Nothing yells Christmas like these wee fellers. For a more traditional finish, coat with watered-down icing instead of chocolate.

• 115g unsalted butter
• 115g light muscovado sugar
• 1 egg
• 85g black treacle
• 30g clear honey
• 400g self-raising flour
• GROUND SPICES: 1 tsp ginger; 1/2 tsp clove; pinch each of chilli powder, nutmeg, star anise, cinnamon, black pepper
• COATING: 200g each of nice white, milk and plain chocolate

Cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg, followed by treacle and honey.

Sift the flour and spices into the bowl. Mix the ingredients into a stiff paste with a wooden spoon. Knead lightly on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Grease 2 baking sheets. Roll out half of mixture to about 8mm thick and stamp out hearts with 4.5cm cutter for the first sheet. With the rest, divide into 20 balls, flattened slightly onto the second sheet. Chill both sheets for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 180˚C. 

Bake biscuits for 8-10 minutes. While cooling, melt each chocolate separately in heatproof bowls over pans of simmering water.

Brush the underside of each biscuit with one of the melted chocolates. When set, flip over and spoon the same chocolate over the top and sides. When sufficiently set, add chocolate sprinkles, a dusting of cocoa powder or icing sugar, or a different colour chocolate piping.

Pasta with cooked sausage and ricotta. Named after our time living in Portugal Place in Cambridge, where this was consumed in potfuls by lodgers, passing students and one pediatric nurse.

• Pasta for 4 (penne or rigatoni is perfect)
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato puree 
• Half a lemon
• 1 tbsp sugar
• Handful fresh basil, ripped 
• Cooked european sausages (e.g. 6 small kabanos or chorizo), sliced
• 4 tbsp ricotta

Cook pasta in boiled water.

Meanwhile in a large pot fry onion over low heat in oil until soft but not brown. Add the garlic and stir through for one minute. Add tomatoes and puree and bring to boil and simmer for a couple of minutes.

Add a squeeze of lemon juice, the sugar and basil, a little salt and a load of freshly milled black pepper. Try the sauce at this point to balance the sweet/sour and seasoning. Ahead of the cheese it should be a bit fierce without tasting lemony.

Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce.

Throw in the sausage, then stir in the cheese. You don’t have to make it smooth - partial stirring will give the dish more texture.

Heat through, serve garnished with basil.

The definitive recipe. Makes a good cake tin full.

• 200g whole (jumbo) oats
• 250g porridge oats
• 300g demerara sugar
• 400g lightly salted butter
• 100g sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 190˚C. Grease a shallow baking tin – I use a deep baking tray, 35x25cm.

Lightly toast the seeds by dry-frying in a frying pan over a medium heat, flipping regularly until lightly browned. Put the oats and sugar in a large bowl and mix evenly. Add the seeds. Melt the butter, gently (don’t brown it), in a saucepan, and pour into the bowl with the oats. Mix everything together until well blended. 

Pour the mixture into the tin and press out evenly. Bake for 18 minutes or until light golden all over, darker round the edges. Take out and let cool for a bit before either cutting into portions in the tin or removing (if you can) and cutting on a board. Let the biscuits cool and crisp up before storing in an airtight tin or eating them all behind the sofa.

Straightforward, enough for a whole bottle, and delicious.

• 4 eggs
• 120g caster sugar
• 4 pinches freshly grated nutmeg
• 8 drops vanilla essence
• 300ml full fat milk
• 300ml double cream
• 4 shots (140ml) brandy
• 2 shots (70ml) dark rum

Whisk the eggs until frothy. Add sugar, nutmeg and vanilla and whisk together. Stir in everything else. Chill before serving (if you can wait that long).

• 2 parts ubiquitous blended whisky (Bells, Teachers, Grouse etc)
• 1 part green ginger wine (most supermarkets stock it)

That’s it.

Perfect in front of the fire when you’ve been out in the wet tracking deer across the Glen. Otherwise any time it’s nippy outside and you’ve got a blend to drink up.