Ice, baby
If your piping kit leaves a lot to be desired, and there are Christmas cakes to be iced, you can order this "professional" set from lakeland.co.uk. There are seven different nozzels and an icing bag, so you can swirl and scallop to your heart's content. It costs £11.99 and seven-day delivery to Ireland will add £6.
New butcher on the block
Kate McLoughlin, the granddaughter of the founder of McLoughlin's butchers in Crumlin and Ballyfermot Road, has joined the staff of the family firm. The 25-year-old completed a business degree and also did the three-month cookery course at Ballymaloe, before heading off to Australia, on Darina Allen's advice, to work in retail butcher shops there. She's now training under her dad, master butcher Pat McLoughlin (above, with Kate), in their wholesale premises in Crumlin, which supplies Chapter One, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud and the Joe Macken restaurants, among others, and in their shop in Ballyfermot Road. McLoughlin's will be selling Blackstairs free-range lamb, dry-aged steaks, as well as their own recipe sausages, at their stand at the National Craft & Design Fair in the RDS next Wednesday to Sunday.
Christmas made easy
The rotisseries at all three Poulet Bonne Femme outlets – in Avoca Monkstown, Rathcoole and Suffolk Street – will be working through the night on December 23rd, roasting turkeys, hams and ducks for collection between 7.30am and 5pm on Christmas Eve. The ducks, marinated in blood orange, garlic and muscovado honey, sound delicious, and cost €19.50, while a boned and rolled free-range turkey is €75, and an oven-busting 16lb turkey is €95.
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If you'd prefer to cook your own, but want to avoid the dreaded supermarket queues, you can order absolutely everything you'll need to serve up a five-course feast of organic smoked salmon, roast parsnip soup, bronze turkey and gammon, with all the trimmings, plum pudding, cheese and crackers and chocolates, from christmasmadeeasy.ie, which will deliver it to your door. Orders must be placed by next Friday, December 6th and the cost varies from €35 to €50 per person, depending on how many diners.
Dazzling baubles
Cocoa Atelier, the chocolate and patisserie shop on Drury Street in Dublin can always be relied upon for stylish creations that look almost too good to eat. But what are the chances that these giant Christmas baubles (€17.95) will last the season intact? They are made of either dark or milk chocolate and filled with chocolate covered fruit and nut marshmallows.
