By Keighley’s Mike Armstrong, an award-winning master baker with a big passion for baking...

BACK in the 1970s, Christmas always started in our house when the festive hamper leaflet arrived early November from the milkman.

I'm not talking Fortnum & Mason-style posh wicker things, I'm talking about cardboard banana boxes stuffed with ambient food that might be useful in an apocalypse! This was thrilling. This was an opportunity to show your neighbours you were intending to have a good Christmas spread, no expense spared. It was an opportunity for me to select ridiculous quantities of fizzy drinks – I would work through the order form trying to decide from cola, cherryade, lemonade or dandelion and burdock.

Mum always bought the calendar from the milkman, and had done for years, and sometimes the dairy management book which was excellent! So full of useful things to know, like wiring a plug and sewing a patch on a jacket arm!

And much joy came from the four terrestrial TV channels. Planning was key from the Christmas editions of the TV and Radio Times. The purchase of these magazines in early December was a kind of Christmas countdown milestone. You have to remember back then there was no internet or Netflix, and things like video recorders were not even common. Everything you'd watch came from four channels, with favourite programmes being circled with a red felt tip pen in case you forgot. But truly, it seemed like there was so much more on! When a film came on in our 70s brown and orange living room, for 90 minutes or so I would be transfixed – I did like watching The Wizard of Oz, The Great Escape and the Railway Children. And Christmas Top of the Pops brought songs you will remember like Stop the Cavalry, When a Child is Born, Mull of Kintyre, There's No-one Quite Like Grandma, Mary's Boy Child and, OK, it's not especially Christmassy, but how about Save Your Love by Renee and Ranato. He was definitely punching above his weight, singing to her below a balcony with a rose. This just doesn't happen nowadays, but dad loved that song anyway!

More to come next week from my Christmas countdown. Enjoy the Christmas shortbread biscuit recipe.

RECIPE

CHRISTMAS SHORTBREAD BISCUITS

Ingredients:

35g/1 1/2oz icing sugar, sieved

35g/1 1/2oz caster sugar

125g/4 1/2oz butter, softened at room temperature

250g/9oz plain flour, sieved 3 times

Caster sugar for dusting

Method:

1. Cream together the butter, caster sugar and icing sugar with a wooden spoon, until light and fluffy, then add the sieved flour.

2. Combine with your fingertips until you have a firm but dry textured dough.

3. Place the crumbly mixture into an 8’’/20cm fluted flan or Victoria sandwich tin lined with parchment paper on the base with lightly buttered sides.

4. Gently push down with the palm of your hand so the dough becomes smooth and levels out.

5. Divide the dough into 16 pieces with the tip of a sharp knife, and allow to rest ideally in the fridge for 30 minutes before baking.

6. Bake in a preheated oven at 170C/150C fan/Gas Mark 3 for around 25 minutes – you’re aiming for a lovely pale golden colour, then lightly dust with caster sugar and score through the lines again before it cools.