Trusted British chef recipes, tested at home
Mary Berry’s Christmas roast turkey is a 5kg bird roasted under a loose foil tent with butter and streaky bacon, stuffed at the neck with chestnut stuffing. It serves 12, and roasts for about 3 hours 20 minutes, plus 30 minutes resting. The recipe comes from Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook (2024), where she calls it …
Mary Berry’s beef lasagne layers a slow-cooked mince and tomato sauce with a Parmesan and mustard white sauce, finished with mature Cheddar. It serves 6, and takes about 2 hours 45 minutes of cooking, plus at least 6 hours chilling. The recipe comes from Mary Berry & Lucy Young Cook Up a Feast (2010), where …
Mary Berry’s chocolate chip and vanilla marble cake is a soft traybake made of vanilla and cocoa sponge, studded with plain chocolate chips. It’s drizzled with melted plain and white chocolate and cuts into 21 squares. Allow about an hour, plus cooling. The recipe comes from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible (2010), where she calls it …
Mary Berry’s lemon chicken is a light casserole of bone-in chicken thighs simmered in a lemony stock sauce, finished with crème fraîche and chives. It’s cooked in one frying pan on the hob, and takes just over an hour. The recipe comes from Mary Berry’s Family Sunday Lunches (2016), where she calls it Lemon Chicken …
Mary Berry’s mushroom and spinach lasagne layers a garlicky mushroom and tomato sauce with leaf spinach, white sauce and grated Emmental. It bakes until golden and bubbling, and the whole thing takes about 1 hour 10 minutes. Berry calls it her Vegetarian Lasagne in Mary Berry Cookery Course (2015). She uses Emmental instead of the …
Mary Berry’s apple sponge cake is a soft, golden sponge baked over sliced cooking apples, demerara sugar and lemon. The fruit turns sharp and juicy underneath while the top rises light and springy. It takes about an hour from start to table. Berry calls it Eve’s pudding, and this version comes from her Complete Cookbook …
Mary Berry’s chocolate cake with oil is a moist, dark cocoa sponge made with sunflower oil, golden syrup and milk. Two sponges are split into four layers, then covered in a glossy plain chocolate and butter icing. Allow about 75 minutes, plus time for cooling and setting. Berry calls this her Death by Chocolate Cake …
Jamie Oliver’s cheese puffs are golden choux-style balls made with Parmesan and Lincolnshire Poacher or Cheddar, plus a little semolina in the dough. The batch makes 24 to serve 8, from his book Together (2021). They’re Jamie’s take on the first canapé he ever tried, at 13, on work experience at The Starr in Dunmow. …
Jamie Oliver’s green sauce is a hand-chopped herb sauce of mint and parsley with pistachios, olives, capers, cornichons, anchovies and English mustard. It serves 12, from his book Together (2021). He made it to spoon over his stuffed slow-roasted lamb, the centrepiece of the first episode of his Channel 4 series. Think of it as …
This Jamie Oliver mango chutney comes from Jamie Magazine: chunky fresh mango simmered with vinegar, sugar, ginger, garlic, chilli and toasted spices. The recipe was developed by Charlie Clapp, takes 1 hour 15 minutes, and keeps for up to 6 months in sterilised jars. Its introduction promises a chutney as good as anything from your …
