Celebrate the Diamond Jubilee with a handpicked hamper full of right royal treats from famous Yorkshire deli Hunters of Helmsley.

This medley of majestic goodies showcases the very best of British, including handmade chocolates from innovative brand Montezuma, biscuits from Yorkshire bakers Cookielicious and even a delicious jam based on the Cherries Jubilee recipe devised for Queen Victoria’s own Jubilee. With funky Union Jack packaging aplenty it makes you proud to be British!

An ideal gift or perfect to share with friends and family over the Jubilee bank holiday, the hamper contains:

• Butlers Grove Cherries Jubilee Jam
• Cookielicious Union Jack biscuits
• Cookielicious Bearskin soldier biscuit
• House of Dorchester 85g Chocolate bar
• Montezuma Lemon Meringue Pudding Bar
• Grandma Wild’s London biscuit tin
• Brewhaha British Teabags
• Montezuma Great British Pudding Truffles

Attractively gift boxed in blue with a Union Jack sash, UK mainland delivery is included for the price of £42.50.

For more information or to purchase a hamper visit www.huntersofhelmsley.com. Hampers can also be ordered in the store on Helmsley’s historic Market Place.

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Exquisite handmade chocolate maker Holdsworth Chocolates has launched a Union Jack chocolate box to mark the summer of celebrations in the UK.

The 240g box features delicious quintessentially British-themed chocolates, such as clotted cream truffle, praline cup, and apple and geranium cream. Designed to be re-used as a keepsake gift box, the Union Jack selection box has been created to celebrate both the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics.

Holdsworth Chocolates, which is based in the heart of the Peak District at Bakewell in Derbyshire, has a team of skilled chocolatiers led by creative director Genevieve Holdsworth. Each chocolate is handmade – not just hand-finished – and a number have been awarded gold star rating in the Guild of Fine Food’s Great Taste Awards…the Oscars of the speciality food industry.

“Holdsworth Chocolates’ Union Jack Box is a traditional British product, filled with chocolates that have been made in the heart of the UK using the finest ingredients,” said Genevieve Holdsworth.

“It makes a wonderful gift or an indulgent treat, and of course the box can be re-used as a gift box as a reminder of the historic events of the summer of 2012.”

Available nationally in selected stores and directly from Holdsworth Chocolates via www.holdsworthchocolates.co.uk, the recommended retail price for the Union Jack Box is £14.95.

The company was created by Barbara Holdsworth in 1988. Spurred on by a passionate belief in making chocolates by hand, she developed her own recipes. Barbara handed over to daughter Genevieve in 2002.

Stockists of Holdsworth Chocolates include Harrods, Selfridges, Waitrose, Chatsworth House shop and Chatsworth Farm Shop and Ibbotsons of Ashford.

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To eat is to enjoy… this years Hotel Chocolat Easter Egg, the Rocky Road to Caramel. Twelve delicious mixed chocolates encased in an extra thick shell.

Both half-shells are cast in our mellow 40% milk chocolate, with one half-shell studded with crispy puffed rice, cookies and chocolate chunks. The other half-shell with a layer of caramel chocolate over a base of milk chocolate. And inside the dreaminess continues – with praline with cookies, liquid caramel and silky smooth milk chocolate ganache along with solid bunnies and chicks cast in milk and caramel chocolate and more.

The Hotel Chocolat Rocky Road to Caramel Easter Egg is £26.

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A Sheering farmer who has just launched his dream business harvesting, pressing and producing extra virgin rapeseed oil – ‘Duchess Oil’- has already found local partner outlets, including renowned restaurants and is now setting his sights on expansion nationally.

Oscar Harding, 22, is the 6th generation to tend his family’s mixed farm in Sheering, Essex. He has always been passionate about the environmental aspects of farming, such as putting up owl boxes and creating otter holts – but is acutely aware of the farm’s commercial need to diversify, sustainably.

During his school years, during which he was diagnosed with dyslexia, Oscar describes himself as having been a ‘challenge’ academically. It was when he left full-time education that he realised, “Having dyslexia didn’t matter in life, just school – it was more a matter of following through on some of the ideas that I was forever coming up with”.

Oscar’s light bulb moment popped into his head whilst he was annually harvesting Oil Seed Rape last year.

As soon as he’d finished drilling and rolling, Oscar presented an oil producer with his idea for Duchess Oil and that was it! Duchess Oil’s first batch of 1000 bottles was created in November 2011.

