Best. Dessert. Ever.

Last year at The Hop Pole in Bath, I ate what could be the best pudding I have ever had.

A pineapple tarte tatin with coconut ice cream - juicy sweet caramely pineapple, dark rum, cold coconut and crisp hot pastry. Seriously....what's not to love?

Since then I haven't been able to quite shake it. When I got a beautiful tarte tatin dish for my birthday I finally decided to give it go and I'm pretty pleased with the results if I don't say so myself!

What you need
500g all butter puff pastry
1 pineapple (cut into chunks)
100g golden caster sugar
100ml dark rum
1 vanilla pod, halved lengthways with seeds scraped out
50g butter, cubed
an oven proof frypan or tarte tatin dish (approx 25cm in diameter)
a wooden spoon

The do
Cut up the pineapple into chunks and set aside.
Preheat your oven to 190, or gas mark 5. Sprinkle a little flour on to your bench top, roll out the pastry until it's around half a centimetre thick. Make sure it is rolled out enough to cover the ovenproof frying pan you’ll be using with an excess of 5cm around the edge. Set aside.

Put the pan on a medium heat and add the sugar, rum, vanilla seeds and pod. Let the sugar dissolve and cook until the mixture forms a light caramel.

When the caramel is a lovely chestnut brown, add the pineapple. Carefully stir everything in the pan and cook until the caramel thickens and becomes sticky and toffee-like. Add the cubed butter, then lay the pastry over the top. Using a wooden spoon instead of your fingers, quickly and carefully tuck the pastry down firmly into the edges.

Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden. Don't worry if it puffs up, it will flatten down again when you turn it upside down. Remove from the oven and let it rest for a minute. Now this is the tricky bit, glove up or you could end up in A&E with third degree burns. Grab a serving plate bigger than your fry pan and very quickly and carefully, flip the whole thing over. If you don't feel too confident about this procedure, this video shows you how to do it.
Let it chill out for a bit then chop it up and serve with coconut ice cream, otherwise vanilla is just as good.

BTW if you are ever in Bath and have little people in tow, this pub is situated opposite the best playground I have ever laid eyes on. Plus they always have one veggie option that is delicious.

Tune:
Agadoo Black Lace

Les Perez touchdown in London

Some dear friends of ours are visiting from Australia and last night I cooked dinner for about eight of us. Congregating around a big table with old friends with plenty of food and booze is most definitely one of the nicer things in life - my kitchen is too small for me to go all Babette's Feast, so dinner had to be a very simple affair.

With my ice cream maker in storage somewhere in Cricklewood, this summer I've been getting into cheats homemade ice cream. My mum used to make this in the late 80s by mixing some cointreau and a smashed up Flake with shop bought vanilla ice cream.

I made two types using some of the alcohol collecting dust at the back of our liquor shelf - the more we drink now, the less Jasmine T will have to hand when she starts mixing up her own cocktails. I have some Frangelico which I'm going to mix with chopped hazelnuts and Drambuie which I'm going to soak some raisins in before adding to the ice cream.

Cheats ice cream

What you need

2 large flat plastic containers

2L shop vanilla ice-cream (best you can afford)

couple handfuls chopped roasted hazelnuts

couple handfuls of raisins

3 tablespoons Drambuie

3 tablespoons Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)

ice cream cones (less washing up)

The do

Place raisins in a bowl and add the Drambuie, leave to soak for a couple of hours.

Take the ice cream out of the freezer and leave out for around 10 minutes. Transfer the ice cream into the plastic containers add the ingredients and mix in with a rubber spatula. Put the lids on and return to the freezer.

You can do this with anything - fruit, chocolate, nuts. Just bear in mind that adding too much alcohol will prevent your ice cream from freezing.

