Take a look at our 9 kitchen hacks for Christmas success:
- If you don’t have string to truss your turkey, don’t stress about it. Simply use dental floss.
- Add fresh – or frozen – berries, sliced citrus fruits and sprigs of mint to water or juice. Refrigerate to infuse and chill before popping onto your festive table for added colour and lightly flavoured water.
- We’ve found that salting potatoes only halfway through their roasting time helps them not to stick to the baking tray and lessens their moisture loss too.
- If you have Banting guests coming over for Christmas Day lunch, you’ll have to banish flour from that all-important gravy! Don’t panic: To thicken gravy without flour, either start your gravy early with double the volume you need and allow it to reduce, or remove from the heat and gradually add a beaten egg, while blending with a stick blender.
- Loads of leftover Christmas pudding? Use it in a strudel; add to ice cream; stir crumbled pud through chocolate-truffle mixture; use in cake pops mixed with another sponge; or replace the sponge in a trifle with defrosted slices of Christmas pudding.
- After making fresh custard, prevent a skin from forming on top by covering it with cling film.
- Make your mince-pie dough in advance and keep it in the freezer until needed. Bake the mince pies before Christmas Day and store in an airtight container.
- Not everyone loves raisins! When making your Christmas cake, try replacing the raisins with chopped apples, nuts and spices of your choice.
- Prep your baking ingredients and store in sealable glass jars to make your baking process a lot easier!
ALSO SEE: Pantry hacks: Christmas pudding
Pantry hacks: Christmas pudding