Pistachio, lemon and cranberry biscuits

I had some pastry offcuts left over when I made my lemon, pistachio and passion fruit tart for New Year’s Eve.  It seemed too much of a waste to throw such delicious pastry away, so instead I used a mini star-shaped cookie cutter to make lots of tiny biscuits, which I pressed dried cranberries into and sprinkled with sugar.  They were so delicious, I think they’d be lovely to make again on their own, so here is the recipe.

Lemon, pistachio and passion fruit tart

This year, Lu and I decided to stay in for New Year’s Eve.  I’m sure it’s a sign we’re getting old, but it was absolutely lovely to be at home, just the two of us, after all the hectic socialising over Christmas!  So we cooked a lovely meal for each other: Lu made Thai crab cakes to start, and for a main course we had sea bass with goose fat-roasted potatoes and I made an Asian mango salad to go with it.  This was the dessert – loosely based on a classic Tarte au Citron, I added toasted, ground pistachios to the filling and made a lemon and pistachio sweet pastry.  The whole thing was topped with lemon-infused whipped cream, passion fruit and ground caramelised pistachios.  This was a real show stopper of a dessert – and a very decadent breakfast on New Year’s Day before a walk in the sunshine to blow away the cobwebs! 

Mulled wine poached pear flourless upside down cake

I always want to make something special for a Christmas dessert, but it needs to be light enough for people to want to eat after they’ve filled themselves up on Christmas dinner.  This year, I think I came up with my best one yet – a ground almond cake which is flourless for my gluten-intolerant sister, made into an upside down cake when poured over a base of pears poached in mulled wine.  The mulled wine flavours give it a lovely Christmassy taste, and the cake is so light and moist it was perfect after a big dinner.  It went beautifully with my Christmas Pudding ice cream.  As you can see from the picture, half of it disappeared so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to photograph it before it got demolished - always a sign of a winning cake!

Flourless chocolate, hazelnut, macadamia and cranberry cookies

Another flourless recipe for my sister – this time, rich dark chocolate cookies for Christmas, loaded with hazelnuts, macadamia nuts and dried cranberries.  They are lovely and soft and cakey, more like brownies than biscuits – really good served warm with a scoop of my Christmas Pudding Ice Cream!

I’ve based my recipe on a chocolate and walnut cookie recipe by famous patissier Francois Payard.

Christmas Pudding Ice Cream

I’ve had this recipe for years now and make it every Christmas.  I’ve no idea where it came from originally as I've just got a scribbled recipe on a piece of paper, but over the years I’ve adapted it, replacing the double cream in the original recipe for brandy flavoured cream of the sort that supermarkets start selling at Christmas time.  It’s so much nicer than plain old Christmas cake, and adds a lovely festive taste to pretty much any cake or dessert that you fancy making at this time of year.

Torta Gianduia - chocolate and hazelnut torte

Torta Gianduia is a speciality of the Piedmont region of Italy.  It’s a flourless cake, just made with ground hazelnuts, dark chocolate, butter, sugar and eggs – so was a great choice for a meal we cooked for my dad and step mum to celebrate their birthdays (they were born on the same day, two years apart) with my sister who is gluten-intolerant.  It’s rich but incredibly light and moist – definitely more of a torte than a cake.  I tarted it up with some homemade truffles on top, just made from Nutella and a splash of amaretto, rolled in cocoa powder.

  

Cranberry apple crumble

I went to stay with my mum for a few days this week, and we had a lovely time making Christmas cards on her new printing press. When I arrived I popped into her local grocer to buy some flowers, and couldn't resist a punnet of shiny, glowing red cranberries. I turned them into a crumble with apples, cinnamon and an oat and almond topping. This turned out to be wonderful for breakfast!