For dinner (serves 8): boil up two packs of angel hair pasta, then 3 minutes before the pasta is ready, throw in a bag of frozen peas and half a bag of broad beans. In a separate small pan, gently heat a big glug of olive oil with some thinly sliced garlic for a minute or so. When the pasta is done, drain it, add the garlic oil, then toss the whole lot with the juice of a lemon, a handful of chopped mint, a handful of torn basil, two handfuls of parmesan and two packs of crumbled feta cheese. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper and marvel at the quivering mountain of steaming pasta before you.

Tunes
Alas I cannot swim Laura Marling

Happy birthday to Carters and Kelly V

It was Carter's and Kelly V's birthday last Wednesday and to mark the occasion I whipped out my newly acquired copy of Delia's Book of Cakes for a fast simple no-faff sweet treat that I could take down to the pub without too much drama.

I decided to make her Chocolate fudge brownie recipe and as per usual I couldn't help meddling - I increased the chocolate and flour quantities and added orange blossom water and pistachios.

Things started to go a little pear shaped when I realised I didn't have the correct tin, I used the smallest one I had, but it was still waaaay too big. I ended up with brownies that looked like they'd been run over by a steam roller. In the end I sandwiched them with some hazelnut spread and it was all good. The moral of this story...use the right tin and all will be fine.

Chocolate, pistachio and orange blossom fudge brownies

What you need

A 18x28cm baking tin

90g dark cooking chocolate, preferably unsweetened, I used Green and Blacks cook's chocolate
110g butter
2 medium eggs
225g caster sugar
90g plain flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
110g pistachio nuts (hold back about 5 nuts for garnish)
1 tablespoon orange blossom water (you could add more, but taste as you go so it doesn't end up tasting like shower gel)

Garnish
1 punnet of raspberries
Green and blacks Hazelnut chocolate spread

The do
Line a rectangular brownie tin (18x28cm) with silicone baking paper. allow the paper to come up a good 5cm above the rim of the tin.
Melt the butter and broken up chocolate pieces together in a heatproof glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Stir in the remaining ingredients, then pour into the lined tin and bake for around 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, divide into approx 15 squares and transfer back to wire rack.

Chop the remaining pistachios as finely as you can. Spread a little hazelnut spread on the top of each brownie, sprinkle with a little pistachio dust, then place a raspberry on top

Warning: these brownies are evil. Diabetics beware!

Advance Australia fare

To celebrate Australia Day this year, instead of going down to our local Walkabout dressed as cast members from Home and Away to drink copious amounts of VB, we had a civilised lunch at Kim's.
With Possum Magic on high rotation at bedtime in our household, it's no surprise that I've been thinking about pavlova - sweeeeeet pavlova.
Pavlova has a Proustian effect on me. One bite and I'm at a barbecue in someone's backyard, beer in hand, the smell of 30+ sunscreen and Aeroguard in the air, shooing flies off my plate. Nothing tastes more like an Australian summer...other than maybe a Golden Gaytime.



Surprisingly easy pavlova (serves about 8-10)

What you need
4 room-temperature egg whites (you can keep the egg yolks covered in a bowl in the fridge for later use, see below)
Pinch salt
1 cup golden caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

and to top it off...
1 tub of whipping cream (200-300ml)
1 kiwifruit, quartered lengthways and sliced
2 handfuls strawberries, halved lengthways and sliced
2 handfuls of raspberries, squished up
2 handfuls of blueberries

The do
Preheat oven to 180. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, then trace a 25 cm circle on the paper. Put egg whites and salt in the clean bowl (any grease will prevent the egg whites from expanding to their full potential) and beat with the whisk attachment of a hand blender on medium-low speed until frothy (approx 2 minutes). Increase speed to medium-high and beat until whites form stiff but not dry peaks (2–3 minutes). Gradually add sugar while whisking, then increase speed to high and beat until stiff and glossy, 3–5 minutes. Sprinkle cornstarch, vinegar, and vanilla over whites, then gently fold in with a rubber spatula.
Fill traced circle with meringue, build the sides slightly higher than the middle so the cream and fruit have somewhere to sit. Place very gently in middle of oven and reduce heat to 150, taking care not to slam the oven door shut. Bake for 1 hour. Turn off oven and leave meringue inside with door slightly ajar until completely cool for about 4 hours - or make it at night and leave it in the oven til morning.
Remove paper and place meringue on a cake plate. Whip cream to soft peaks, spread onto the meringue and pile the fruit on top. Passionfruit pulp would also be a nice addition, but a little hard to find at my local Sainsbury's in the middle of winter.

