Christmas baking is wonderful in theory.
There are twinkling lights, cinnamon-scented kitchens, beautifully iced cakes and cheerful families gathering around the table.
In reality, there is usually a turkey taking up half the oven, three people asking when dinner will be ready, someone hunting for the sellotape and a suspiciously empty tin where the Christmas chocolates used to be.
That is precisely where Christmas Traybakes: 100 Festive Slab Bakes for Busy British Kitchens comes in.
This is a Christmas baking book designed for people who love festive food but would rather not spend half of December piping individual snowflakes onto 48 cupcakes.
Christmas Baking Made Sensible
Traybakes are one of the great heroes of the British kitchen.
Mix it.
Pour it into a tin.
Bake it.
Slice it.
Serve it.
There is something wonderfully practical about producing an entire batch of treats in one go, particularly during the busiest cooking season of the year.
Instead of juggling several cake tins or baking endless trays of biscuits, a good slab bake can provide enough squares, slices or bars for family gatherings, school fêtes, office parties, Boxing Day visitors or those mysterious Christmas guests who arrive just as you have put the kettle on.
And because traybakes are generally straightforward to portion, they are particularly useful when feeding a crowd.
100 Festive Bakes
Christmas Traybakes brings together 100 festive slab bakes, ranging from traditional Christmas flavours to indulgent modern treats.
Expect plenty of the ingredients that make December smell like December:
cinnamon
ginger
orange
cranberry
marzipan
chocolate
caramel
mincemeat
nuts
dried fruit
mixed spice
and, naturally, rather generous amounts of icing.
There is room for comforting classics alongside more playful Christmas creations.
Imagine thick slices of spiced gingerbread topped with creamy icing, chocolate-orange brownies scattered with festive decorations, mincemeat crumble bars, cranberry and white chocolate slices, sticky toffee slab cakes and rich Christmas rocky road packed with seasonal treats.
The emphasis throughout is simple:
big festive flavour without unnecessarily complicated baking.
Made for Busy British Kitchens
Christmas cookbooks sometimes seem to assume that everyone possesses a gigantic kitchen, twelve matching mixing bowls and several uninterrupted afternoons in which to bake.
Most of us do not.
British kitchens can be busy places during December.
The oven is required for sausage rolls.
The fridge is full.
Every worktop has mysteriously acquired something on it.
And someone has placed a very large box of Quality Street precisely where you need to roll pastry.
That is why traybakes make so much sense.
Many recipes can be prepared ahead, sliced once cool and stored until required. Others are ideal for freezing, gifting or bringing out when visitors appear.
One tin can provide a substantial batch without creating an impressive mountain of washing-up.
At Christmas, that counts as a major culinary achievement.
Something for Every Christmas Occasion
A festive traybake does not need to be reserved for Christmas Day.
These recipes are designed for the entire season.
They can appear at:
Christmas markets
school fairs
family gatherings
office parties
church fêtes
Boxing Day buffets
winter coffee mornings
Christmas Eve suppers
New Year's celebrations
or simply beside a mug of tea on a cold December afternoon.
Cut them into generous squares for pudding or smaller pieces for party platters.
Wrap individual slices for homemade gifts.
Pile several varieties onto a serving board and suddenly you have a very respectable festive dessert table without having produced twelve separate cakes.
Homemade Christmas Gifts That People Actually Want
There is another advantage to Christmas traybakes.
They make excellent edible gifts.
A small box containing several homemade brownie squares, gingerbread slices or caramel bars feels thoughtful without requiring elaborate presentation.
A little greaseproof paper, ribbon and a festive label can transform a few carefully cut slices into a gift that looks as though considerably more effort went into it than actually did.
We shall keep that secret between ourselves.
They are particularly useful for teachers, neighbours, colleagues, friends and those awkward occasions when somebody unexpectedly gives you a present and you suddenly realise you should probably have bought them something too.
Baking Without the Christmas Meltdown
The spirit of this book is not about creating technically perfect patisserie.
It is about making genuinely delicious Christmas food that ordinary home bakers can enjoy producing.
There will be chocolate.
There will be icing.
There will probably be crumbs.
Some slices may be slightly larger than others.
Nobody will mind.
Christmas baking should add to the enjoyment of the season rather than become another job on an already ridiculous December list.
A generous tray of warm, spiced cake coming out of the oven can fill the kitchen with Christmas faster than almost anything else.
And when that tray can later be divided into sixteen, twenty or even twenty-four portions, so much the better.
A Christmas Cookbook for People Who Actually Have Things to Do
Christmas Tray bakes: 100 Festive Slab Bakes for Busy British Kitchens celebrates practical festive baking.
One tin.
One generous batch.
Plenty to share.
From rich chocolate creations and traditional fruit-and-spice combinations to cheerful modern Christmas slices, the collection is designed to keep festive baking enjoyable, achievable and suitably indulgent.
Because December already contains enough complicated things.
The cake does not need to be one of them.
And if anybody asks whether you spent hours making those beautifully sliced Christmas treats?
There is absolutely no need to correct them.
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