If you want to make individual Christmas puddings for gifts, this quantity makes eight 175ml pudding basins. Steam for 3 hours, then resteam for 1 hour before serving. They look pretty wrapped in baking parchment and muslin and tied with attractive bows and tags. Her first cookery book (1971) was HOW TO CHEAT AT COOKING. The following year she started a column on the Evening Standard which she was to write for 12 years. Later she wrote a successful column for the Radio Times until 1986.

Smith's first television appearances came in the early 1970s, as resident cook on BBC East's regional magazine programme Look East, shown on BBC One across East Anglia. Following this, she was offered her own cookery television show, Family Fare which ran between 1973 and 1975. Finally take a double square of baking parchment with a 50p-sized hole in the centre (for extra protection during the cooking) and place this not on top of the mixture itself but on the rim of the brown paper. Bake the cake on the lowest shelf of the oven for 4 hours until it feels springy in the centre when lightly touched. Sometimes it can take 30–45 minutes longer than this, but in any case don’t look at it for 4 hours. In 1985 Delia wrote a book which her readers had been requesting for some time - a collection of recipes for the single person entitled ONE IS FUN! This became a BBC Pebble Mill television series, repeated six years later in 1991, and the book has sold over 650,000 copies. It has been translated into German, Swedish and Italian.Lezard, Nicholas (11 December 1999). "Profile Delia Smith: Simmer gently, do not boil". The Independent . Retrieved 13 November 2016. In 2010 she appeared in a five-episode series, Delia through the Decades, with each episode exploring a new decade of her cooking. [11]

The 1990s were to prove hugely successful for Delia. DELIA SMITH'S SUMMER COLLECTION, published in May 1993 and accompanied by a 10-part BBC2 television series, broke all her previous records. The book has so far sold over 1,600,000 copies. In autumn 1995 DELIA SMITH'S WINTER COLLECTION was published, together with a 12-part BBC2 television series. It has sold 2,300,000 copies, and at that time became the fastest selling book on record. It has also appeared in America. Delia Ann Smith CH CBE (born 18 June 1941) is an English cook and television presenter, known for teaching basic cookery skills in a no-nonsense style. One of the best known celebrity chefs in British popular culture, Smith has influenced viewers to become more culinarily adventurous. [1] [2] She is also famous for her role as joint majority shareholder at Norwich City F.C. [3] Early life

More Christmas: Lunch for under £5.50 per head recipes

In August 2011, Smith announced that, anticipating her 70th birthday, she was stepping down from her catering role at Norwich City's Carrow Road football ground: "It is now time for a fresh approach and a younger team who, I am confident, will take the business even further." [19] Honours and awards Finally cover the top of the cake with a double square of parchment paper with a 50p-size hole in the centre (this gives extra protection during the long slow cooking). Do make sure you keep a regular eye on the water underneath and top it up with boiling water straight from the kettle about halfway through the time. When the pudding is steamed, let it get quite cold, then remove the baking parchment and foil and replace them with some fresh ones, again making a string handle for easy manoeuvring. Davies, Caroline (2 April 2016). "New faces on Sgt Pepper album cover for artist Peter Blake's 80th birthday". The Guardian. She left school at 16 without a single O-level. She first tried her hand at hairdressing, being a shop assistant and working in a travel agency. At 21, determined to learn how to cook - perhaps partly to impress her new boyfriend - she started work in a tiny restaurant in Paddington called The Singing Chef. Her first job was washing up, then waitressing and finally being allowed to help with the cooking. She began to wonder why, if French food was so good, English food was so awful. So she started reading English cookery books in the Reading Room at the British Museum, trying out the recipes on a Harley Street family with whom she was living at the time.

This year my life has been dominated by a book. Not a cookery book, I hasten to add but a reflection on what it means to be human*.At 21, she started work in a small restaurant in Paddington, initially washing dishes before moving on to waitressing and eventually being allowed to help with the cooking. She started reading English cookery books in the Reading Room at the British Museum, trying out the recipes on a Harley Street family with whom she was living. It has been claimed that Smith's television series Delia's How to Cook led to a 10% rise in egg sales in Britain and her use of ingredients such as frozen mash and tinned minced beef and onions, or utensils such as an omelette pan, could cause sell-outs overnight. [14] This phenomenon, dubbed the "Delia effect", was most recently seen in 2008, after her book How to Cheat at Cooking was published. Her fame (and her relatively uncommon name) has meant that her first name has become sufficient to identify her to the public and the "Delia effect" has become a commonly used phrase to describe a run on a previously poor-selling product as a result of a high-profile recommendation. [15] Business interests Smith was baptised in the Church of England, and attended a Methodist Sunday School, a Congregationalist Brownie group and later a Church of England youth group. At the age of twenty-two, she converted to Catholicism. Her first two short religious books, A Feast for Lent (1983) and A Feast for Advent (1983), are readings and reflections for these seasons. In 1988, she wrote a longer book on prayer, A Journey into God.

In 1969 Smith was taken on as the cookery writer for the Daily Mirror's newly launched magazine. Their deputy editor was Michael Wynn-Jones, whom she later married. Her first piece featured kipper pâté, beef in beer and cheesecake. She baked the cake that was used on the cover of The Rolling Stones' album Let It Bleed. [9] In 1972 Smith started a column in the Evening Standard. She later defected to the rival Evening News, but she returned to the Standard when that newspaper bought out the News. She wrote for both for 12 years; later she wrote a column for the Radio Times until 1986. Over 100 new recipes include 5 different kinds of Christmas cake and foolproof ways to ice them, a complete vegetarian Christmas including Cheese Terrine with Apricot Chutney, and recipes for Christmas gifts such as Chocolate Truffles. Christmas is the time when you most want everything to run smoothly - with Delia Smith's Christmas at your side you can relax and enjoy it.It’s well known that Delia’s other great passion is football. She has been a supporter of Norwich City Football Club since 1969 and, in November 1996, she and her husband became Directors of the club. In 1999 she established Delia’s Canary Catering. There are restaurants as well as bars, lounges and conference rooms, serving ‘Delia’ food all year round to businesses, the general public and of course football fans. The word "Delia" is defined in the 2001 edition of the Collins English Dictionary as "the recipes or style of cooking of British cookery writer Delia Smith. A Delia dish".