The Little Book of Christmas and Hogmanay is the perfect stocking filler gift, but we’d also urge you to read it ahead of the festive season too to get some brilliant hints and tips about making your own celebrations that little bit more special. Here we include two seasonal recipes and poems for you to enjoy.

The Little Book of Christmas and Hogmanay
By Anna Marshall
Published by Birlinn

Whipkull

Whipkull (or whipkül) is Shetland’s answer to eggnog. The drink is thought to originate in Scandinavia and is traditionally made with cream, eggs, nutmeg and rum. People have also been known to substitute the rum for whisky. It is drunk at the end of a Yule feast and sometimes even as a breakfast drink on New Year’s Day.

INGREDIENTS

12 egg yolks
200g caster sugar
8 tbsp rum or whisky
350ml double cream
1 tsp nutmeg

METHOD

1. Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and rum.
2. Add the cream.
3. Pour the whipkull into glasses and dust with nutmeg.

How I’ll Decorate My Tree

It was still very far from Christmas
when my mamma said to me:
tell me, Precious, what you going to hang
on our Christmas tree?

I said: the fairy-lights that Dad just fixed
and . . . jewel-coloured jelly-beans from the
pick’n’mix –

oh, and from it I’ll dangle tinsel in tangles,
sparkles, sequins and spangles,
a round golden coin (chocolate money),
that cracker joke that was actually funny,
my rosary beads – and a plastic rose
as red as Rudolph Reindeer’s nose,
the gnome that grows the tangerines,
the picture of me with my tambourine,
and (this is Mum’s favourite, she says)
the photo of all of us in our PJ’s!
The Ladybird book that Lola lent me,
the blue butterfly bracelet that Brittany sent me,
the ear-ring I lost,
a pop-up Jack Frost,
a space-hopper, an everlasting gobstopper,
a pink-eyed sugar mouse,
the keys to my grandfather’s house,
a tiny pair of trainers with silver laces,
and – now my smile is straight – gonna hang up my
braces!

A marble, an angel-scrap, a star,
the very last sweetie out my advent calendar,
a kiss under the mistletoe,
a mitten still cracked with a crunch and a creak of
snow,
that glitter scarf I finally got sick of,
a spoon with cake-mix still to lick off,
the Dove of Peace that our Darren made,
some green thoughts in our tree’s green shade –
I’ll hang up every evergreen memory
of moments as melted and gone
as that candle that was supposed to smell
of cinnamon –
memories big as a house and as small’s
the baubles I used to call ball-balls.

With pleasure I’ll treasure them
then, on proper Christmas Day, I’ll show them all to
you
between the Queen’s Speech and Doctor Who.

Liz Lochhead

Black Bun

Black bun was supposedly the original Twelfth Night cake eaten in Scotland, before it became known as ‘Scotch Christmas Bun’ during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was traditionally a spiced fruit mixture encased in bread dough, but the dough gradually gave way to a lighter shortcrust pastry case and the name became simply black bun.

Serves 12–16

INGREDIENTS

For the pastry:

280g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
grated zest and juice of
1 lemon
150g unsalted butter, diced
3–4 tbsp cold water
1medium egg, beaten to glaze

For the filling:

450g raisins
600g currants
100g whole almonds, roughly chopped
50g walnuts, roughly chopped
150g plain flour
75g caster or demerara sugar
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp whisky
4 tbsp (approx.) milk

METHOD

1. For the pastry, sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, then stir in the lemon zest. Rub in the butter, then add the lemon juice and 3–4 tbsp cold water – enough to bind to a stiff dough.
2. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and roll out thinly. Use two-thirds of the pastry to line a buttered, square 23cm/9in cake tin. Roll out the remaining pastry to fit as a lid, cover and chill both the lid and the case for half an hour or so.
3. Preheat the oven to 140°C/275°F/Gas 1.
4. For the filling, mix everything together, except the whisky and milk. (I do this with my hands – it is easier.) Now add the whisky, and enough milk to moisten the mixture. Turn into the pastry case and press down well.
5. Dampen the edges of the pastry all round with a little water and place the rolled-out pastry lid on top. Press together the edges to seal, then cut off any remaining pastry. Prick all over with a fork. Using a very thin skewer, prick right through to the base of the tin: 6–8 pricks altogether. Brush the surface with some beaten egg, retaining a little for later.
6. Bake for 2–2½ hours until golden brown on top, reglazing with the remaining beaten egg after 1 hour of baking.
7. Cool in the tin for at least 2 hours, then carefully decant onto a wire rack to cool completely. Wrap in foil and store in an airtight container for at least 1month – and for anything up to 3–4months.

Open the Door

Open the door for the auld year
It is the pairtin-time:
Open the door for the new year
And lat the bairn win hame.

Bundle your winter’d joy and grief
On the back of the year that’s düne:
Open your hert for the new life
And lat the bairn come in.

William Soutar

The Little Book of Christmas and Hogmanay by Anna Marshall is published by Birlinn, priced £9.99.