberate about putting members of the family together as per age group to retain the Christmas mood. This means senior adults with other seniors, younger adults with each other and children with each other.

A good host always sets up a room with a television and the latest video game hit, as well as Lego and other toys, in one room to keep all the kids together, while adults are more flexible, since a warm fire and a good bottle of wine is plenty to keep most everyone happy. And we bring this up to show how deliberate you need to be about it to make it work.

Limit collective family time to the bare minimum

No doubt some of you are shaking your head at separating folks when family is about coming together. We get this. But you must understand that being forced to do something you do not want to – especially for children – is not conducive to a festive mood. Nevertheless, there are those things everyone must do together like opening gifts under the tree, or Christmas lunch and so on.

Limit these events to their bare minimum. Once everyone has embraced their new gifts and seen everybody else’s, if kids want to run off and start playing, let them. If Christmas lunch and dessert are over, there’s no point in keeping everyone around the table to ‘chat’. Let everyone decide for themselves what they want to do, and you may be pleasantly surprised by their willingness to bond with the family when they’re not being ‘forced’ to do so.

Be inclusive about the agenda

Around the festive season, be very inclusive, because if the whole family feels like they’re included in the seasonal planning, they’ll also want to take part in all the activities.

The trick to creating a Christmas mood is to make it conducive to family time by not forcing family time down everybody’s throat. Create the right environment and the family will want to be together, thus reinforcing the true essence of household harmony.