The Mince Pie Puzzles 2025

The Mince Pie Puzzles 2025

A selection of puzzles, for people to solve between now and christmas eve, or to do them all on christmas eve over mince pies if you prefer.
We may add additional puzzles between now and 24/12/25 so be sure to solve all of them! Best NOT to look at other answers before you solve!

For anyone who missed out, here are last year's selection:
The Mince Pie Puzzle, Tue, Dec 24, 2024, 2:00 PM | Meetup

Puzzle 1. Back In The Day

33 Years ago when their youngest daughter Daria was born, the Rossi's had 3 other daughters. Arianna was twice Bianca's age, and thrice Chiara's age. Today the combined age of their 4 daughters is 165. How old is Bianca?

Puzzle 2. We've got your number

Firstly. which "intimate" palindrome has a square and a square root which are also palindromic?
And secondly, what is the two smallest positive whole numbers which, when each multiplied by the number 10 less than themselves, produce a number containing only one (repeating) digit?

Puzzle 3. Amazing Anagrams

The answers to the following nine clues are all 8 letter anagrams of each other, in other words all answers comprise exactly the same group of letters, now all you have to do is solve each of them!

• Necessary (8)
• Warning (8)
• Fish Group (8)
• Polygon (8)
• Ivory Coast Town (8)
• Connecting (8)
• Particle (8)
• More Twisty (8)
• Changing (8)

Puzzle 4. An Exceptionally Magic Square

When viewed as 6-digit numbers, all rows and columns are divisible by the 6 digit number in the first row/column, what are the values of each letter, given that no digit is repeated? There are actually two solutions to find, one containing a zero and the other not, find both.

ABCDEF
BCDEFA
CDEFAB
DEFABC
EFABCD
FABCDE

Puzzle 5. Padlock Code Break

Santa needed to open a padlock to access Rapunzel's chimney:

(a) 7140 has just one digit correct in the wrong place.
(b) 3528 has just one digit correct in the wrong place.
(c) 9179 has just two digits correct both in the wrong place.
(d) 6013 has just two digits correct both in the wrong place.
The solution is neither a prime number nor divisible by 3.... Unlock me!

Puzzle 6. Santa's Jugs Of Ale

Rudolf is thirsty, but can only consume 3 litres of ale. He owns three jugs which have capacities of 17 litres, 13 litres and 6 litres respectively. How does he measure exactly 3 litres for himself?

Puzzle 7. Anagrammatical

In each of the following pairs of words, one is a clue, and the other is an anagram of the solution. Take the initial letter of each solution to form another 6 letter word. What is it?

(a) Pester, Lashes
(b) Agree, Keen
(c) Object, Recital
(d) Alloy, Faithful
(e) Tutors, Hectares
(f) Athens, Expedite