CHRISTMAS preparations are getting earlier every year, so here we are in November ready to crown the 2019 Top 8 mince pies.

BARMBRACK is a truly Irish cake. Traditionally it is a fruit cake that can tell your fortune; the ring announces an upcoming wedding, finding a piece of cloth foretells poverty, find the thimble and you are destined to be a spinster and the button a bachelor, but the pea or the coin signal plenty.