Tip Stephanie (Alexander) says "if syrupy droplets form on the surface of the meringue, you'll know you have overcooked it; liquid oozing from the meringue is a sign of undercooking".


Carter's use-up-the-egg-yolks mustardy mayonnaise
2 egg yolks
4 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
2 cups olive oil
salt
pepper
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

The do
Place yolks and mustard in a medium bowl. Beat with a wire whisk, and begin to add the oil a tablespoon at a time, adding more as each bit is incorporated. When it starts to come together, you can add the oil a bit faster. Add salt and pepper, then stir in the vinegar.

Warning: this makes an obscene amount of mayo. Alternatively, you could halve this recipe and throw the other three egg yolks into some scrambled eggs for breakfast.







Tunes

A playlist including Magic Dirt, You Am I, Screamfeeder, Sandpit, Howling Bells, The Avalanches, The Go-Betweens, Nick Cave, The Cruel Sea, the theme Tune to Round The Twist, and plagiarists...Men at Work

Chew of Greengages

We just spent a blissful weekend in Bath - warm sun, blue skies and fine, fine foods. I have discovered a new favourite past time too... hanging around in Denise's front garden under the greengage tree with my legs in the sun eating greengages and napping.



We also christened Denise's new ice cream maker with an incredibly rich chocolate ice cream from David Leibovitz's book The Perfect Scoop, which has some crazy flavour combinations like orange and sichuan pepper (we weren't game enough to try that one). We added some fresh cherries at the end to give it an extra edge, but could only manage small amounts at a time as each spoonful brought us closer to an ice cold coronary.




And of course a visit to Bath isn't complete without a visit to the Fine Cheese Co. This time I was very restrained and came away a chunk of Le Gruyère Premier Cru, aged in caves for 14 months, and celebrity cheese Little Wallop made by Alex James - washed in cider brandy and beautifully wrapped in vine leaves, I loved the oozy bits on the outer edges. While you're there grab a loaf of bread and butternut squash ravioli - best pasta I've had from a packet.

Chocolate time is here

Being pregnant has made me chocolate obsessed, so one night after work in the lead-up to Christmas I decided to make my own festive chocolate. Making your own chocolate is fun because it's all about taking something you like and remolding it into something even better. Plus, doing it yourself allows you to control what goes into it - keeping it free of excess sugar and additives

What you need
2 handfuls of brazil nuts (or any other nuts that you like, macadamias - for an Australian vibe, pistachios, peanuts)
1 1/2 blocks of Green and Black's dark cooking chocolate
1 block of Green and Black's milk chocolate with almonds, broken into pieces
1 handful of dried cranberries

The do
Line a 15x15 tin or container with non-stick baking paper. Put the nuts into a plastic bag and bash a few times with a rolling pin to break them up, don't pulverise them!
In a bowl, melt the cook's chocolate in the microwave on high for 1 minute at a time until completely melted.
If you don't have a microwave, melt the chocolate in a bowl fitted over a saucepan, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the simmering water.

Spoon a 5mm layer of melted chocolate into the tin/container. Sprinkle on the cranberries, nuts and squares of almond chocolate then cover with the remaining melted chocolate. Keep in a cool place to set, then chop into bite-sized squares with a sharp knife.

You can add anything you like to this 'chocolate sandwich' - experiment with white chocolate or other dried fruits.

