Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas on BBC1 and PBS sees the popular TV cook teach us how to make a delicious, fuss-free Christmas feast, with help from a willing batch of celebrities — Rylan, plus fellow chefs Angela Hartnett and Monica Galetti.
The thought of cooking the perfect Christmas meal can be daunting for the best of chefs but if you’re Mary Berry, and have a tried and tested repertoire that you’ve honed over 50 years, it’s a cinch. Luckily for us, Dame Mary isn’t one to keep her time-saving tips and secrets to herself and is happy to lend a hand to the rest of us.
So in Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas, Dame Mary rustles up the perfect Christmas dinner, including a lemon and herb roast turkey and her traditional Christmas pudding, and will show us how to do the same. She is walking us mere mortals through the Christmas meal she and her family tuck into every year. And what’s more she’s making it as easy and fool-proof as possible.
“You will learn all about how to do your Christmas Day meal. And I'm holding your hand all the way,” promises Mary. “It’s the Christmas that I have done over the years, and I’ve gathered a little bit of something each time. I hope that I make it really straightforward, easy and fun to view.”
Here’s everything you need to know about Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas on BBC1 and PBS that will have you rushing into your kitchen to get started…
Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas air dates in the UK and US
Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas will be shown on Monday, December 19 on BBC1 at 8pm, and then become available on BBCiPlayer.
In the US, Mary Berry's Ultimate Christmas is on PBS on Monday, December 19 2022 at 9 p.m. ET. This will give us all plenty of time to put together her showstopping feast ready for the big day.
Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas will also be repeated on BBC One on Christmas Eve at 11.25am.
Is there a trailer for Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas?
Yes, a trailer for Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas has been released by the show's American channel PBS. Take a look at all the sumptuous food and Dame Mary joined by her celebrity guests below!
Recipes, celebrity guests and what happens in Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas
Dame Mary starts Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas by creating starters of stilton and sage mini scone canapés before serving up a lemon and herb roast turkey with crispy roast potatoes, honey glazed carrots and parsnips, ruby red cabbage, apricot and chestnut stuffing and turkey gravy. And if you can squeeze in a dessert after that, there’s her traditional Christmas pudding and a festive trifle to finish.
“Organisation and preparation is key,” says Mary. “I’m not making people labour. And I give people tips I’ve learned over the years too.”
Mary's joined by special celebrity guests, presenter Rylan and chefs Monica Galetti and Angela Hartnett, and while Monica and Angela show us some festive treats of their own, Mary is on a mission to get Rylan and some local schoolchildren to like Brussels sprouts, by getting him to pick them himself before cooking them with butter, peas and cashews.
“I said I wanted to change his mind so I took him into a sprout field and as viewers will see he was quite bewildered at the field of sprouts and how to gather them but he got the hang of it in the end,” recalls Mary.
“Then I decided that if I put the sprouts with other things, he would love them. I put on lots of butter, cashew nuts and peas. Everybody likes peas, children love petit pois. They were masked in butter, not overcooked — they were beautiful and he loved them. And then to put it to the test, we gave the recipe to some children and there was only one child that didn’t eat it. You could actually see the children finishing off their bowls of sprouts!”
Angela Hartnett shows how to create a pumpkin ricotta tortelli while Monica Galetti’s Samoan palusami with smoked haddock, cavolo nero and sourdough look delicious.
All three lucky guests got to sample Mary’s legendary trifle. “Angela, Monica and Rylan seemed to love it, and Rylan said that he is definitely going to make it with his mum,” says Mary. “He also took the whole trifle home.”
All about Dame Mary Berry
Dame Mary Berry honed her chef’s skills in Paris and in the early 1970s hosted Afternoon Plus with Judith Chalmers. She runs a cookery school from her Buckinghamshire home and won legions of fans as a judge on The Great British Bake Off from 2009 to 2016.
She’s written over 80 cookery books and has hosted shows such as Mary Berry Cooks, Foolproof Cooking, Mary Berry’s Simple Comforts, Mary Berry: Cook and Share, Mary Berry's Fantastic Feasts and Mary Berry Love to Cook. In 2019 she presented A Very Royal Christmas, a one-off special with Prince William and Princess Catherine, and she’s also a judge on Best Home Cook.
