Rhubarb, rum and walnut pie

This was a quick after-work invention for a pud. In the shop on the way home, I picked up some ready-made pastry for £1, and a few stalks of rhubarb.  Within 20 mins of getting home, this was in the oven, filling the house with delicious smells.  If you wanted to make the pastry from scratch – it is very easy to do – I’ve a recipe for it in the post about my Spiced Apple, Rum and Pecan Pie.

Caramel pecan muffins

OMG.  Amazeballs.  These are the best thing I’ve made in ages!  Eaten warm straight out of the oven, the caramel is still gooey.  I think you could pop them in the microwave once they’ve cooled to get the same effect the next day.  Try these!

Rhubarb and ginger marmalade turnovers

On the way home from work this evening I popped into a supermarket and spotted some shiny pink rhubarb in the reduced section for 25p!  It was too good to walk past but I was too tired to do anything too complicated, so I also grabbed a pack of ready-made puff pastry and when I got home made these turnovers – just adding a little of my mum’s home-made ginger marmalade and a little freshly grated root ginger.  We ate them with some shop-bought custard for the most simple and scrumptious after work pud!

Carrot, orange and almond cake (flourless)

This is another test recipe for Ellie and Ru’s wedding cake in Sark in June – carrot cake is Ru’s favourite so one of the tiers has to be carrot!  I thought as well as a vegan tier (my vegan lemon cake) I’d try to make a gluten-free cake for any coeliacs at the party.  Today we had a sunny bank holiday lunch on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay for my sister’s birthday (who is also a coeliac) so I decided to give it a whirl and we had it in our garden afterwards.  This is a version of a Venetian carrot cake based on a Nigella Lawson recipe, but I’m using orange instead of lemon, and almonds instead of pine nuts.