Morocco, part three: sweet pastilla

I love Saturday. A real, proper day off with a sleep-in at the end and vague memories of drunkenness from the night before. So, onto a sweet Moroccan dessert, perfect for the weekend.

Apple and cream pastilla for two

Three large apples (peeled and chopped into small cubes)
1-2 sheets of filo (to make about 6 small rounds)
250 grams of almonds
1/2 litre milk
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp orange flower water
2 tbsp honey
Corn starch
Butter
Nutmeg

The do
First, a neat trick for shelling almonds: soak them in boiling water for about twenty minutes and the husk will slide right off. Then toast them on a low heat in the oven until they are golden. While the almonds are toasting, soften the chopped apple pieces in a pan with the butter and a sprinkling of nutmeg. Cut your filo sheets into rounds and toast them in the oven until they are crisp and golden. Roughly crush the almonds and mix them in a bowl with warmed honey until they are coated.

In a saucepan, bring the milk to the boil. As soon as it boils, lower the heat and whisk in some corn starch. Add the sugar and orange flower water. Simmer until it thickens into a cream and let it cool.

Lay a filo round on each plate, pile with some of the apple then the nut mix, drizzle with a little more warmed honey then repeat the layers until you've used all the mix. Finally, pour the cream over the top and crunch your spoon into this sweet pile of appley goodness.

blueberry and rose, gimme some of those

There is no humanity. On Saturday Australia's future was full of promise. This week I discover Bindi Irwin has released a rap song. I cry for our fair land, I really do. Closer to home, I suffered my own personal setback last weekend after a footpath flew into my face and took out my chin. The damage: a couple of hours in A&E and three stitches. Klutz. Desperately in need of fluffy loveliness, I duly baked a batch of blueberry and lemon cakes with rose icing.

The base recipe for this is lifted from the Guardian Guide to Baking. They call it 'the easiest cake in the world', totally ludicrous if you are familiar with my nan's Frankie's Cake, which I doubt, so believe me when I tell you it has nothing as fancy as sour cream or even butter in it. Incidentally, if the amount of butter in this recipe freaks you out, when I plumped the quantities with blueberries it made me a decent sized cake (18 cm round) as well as eight cupcakes. (The recipe recommends a 20cm round tin.) So unless you are planning on a heaving solo face stuffing, a lot of butter goes a long way.



What you need for a blueberry and lemon split-chin-on-the-mend cake
200g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
2 large eggs
200g sour cream
300g plain flour
3 level tsp baking powder
grated peel of one lemon
one tub of blueberries
Squeeze of lemon juice

And for the rose petal icing
50g icing sugar
100g cream cheese
rose essence
A little butter
candied rose petals and sparkly pink bits for decorating
Squeeze of lemon juice

Making it
Butter and line the base of your tin with non-stick baking paper. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the lemon rind and eggs, one at a time, and beat well till combined. Beat the sour cream and lemon juice into the mixture then sift in the flour and baking powder and beat it through. When it's all mixed, fold in the blueberries.

Spoon the mixture into the tin or cupcake tray, heat the oven to 180C (160C fan-assisted) and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (15-20 mins for cupcakes) or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool the cake while you make the icing. Beat the cream cheese, icing sugar, squeeze of citrus, a few drops of rose essence and butter together (it may help to sit the bowl over hot water so everything mixes properly) till smooth. Slide over your cooled cake and sprinkle with lovely bits. Best served with fresh peppermint tea and a peachy grin.

ravishing Ravioli and comely cupcakes

Guy dropped into our new flat on Saturday evening then we strolled to his for dinner. I say this because it's amazing to be able to walk between houses in London at all, it's so huge, rather than it being some sort of progressive dinner party (especially given all I offered by way of nibbles was a bag of twiglets).

When we arrived at Guy's he pulled out the kitchen stadium big guns; scrumptious potato, rosemary and parmesan ravioli with wild mushrooms followed by his signature dessert: cup cakes (this time, Lemon Four Ways). Adam and I waddled home trashed and very, very full.