“Natural Extra Virgin Rapeseed Oil is extracted using a traditional cold press method, preserving all the natural goodness and taste in the process,” explains Oscar. “High in Omega 3, containing high levels of Vitamin E and half the saturated fat of Olive Oil, I knew Rapeseed Oil can reportedly contribute to cutting levels of bad cholesterol in the body – it was then a question of trialling the concept and educating the market of the product’s benefits.”

With its subtle, nutty taste, Rapeseed Oil is brilliantly versatile in the kitchen as it lends itself seamlessly to dressings, fish and pestos, but can also just be drizzled over bread as a tasty alternative to butter. It is also a healthy substitute to margarine when baking cakes, puddings and biscuits. With a high smoke point of around 220°C, it can be used to roast potatoes or in stir-fries,” Oscar enthuses.

All this knowledge has certainly not been lost on a number of eateries and food outlets in his local area, including Michelin guide restaurants, cafes, butchers, health food shops and local farmer’s markets where Oscar has trialled and successfully sold Duchess Oil to a repeat customer base.

Delighted with the customer feedback, in terms of both taste and efficacy, and armed with an understanding of the retail value per bottle, the young farmpreneur has found a perfect like-minded partner to increase production and is now setting his sights nationally. “The possibilities are endless – I’m very excited by the prospect of championing an authentic British product which can challenge the market for olive oil domestically and internationally,” enthuses Oscar.

Duchess Oil can currently be purchased via the website at www.duchessoil.com
Prices are as follows:
250ml – £3.00
500ml – £5.00

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Christmas really isn’t Christmas without at least one box of chocolates; a fail-safe gift or a little private indulgence for you alone. This seasonal selection from Hotel Chocolat is £22 or 2 for £40. Pick up in store or order online – still plenty of time for delivery before Christmas Day itself! Billionaire Shortbread anyone? Or perhaps a Christmas Mess followed by a Cinnamon Praline?

Brimming with sparkling seasonal cheer and the gorgeous flavours of the season – in melt-away pralines and soft caramels, truffles with warming chilli and creamy coconut, cherry florentines, gingerbread, cinnamon and more. There’s something inside to make everyone feel Christmassy all over.

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Flowers, right? Damn fine flowers admittedly but that is all that Interflora deals with, right?

Well no, as it happens. Interflora offers a whole gamut of products including plants such as a £22.99 Poinsettia with chocolate or a £27.99 Yuletide basket. There is also a range of Gifts for Her from a £19.99 single red rose with vase to £29.99 Personalised Heart Biscuits.

There is also a range of rather delightful Christmas Hampers. These range in price from a Christmas Tray at £29.99 right up to a £200 Christmas Ottoman Trunk. Pictured is the Taste of Christmas Basket at £100. This contains a mix of savoury and sweet food products plus two bottles of wine and a small bottle of port –

• Border red berry rascals 175g
• Border Biscuits Blackberry & Apple crumbles
• Grandma Wild’s Milk chocolate coated cranberry cookies 200g
• The Original Cake Company 5.5″ round cherry & almond drizzle cake 600g
• Lily O’Briens chocolates 190g
• Bromley’s spiced peach chutney 200g
• Paddy & Scott’s after dinner coffee 56g
• Just fudge cranberry fudge 125g
• Orchard preserves raspberry jam 227g
• Orchard preserves marmalade 227g
• Walkers 6 Luxury mincemeat tarts 372g
• The Dormen Chilli & lime cashews 130g
• Olives Et Al Moorish olives with Cumin, coriander & cardamom 150g
• Bromley’s Cranberry sauce 200g
• Twinings winter edition mulled spiced tea – x 20 40g
• Matthew Walker Christmas pudding 454g

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Turkey too traditional? Drumsticks too humdrum? Give our yuletide feathered friend the day off and entertain your friends and family with the finest organic lamb and mutton in the country this Christmas from Langley Chase Organic Farm.

They have created a new Christmas meat box that provides a fantastic range of dishes perfect for Christmas and the New Year and also provide the recipes and the required fresh herbs with every order. This box of tasty delights also makes a great gift – you can even include a personalised note.

Each box contains:
• One 375gram stick of Langley Chase chorizo picante salami – with smoked paprika, spices and chilli, this unusual and tasty lamb and mutton Salami is so good we sell out every time we make it. Great for canapés, starters, rough diced for cassoulets or finely sliced with plum chutney, cheese and a glass of red wine.
• One lamb shoulder – perfect for slow roasting with onion sauce, roasted vegetables, and makes wonderful cuts when cold.
• Two 500gram packs of diced Mutton – enjoy this fantastic meat as a tagine; cooked with lemon, saffron and cinnamon for the perfect festive fragrance.
• 12 Rosemary and Garlic Lamb sausages (two packs of six) – quite possibly the best bangers for a New Year’s Day breakfast. Also excellent as part of a main course and cooking up quickly for hungry children.

