If you feel a little guilty loading up your larder with products of somewhat dubious provenance, and with a few days left before the big day, you can still get in some quality snacks and nibbles to delight Aunty Win and get caught in Gran’s upper plate.

When Duerr’s, who have been making preserves for 130 years, offered us some mincemeat to taste test, we jumped at the chance. But were they any good?

If you usually reach for the same slab of cheese every time you shop, surely Christmas is the time you should let your eye wander along the whole length of the supermarket cheese selection, looking and thinking differently? Joanna Biddolph discovered how Asda’s Extra Special Creamy Lancashire Cheese is made and, more importantly, how to eat it at Christmas.

Not-quite-fresh from his Masterchef victory, Tim Anderson showed Foodepedia, and some other, more special, guests, a few Malaysian recipes that’ll add a bit of heat to your winter dinner for Malaysia Kitchen

Drop down menus let you narrow down cheese choice by country, hard or soft, type of milk, pasteurised or unpasteurised and then you’re off. We bagged some Berkswell, a Blarliath Smoked, a Blue Stilton (as it’s Xmas), a large Cromarty, a Pecorino and some Ragstone. Portion size of the cheese varies with the type but it’s invariably generous.

To celebrate the Californian brand opening its new store in London, Pinkberry have created a collection of limited edition festive toppings, in partnership with renowned food architects ‘The Robin Collective’.

Gail’s Artisan Bakery gets into the spirit of Christmas with a selection of spicy fruit loaves and some classic cakes and cookies.

I don’t know what’s better the pudding or the presentation. Dressed in sparkly gold foiling and presented in a table-ready giant bauble, rows of Christmas trees made from dark chocolate sit on top of four layers of Gü pud.

No one today seems to think bacon ‘tastes like it used to’, although no one quite knows when exactly that time was or even what it tasted like then. Personally I recall 60’s and 70’s bacon as always having that yucky white dot of bone in it, an addition that my young foodie self would complain vociferously about to any adult within earshot.

The ladydeez sensibly wanted nothing to do with our taste test and retreated instead to a safe distance while we chaps bragged about our capacity to withstand any amount of scoville scorching and made vulgar jokes about lavatory paper. This was going to be a pushover.