Here are Guy's recipes, straight from the horse's mouth (with a few editorial changes so they make sense). It looks stupidly long but, remember, we are making pasta, sauce and dessert from scratch, people!! So deep breaths and leave your ADHD at the door...

Both the pasta recipe and filling were adapted from Giorgio Locatelli’s Made in Italy: Food and Stories. You will get four decent serves.

For the pasta:

500gm strong flour
3 eggs
2 extra egg yolks
salt
Olive oil

Making it:

Make a well in the flour and mix in the eggs, first with spoon then your hands. I also then push a small hole into the dough and fill it with olive oil and knead for about 10 minutes until well combined. Cover in a damp cloth and sit for 30 minutes.

Roll out with a pasta maker (or rolling pin). Cut into circles to make ravioli pockets.

For the filling:

200gm potatoes
100gm paremesan cheese (grated)
100gm butter
Sprig rosemary
Salt and pepper to season

Making and cooking the ravioli:

Chop, boil, drain and mash the potatoes. Melt the butter with the rosemary sprig in it then remove the rosemary. Add the melted butter and grated cheese to the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and combine. Fill the ravioli circles using either a mould or buy placing a blob of filling onto the centre of one side of your circle, then folding it over and pressing the edges together. Locatelli added a mint leaf to each ravioli which I did not.

You can make the ravioli ahead of time. Just cover them and put them in the fridge until you need them.

When the sauce is five to ten minutes away, drop the ravioli into boiling, salted water (a few at a time.) Let them rise to the surface then carefully ladel them out with a slotted spoon and place them in dishes.



For the sauce:

Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup of veggie or mushroom stock
Salt and pepper to season
3 lots of fancy mushrooms. I chose enoki, oyster and some orangey ones (girolle). Choose them for looks. I like enoki as they taste great and have an interesting texture.
Grated parmesan to serve



Heat some oil, add crushed garlic, then the mushrooms and thyme. Add the more robust mushrooms first (enoki only go in for a few minutes at the end). Once the first mushrooms are starting to soften, add 1 cup of red wine, follwed by some stock and salt and pepper. Cook for no longer than 10 minutes so they don't shrivel too much, but enough to reduce and thicken the sauce.



CUPCAKES: LEMON FOUR WAYS



For the cupcakes:

125gm butter
125gm flour
125gm caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs
Zest of two lemons

Making them:

Beat the eggs, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla together. Mix in the sifted flour and baking powder. Melt the butter and stir it into the mix. Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake moulds. Bake for 8 mins at 180C. (For a base cupcake recipe, omit the lemon zest.)

Once baked, I drizzled the cupcakes with lemon syrup (heat the juice of 2 lemons with 150g of sugar until the sugar dissolves) and then made a cut in the cupcakes and filled them with lemon curd.



For the frosting:

125 gm butter
small box of icing sugar (500 gm)
vanilla
Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Whisk all the ingredients together until fluffy. You can cut down on butter and add milk or water if it is too buttery.

A Gooseberry tart to warm a Glastonbury heart

I have never been happier in my kitchen than this past week; my clean, hygienic, well stocked, fully functioning kitchen. But then five days eating mud pie garnished with the fetid odour of fermenting portaloos will do that to anyone. Yes, I survived Glastonbury. A filthy, festering, fabulous, crazy escape from anything remotely resembling regular life. There was food, of course, including an astonishingly good range of veggie fare. But then there was cider (pear, apple or strawberry). As quick, regular hits of happy energy go when you are observing a fifth consecutive hour of torrential rain and you can't see your gumboot for the river of mud it's been sucked into, there really is no contest.



