Little extras mean a lot so make sure the turkey trimmings you buy this year are up to scratch.

COOKING the Christmas dinner is actually quite straightforward. Bung the bird in the oven, baste it occasionally and try not to forget about it once you've started on the booze.

It's the extras that can make life complicated. Especially in a crowded kitchen with hovering grannies and over-excited children charging through. Sausages, stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce and bacon all make the meal extra special, but can also be a lot of bother. Fine if you like to fuss, but if not, why not buy them ready made?

And when it comes to pudding, you might as well buy in the sauce, the brandy butter or the special cream. The shelves are overflowing with expensive little extras. We've tried some of them to see if they're worth it.

WE LIKED...

MORRISON'S best garnish pack £3.49

Cocktail sausages, cranberry and apple stuffing balls, cocktail sausages wrapped in dry cured smoked streaky bacon.

Excellent. These had real flavour and cooked well - no nasty greasy water in the pan. Tasted good cold too.

SAINSBURY'S Taste The Difference 12 pork cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon. £2.99

Sling them in the oven and they're done. They look good and taste very decent, especially the sausages .

MARKS & SPENCER bread sauce.

Made with double cream, fresh breadcrumbs and a hint of cloves. £1.99

This seems an awful lot to pay for a dollop of bread sauce. One the other hand, it tasted very good and was so easy.

MARKS & SPENCER cranberry and ruby port sauce

Unusually for M&S this was quite sharp with a good taste of cranberries, much more like a fruit sauce than the sort of solidified cranberry jam you get from jars.

DOUBLE CREAM with added booze

These could be our Christmas downfall...

Our favourite was Morrisons with Cointreau and bits of orange, utterly irresistible, in a pack of three for £2.29 - cheaper than equally good Amaretto/brandy or Irish Whiskey from Marks & Spencer. ASDA's weren't quite as nice, but had the advantage of being in smaller pots at 48p or two for 90p, so you could have just a small treat.

ELIZABETH SMEDLEY brandy butter

£1.90 for 150g

Butter, sugar, six per cent brandy, and lemon juice and nutmeg for a dash of sharpness - which is probably why it's so easy to eat an awful lot of it.

ASDA extra special brandy butter

Gosh, you knew this has brandy in it - eight per cent. Very good with a real kick. Would make a treat of the stalest mince pie.

WE WEREN'T VERY IMPRESSED BY...

ASDA extra special apple, cranberry and calvados stuffing £1.98

This was very greasy - yes we know the point of stuffing is to baste the bird from inside, but there are limits. It tasted quite good while hot, but cold it was largely congealed fat.

MARKS & SPENCER Pork cocktail sausage and bacon roll garnish pack £3.49

12 pork cocktail sausages, 12 smoked bacon rolls.

Perfectly acceptable if rather bland cocktail sausages, tiny little scrimps of smoked bacon. Apart from the fact that these are already in a foil tray, there's nothing here to make life that much easier or more tasty.

MARKS & SPENCER hand-wrapped and decorated pork, pancetta and sage stuffing parcels £3.49

These looked very pretty, little circles topped with a sage leaf. But, sadly, they tasted very ordinary indeed.

SAINSBURY'S 18 sage and onion stuffing balls £2.49

Pork sausage meat with sage and onion, all moulded into neat little balls in a foil tray. Tasted fine, if not particularly special. Very easy and a better flavour than if you'd just used a packet.

ICELAND garnish kit £2.99

Eight cocktail sausages, eight stuffing balls, eight bacon and sausage rolls. Come complete in foil baking tray so absolutely no effort. These were fatty and salty but still tasted reasonable.

ANCHOR real dairy chocolate cream extra thick with Tia Maria £1.99

Very sweet chocolate flavour cream with a dash of Tia Maria. Squirty, like shaving foam. This split the testers. Some thought it was quite nice, with a real Tia Maria taste. Others thought it disgusting...

AMBROSIA brandy custard 99p

This is one per cent brandy - about the equivalent of walking past the dish with the brandy bottle. But it was still quite nice - especially if you don't like brandy.

QUIGGINS Cumberland brandy butter

This was made with dark sugar, which was good. However, we are still trying to find the brandy in it.

WE REALLY DIDN'T LIKE...

ASDA turkey garnish kit £3.48

Pork cocktail sausages, sausages wrapped in bacon and eight sage and onion stuffing balls.

Oh dear. When we'd cooked these, the tray was swimming in fat and water. The sausages and stuffing balls tasted very greasy and when they were cold were just lumps of fat. Horrid.

TESCO Finest garnish pack £3.99

12 cocktail sausages, six stuffing balls and six Wiltshire cured bacon rolls

Oh dear. We were put off this when we took it out of the oven - the tray was swimming in water and fat. Yuk. If you ate them hot, the sausages were OK, the bacon wasn't bad, the stuffing was very greasy. Cold they were all disgusting.

COLMANS luxury bread sauce mix 55p

Not very nice taste, very salty.

MARKS & SPENCER luxury Christmas gravy

Tasted of cheap stuffing. Not nice.

SCWARTZ turkey gravy mix 59p

Horrible.

BIRDS RUM SAUCE 99p

Very odd taste. Didn't taste like rum. Don't know what it tasted like but we didn't like it.