Stirring gift ideas that are bound to delight

The wonderful thing about deciding to give family and friends a cookery book for Christmas is that with so many being published each year there really is something for everyone. A visit to your local independent book shop takes you into an Aladdin’s cave stocked with gifts for every member of the family.

I admit giggling when I discovered the perfect book for a man in my life who enjoys nothing more than a home-made pie smothered with gravy. Men’s Pie Manual by Andrew Webb, (Hayles Publishing, £21.99) is an impressive book that really does feature some scrumptious recipes. Even Melton Mowbray pork pies and Cumbrian tattie pot pies are included, cherry pies too.

Philippe Conticini and Thierry Teyssier’s La Patisserie des Reves — The Patisserie of Dreams, (Grub Street, £25) takes its name from the world-famous French pastry shops filled with pastries, cakes and sweet goodies devised by Philippe Conticini. Open this magnificent book at any page and you will find your gastric juices dribbling with delight as you are confronted by the stunning photographs that colour this book. All 70 recipes are accessible to the home cook and, be assured, they are simply delicious.

Fish and chips may feature on menus throughout the world now, but they remain quintessentially British. Fish & Chips A History by Panikos Panayi (Reaktion Books, £18) is a book brimming with fascinating facts and anecdotes about a dish that can be found on menus compiled by both Michelin Star chefs and your local chippy down the road.

The 150 recipes that feature in The Crumbs Family Cookbook by Claire and Lucy MacDonald (Cico Books, £16.99) makes the perfect gift for a friend who is confronted by ravenous offspring desperate for an after-school snack that needs to be rustled up immediately. Apart from speedy midweek suppers, it includes all-singing, all-dancing birthday teas, weekday breakfasts and brunches. It is a great family book which should encourage the children to get cooking too.

The winner of the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year 2014 is Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen (Black Swan, Paperback £8.99). It’s a deeply human book which reads rather like a great Russian novel as Anya gives us an intimate family narrative of three Soviet generations and their complex relationship with totalitarian power and food. It is such a compelling book that stirs the soul as well as the senses, that I have decided to give it to several friends who enjoy a rattling good read.

Beautiful colours feature boldly in Caroline Fibaek’s Raw Cakes (Grub Street, £12.99), which really is filled with healthy, tasty, cakes based on raw food principles which are completely free of sugar, milk, additives, gluten and animal fats. The author’s aim is to get us all addicted to feeling good having obtained a health happiness balance through raw foods.

Global baker Dean Brettschneider gives us Bread (Jacqui Small, £25) which is his personal statement about where bread-making is today in the food world. He guides his readers through more than 60 recipes that include crust rustic loaves, also savoury, sweet and festive breads from around the globe. He includes the 11 basic know-how steps in making and baking our own breads, which makes it an invaluable guide to successful baking. As I adore baking bread, love the aroma that fills the cottage as it cooks and that delicious flavour that fills your soul when eating a warm slice of bread spread with oodles of butter, I may well give this to myself. Baking bread during these cold dark winter days is the most rewarding of hobbies as the task satisfies all senses.

Gaia’s Feasts by Julia Ponsonby and her friends at Schumacher College (Green Books, £19.99) is full of new vegetarian recipes for family and community. This is the second book Julia has put together for the college where she has been head of food for almost 25 years. It contains some superb recipes, such as grape & almond coleslaw, twice baked potatoes, cherry tarte tatin and three kings pie which is a fabulous hybrid version of shepherd’s pie. Julia’s red kidney-bean burgers which call for mashed kidney beans mixed with green lentils are great too. This book is particularly helpful to those who have to cook large quantities of food as each recipe is written for six to eight people and 45 to 50. I will, therefore, give it to a friend who helps cook for elderly residents at a day centre.

I guess no list of festive cookery books is complete without including at least one celebrity chef. This year I’ve selected Delia’s Happy Christmas (Ebury Press, £25) as I firmly believe it will inspire those who still feel insecure about serving festive meals, particularly the roast turkey and all the various trimmings that make it so special. But, this is one gift that is best handed over now, rather than on Christmas Day.