Upon our return to London I quickly set about restocking our nutrient depleted bodies with steaming greens and hearty bakes. But I also felt the urge to reach deep into my oven's potential and produce something so delicious it would wash away the memory of baby wipe showers forever. So I gave in to England's current obsession with the gooseberry, something I've never come across before let alone cooked with. (Which explains why I tried to eat one uncooked and I don't really recommend it. The fruit itself is quite sharp and tart, not dissimilar to rhubarb.) This recipe comes from the Glasto weekend edition of the Observer's monthly food magazine.



What you need for a Gooseberry tart

450g Gooseberries (I think you could substitute rhubarb or raspberry)
3 eggs
100g caster sugar
1 x 285ml pack of double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the pastry

I'll give you the pastry as it appeared in the recipe. It did the job but was a bit crumbly so if you have a preferred sweet shortcrust pastry, go for it. You can get a good base from Tamasin Day-Lewis's book, The Art of the Tart.

150g plain flour
50g caster sugar
75g very cold butter (chopped)
1 egg yolk (mixed with a little ice-cold water)

How to make the pastry

Mix the flour and sugar together before adding the chopped, cold butter.
Pulse in a mixer (or rub with your hands) until it has all crumbled together.
Add the egg yolk and a little ice-cold water and mix it all together with your hands until it rolls into a neat ball.
Roll out on a floured surface and use to line a floured 26 cm tart tin. Mine fell apart a bit and I had to do a bit of cut and pasting but it all came out fine.
Leave in the fridge for 1/2 hour and preheat your oven to 180.
Remove the pastry case from your fridge and bake blind for 10-15 minutes by pricking the base, placing some ovenproof paper over it, then covering it with a layer of dried beans or rice before popping it in the oven.
Take it out and let it cool for a few minutes but leave the oven on. (You don't want the edges to brown much but you don't want the base gooey. If it comes out a bit too moist, remove the beans and pop it back in the oven for a couple more minutes.)

And for the filling

Wash, top and tail the gooseberries.
Mix the eggs, caster sugar, double cream and vanilla extract in a bowl.
Fill the slightly cooled pastry case with an even layer of gooseberries then pour over the egg mix.
Cook for 35 minutes (or until the centre is just firm.)
Gobble with thick cream in your most comfortable jim jams. For best effect, make sure you are warm and toasty inside while your mud caked wellies are in full view on the balcony outside.

A sweet root

Aside from slurping on a bit of borscht here and there, I'd have to admit that I know very little about eastern European cuisine - and even less about eastern European desserts.
So it's just as well I was assigned dessert course for our lastest eastern European themed dinner party, huh?
Sweet stuff ain't my forte. I'm a savoury lady through and through, although I do enjoy the odd slice of office birthday cake from time to time. My baked goods rarely make the cut because of my tendency to go freestyle with the ingredients.
This time, I tried really really hard to stick the recipe. It isn't eastern European, but it has beetroot in it, so I figure that counts for something.


'EASTERN EUROPEAN' CHOCOLATE + BEETROOT MINI CAKES
(with cherry and beetroot coulis)

What you need
75g Green and Black's Cocoa Powder
180g SR flour
250g caster sugar
250g cooked fresh beetroots
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200ml corn or sunflower oil

(Makes 12 muffins)
Preheat oven to 180C
Grease a muffin tray
In a saucepan, cover beetroots with water and boil until soft
Sift cocoa, flour and baking power into a large bowl
Stir in sugar and set aside
Puree beetroot adding one egg at a time. Add vanilla and oil and and whiz until smooth.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and stir in the beetroot mixture.



Divide evenly into muffin tray and bake for 50-60 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
When done, allow to cool down in the tray and then turn out onto a wire rack.

The coulis
1 can pitted cherries
1 small fresh beetroot
1/2 can water and cherry juice (from can)
squeeze of lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar

Put ingredients in saucepan simmer until beetroot is cooked. Push through a fine sieve.

Serve cakes with some cream or ice-cream or soy ice cream (I used Swedish Glace) and drizzle with coulis.