Lavender, honey and sea salt shortbread

This is quite an unusual flavour combination but I think it's delicious.

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.

Ginger biscuits

It's my mum's birthday today and we're giving her a very cute ginger kitten. I decided to bring her a batch of ginger biscuits, her favourites. Happy birthday mum!

Heather flower, honey, whisky and orange shortbread

As the friands I made today only used the whites of three eggs, I had an excuse to make something up to use the yolks. On Sunday at the farmers market I bought a small packet of dried heather flowers, and this was a chance to experiment with them. Not really sure of their uses, I decided to go with a Scottish theme and make shortbread - and sticking with this idea, added some whisky and honey (and a bit of orange zest).  When they came out of the oven, they smelled gorgeous but looked a bit pasty, so I quickly made a glaze in the microwave with the juice of half the orange I'd zested and a little honey, and brushed it over the top while they were still warm.  These are lovely on their own, but will also go well with some fresh fruit and maybe a little syllabub of whipped cream, whisky, orange and honey.  If you can't find heather flowers, I think this would work just as well with lavender.

White chocolate florentines

These are really easy biscuits to make and take no time at all - but just be careful to watch them when baking so they don't burn.  I've coated mine in white chocolate but they are lovely with dark or milk chocolate too.

Sable biscuits with chocolate ganache

Having made blackberry friands today, I had 4 egg yolks left over and wanted to find a recipe to use them up. I decided to try making sable biscuits, based on a recipe from I Love Milk and Cookies. I used a star-shaped cookie cutter and sandwiched the biscuits together with chocolate ganache made of part milk chocolate and part dark chocolate. Yum!

Apple and almond (eggless) biscotti

I’ve never made biscotti before but decided to try making an eggless version of a traditional almond biscotti recipe for dinner with my vegan friend Ellie.  It was another excuse to use up Lu’s homemade apple sauce (made with lovely Welsh cider).  Delicious with coffee after dinner!

Brandy snap tacos and sweet salsas

We had a mexican-themed party last night with the girls - nachos to start, chilli and sweet potato wedges for the main course, followed by an inspired dessert, an idea that Lu dreamt up: taco-shaped brandy snaps and sweet salsas!

• 'Salsa' was made with diced strawberries and red plums, lemon juice and sugar.
• 'Guacamole' was made from diced kiwi fruit, pomegranate seeds, lime juice and sugar.
• 'Cheese dip' was made from pureed mango, peach and a little sugar.
• 'Sour cream' was a mojito-style syllabub of lime juice, brown sugar and rum, whipped with double cream and mixed with fresh mint leaves.
• 'Chilli' was made with crumbled chocolate cake, ground almonds, purple jelly beans, mushroom-shaped sweets and cherry jelly sweets chopped up to look like red and green peppers.

And the 'taco shells' were brandy snaps - the first time I'd ever made (or tasted) them.  They were really good, and dead easy!