We invited our staff to test out recipes from our top ten cookbooks of the year for an office Christmas lunch. Here are the results…

Lian Hingee made ‘Best-Ever Cheesecake’ from David Herbert’s Best Home Cooking

I’m a big fan of David Herbert. I give his Complete Perfect Recipes to every teenager I know who’s moving out of home because the recipes are straightforward, familiar, and foolproof. His recipe for ‘best-ever’ cheesecake certainly lived up to its name – it was light and fluffy without the slab-like density you usually find in such tall cheesecakes. His recipe called for just 35 minutes of cooking time and I was nervous when I saw how wobbly the batter still looked when I checked the cake at this time. However, I should have known better than to doubt David Herbert. After cooling in the oven with the door closed for several hours, my cheesecake came out solid – as airy, pale and unblemished as it had gone in.

Bronte Coates make ‘Rainbow Paletas’ from A Modern Way to Cook

Anna Jones’ two cookbooks are my absolute favourite addition to my kitchen this year; I’ve tested and loved so many recipes from both of them. This recipe makes for such a quick, delicious snack that I’ve already made them multiple times. Paletas are Mexican icepops and I loved the unusual, exciting flavour combinations for these four recipes, particularly strawberry with mashed fennel seeds. The dash of gin for the cucumber, lime and mint ones was a good festive touch also.

Jan Lockwood made two salads from Mr. Wilkinson’s Simply Dressed Salads

First, I made ‘The Mrs’ Toasted Couscous Salad’. I liked this one because I’d never thought of toasting couscous before and it gives what can be quite a boring ingredient a lovely smokey edge. In the future, I’ll be leaving out the sultanas (too much fructose) but I love all the other ingredients: nuts, pepitas, sesame seeds, goats cheese and herbs. It’s so easy to make too. Apart from putting the boiling water on the cous cous and then toasting it, there’s nothing more to do except throw the ingredients together in a bowl and serve.

I ended up making the second dish because I felt I hadn’t worked hard enough on the first one, and this one was even simpler! I chose ‘Salted Cucumber with Sesame, Garlic & Vinegar’. First you peel lebanese cucumbers, chop and salt them, and then wash and dry them. While the dressing does involve a pan to ‘fry’ the large quantity of garlic, you then just add in the sesame seeds and vinegar, and mix it all together. I will admit that making this recipe did make my kitchen smell quite strongly of garlic. I also cheated by not using chardonnay vinegar, just a good white wine vinegar instead – Mr Wilkinson (Matt) says that’s fine by him. A very simple salad with an Asian twist.

Anthony Shaw made ‘Tarte à l'oignon (onion tart)’ from Luke Nguyen’s France

Sweet onions, salty anchovy paste, fragrant herbs and olives – what’s not to love about this recipe? Making pastry can sometimes be the undoing of any lovely sweet or savory tart but Luke Nguyen’s recipe for this tart base is surprisingly uncomplicated. I spent much more time trying to convert the measurements for dry yeast instead of the fresh yeast, which the recipe called for, than I did making the pastry case itself. If the aroma of the slow cooked onions is anything to go by this is a tart for enjoying on a warm summer’s day, under a shady tree with friends and a sharp cold Semillon.

The toughest part of the process for me was transporting the tart on my bike from home to work. Let’s just say that I didn’t race any lycra-clad mammals or tussle with buses as I do on other mornings.

Holly Harper made ‘Matcha (Green Tea) & White Chocolate Cake’ from Tokyo Cult Recipes

I had some matcha (green tea powder) at home that I was unlikely to use in anything else, so this recipe seemed perfect. When I selected it, though, I forgot that I’m terrible at baking, so that was less perfect. However, the recipe was incredibly easy, so I did manage to end up with something that was vaguely cake-looking, albeit a weird shade of brownish green that wasn’t exactly Christmassy…

Ultimately I’m looking forward to trying out the other recipes in this book that don’t involve matcha or baking, which, luckily, is most of them.

Stella Charls made ‘Fennel and Zucchini Salad’ from David Herbert’s Best Home Cooking

I love this book! It’s a smaller format than most cookbooks, easy to hold and flip through. Plus these recipes (collated from Herbert’s Weekend Australian column) all seem achievable. I’m already a huge fan of raw zucchini, fennel, pine nuts, and fetta, and all of these ingredients feature in this delicious, summery salad. I had a minor crisis when no major supermarket had fennel in stock, and when I realised that my fingers were far too clumsy to segment an orange, but thanks to a sweet local greengrocer and some rustic orange tearing everything came together in the end.

Chris Gordon was inspired by another cookbook she loved this year: Simon Bryant’s Vegies

For our Christmas lunch, I made my version of ‘Cauliflower Rice Salad’, inspired by Simon Bryant’s veggie cookbook. And I’m going to be straight with you: there is no rice in this dish despite the misleading title. To make the recipe, you pulse a cauliflower so it looks like rice, fry it off with caraway seeds, and then add blanched broad beans and coriander. I make this meal quite often as I have a couple of crazy friends who are vegans, friends that are gluten intolerant, and friends that are following a paleo diet (why..?). It’s also a super way of getting my kids to eat an enormous amount of vegetables without really knowing.