When we started planning this 100th issue, the TASTE team decided to break from the norm and give you a true collector’s issue, which includes the TASTE 100 List. Putting it together was a mammoth task, but I’m sure you’ll agree that the result is a brilliant miscellaneous collection of our favourite food finds, products, recipes, people, places, ingredients and tips. These are the things we like and if your favourite hasn’t cracked the 2014 list, there’s always the 2015 version. There's also a list of our website's 100 most popular recipes.

We all felt that a 100th issue deserved a special celebration and TASTE’s ahead-of-the-trends Food Editor, Abigail Donnelly, suggested that she and our other three regular food voices combine their expertise to create a festive feast offering plenty of inspiration and variety. Buy the magazine to indulge in the magnificent result of this mega production and enjoy the behind-the-scenes photos. We show you how to make Abi’s modern cocktails and savoury desserts, along with Siba Mtongana’s take on modern African food, Phillippa Cheifitz’s delicious everyday-easy options that are so tasty you will happily serve them to dinner-party guests, and Hannah Lewry’s fun-and-fashionable dishes. For any celebration why limit yourself to drinking cocktails when you can bake a cocktail-flavoured cake? Abi gives you five options – I’m definitely trying the brandy-and-Coke chocolate cake, especially because it’s also gluten-free. What could be better than that?

I hope you love this issue as much as we loved putting it together.