Prices: Pick up from the farm: £75.00. Delivered direct to any UK address: £88.50. Click here to order

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Tucked inside Ocado’s new Organic Fruit, Vegetable and Salad Boxes you’ll find the freshest ingredients – everything from rainbow carrots and red Robinta potatoes to succulent Conference pears and juicy apples, all available to order now from just £17.99.

Ocado is passionate about organic produce and is working with a family-owned organic produce business, based in the South East, to bring you a selection of the highest quality, and most readily available, seasonal groceries.

Ocado’s Veg and Salad Box includes 11 healthy vegetables and salad ingredients that will feed your household’s weekly ‘five-a-day’ needs for just £17.99. Even hungrier households can opt for Ocado’s bumper Fruit, Veg and Salad Box, offering 13 of the freshest fruits, vegetables and salad items for £24.99.

All of Ocado’s produce, grown to strict Soil Association standards, has been personally selected and packed to perfection. Upon ordering, Ocado’s friendly drivers will whisk them straight to your kitchen table in a handy one-hour time slot.

Visit Ocado’s website to find out which delicious weekly items are up for grabs in each organic box, and to take a sneak-peak at what’s expected inside the following week’s offerings too.

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Start or indulge a passion for artisan baking this Christmas with all the baking essentials needed for a truly authentic Panettone from online specialists, www.BakeryBits.co.uk.

Add a twist to this traditional Italian sweetened celebratory cake with BakeryBits’ special Aroma Panettone essence. The essence contains the exquisite Fiori di Sicilia but adds to it further flavours and aromas suited specifically to Panettone dough – like candied fruit, vanilla, honey and spices – so that the quantity of those ingredients can be kept lower. The benefit of using the authentic essence is to avoid these ingredients slowing or even stopping the fermentation, this ensures a cake which is dark on the outside yet moist and fluffy on the inside.

By adding essential oil that contains these flavours the texture of the Panettone crumb will stay very light and open. Supplied in a 100ml dropper bottle, the essence can be used in Panettone, custards and puddings. Recommended usage is 1-2 tsp per kilo of dough.

To bake your special Panettone, BakeryBits offers a variety of cases for individual Panettone. The special tubular Panettone cases range from 70mm diameter suitable for approximately 100g or 4oz dough, to 170mm diameter suitable for approximately 1kg of dough and are designed to free-stand in the oven while the Panettone bakes, and for presentation of the baked cake.

Panettone cases (known in Italy as Pitrottini) originated in Milan. A homemade Panettone, using a good recipe that follows the authentic long proving and contains quality ingredients is incomparable with the supermarket versions.

Available from www.BakeryBits.co.uk, the Aroma Panettone is priced at £6.99, plus a delivery charge of £2.95 + VAT. Panettone cases are priced from £2.99 for a pack of 25, (100g or 70mm) to £4.49 for a pack of 25, (1kg or 170mm).

Orders can be made online up to the 22 December for next-day delivery. Delivery is available anywhere worldwide.

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Artisan smokehouse, Coln Valley, has launched the Trio of Gravadlax in time for Christmas.

With three varieties of gravadlax including beetroot, pesto and lemon & pepper, Coln Valley’s latest creation is expected to be a hit within the foodservice sector for its diverse range of flavours and ability to provide hotels and restaurants with a convenient luxury menu item.

Mark Osborne, Coln Valley’s Managing Director, comments: “As an artisan producer, we aim to provide the industry with a choice of contemporary flavours that push the boundaries of traditional products. We want to create food that inspires chefs and appeals to those who appreciate fine food. The Trio caters for both audiences and is likely to be a hit throughout the festive season and beyond.”

Cured using traditional techniques that have made the smokehouse one of the UK’s most well-respected traditional artisan producers, Coln Valley’s expanding gravadlax range is generating acclaim throughout the UK and abroad.

The Trio of Gravadlax launch follows the success of Coln Valley’s summer flavour, the Pimms Gravadlax, which first appeared at Wimbledon in 2010 and is now widely available following popular demand.

Respected by many world-class chefs for its flagship kiln-baked salmon, Coln Valley’s customers include premium London food halls and delicatessens throughout the UK. Online the Trio is listed at £14.50.

For more information please visit www.simplysalmon.co.uk

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