We had our traditional annual Christmas baking day and made gingerbread cookies and lussebullar and mince pies. All turned out delicious, as usual: each recipe has been tweaked over the years until it is so good that we cannot think of any way to improve them. The gingerbread cookies are seriously spicy, the saffron buns plump and fluffy and flavourful.

We’ve gotten a bit bored with just making the same old same old each year, so the saffron buns get more and more fanciful in design, and the gingerbread cookies more and more decorated. This year’s bun designs included Minecraft-themed picks, axes and hoes. Adrian joined us in decorating cookies for the first time (it takes some strength and dexterity) and made non-traditional designs – such as green blobs, and using the glaze as glue to stick cookies on top of each other.