Ricotta, lemon, almond and blueberry cake with blackberry cream

I made this as a gluten-free dessert for a Boxing Day lunch with my mum and sister.  It's so light and seems to get even better after a day or so in the fridge.

Deconstructed blackberry and apple crumble

I’m a huge fan of crumble, but have recently discovered a way of making it so quickly, and in small quantities, so I can have an instant crumble for one late at night when I fancy a sneaky sugar kick!  I’ve called it ‘deconstructed’ crumble, which makes it sound very chef-y and pretentious, but really it’s just some delicious oaty, almondy crumbs that can be sprinkled on any fruit you’ve got to hand, which is very quickly stewed (well, warmed through) while the crumble bakes.  Our garden is groaning with blackberries at the moment, so I’ve been eating this quite often with them, but you could use other berries, apples, pears, peaches or whatever combination you fancy.

Blackberry nectarine galette

A very quick pudding to use some of the deliciously juicy, plump blackberries from our garden, this uses ready-made puff pastry so is ridiculously quick to assemble after a long day at work.

Citrus almond cinnamon cake with Chantilly cream, berries and pistachios

This weekend we cooked a huge brunch for a lovely gathering of 15 of our friends and five of their kids, including three very beautiful babies!  I made this whopping great cake which Matilda, pictured here, could barely wait to dive into. The cake itself was flavoured with orange and lemon zest, cinnamon, vanilla and ground almonds, then topped with apricot jam, Chantilly cream, raspberries, blackberries and pistachios.  You can see it was massive and for a smaller number of people you could halve the ingredients and make a one layered cake (and still it would be deep enough to slice it in half to sandwich with jam and cream).

Blackberry and almond buttermilk scones

A lovely sunny Sunday morning baking session today, listening to good music and making some simple free-form scones.  The buttermilk in these makes the batter quite moist (hence deciding to dollop the mixture onto the baking trays rather than roll out and cut with a pastry cutter) and the fresh blackberries give them a fantastic juicy sweetness that means you don’t need to serve them with jam (unless you’re a sugar fiend like me and just can’t resist) – just stick to lashings of clotted cream!  (The healthy eating is clearly going great guns…)

Pear and blackberry sponge flan with elderflower, gin and tonic jelly

For Christmas, my mum gave me a sponge flan tin. This was my first go at testing it, and the results were lovely – really light, airy cake which I topped with fresh pear and blackberries and a jelly made with elderflower cordial, gin and tonic water.  You could use any fruit or jelly combination you like though.

Vegan chocolate macadamia cake with blackberries

This evening we cooked dinner for six, including a friend who is vegan.  I decided to turn my chocolate courgette brownies recipe into something a bit more sophisticated - made with macadamia nuts instead of walnuts, a little coffee essence and baked it in a round cake tin.  I topped it with a mound of fresh blackberries, dusted with cocoa. Telling people once they've eaten the cake that it contains courgettes is great fun to watch - especially our friend Jon who refuses to eat vegetables. No-one would be able to guess, but their inclusion means this is really moist and magic!

Gin and Lime Gâteau au Yaourt with gin berry coulis

I recently read about Gâteau au Yaourt, a staple in French home baking and often the first thing that children in France learn to cook.  That’s because it can be made be using two small yoghurt pots, which once you’ve emptied out the yoghurt, you use to measure out the rest of the ingredients.  I decided though to make a more grown up version, with fresh lime zest and juice, and a good glug of gin.  I served it with a coulis of mixed berries, which I also added gin and lime to.  It’s lovely and light and airy, with a great crust on top. 

Chocolate orange and almond layer cake with blackberries

I couldn't resist the sight of a bar or three of dark chocolate with orange and almonds when I was shopping for ingredients to make a birthday cake for our friend Niaz. I decided to make a stripey layer cake from two types of sponge cakes - one chocolate and almond, the other orange and almond. The chocolate itself I made into a ganache, some of which I added to a buttercream for the filling, and the rest I poured over the top of the cake. I topped the cake with fresh blackberries and whole almonds, dusted with edible gold dust. Happy birthday Niaz!

Chocolate and pistachio layer cake

This mammoth cake I created for my friend Sarah’s wedding.  It’s nine inches wide and made of three layers of cake, which altogether sat about a foot tall.  Covered with dark chocolate ganache over a layer of chocolate buttercream, inside it is made from alternating, striped layers of chocolate fudge cake and pistachio madeira cake, sandwiched together with pistachio buttercream.  It’s then decorated with ground pistachios and fresh figs and berries.  This post includes the recipe and method for each element. 

Spiced berry maple betty

Tonight I cooked dinner for our friends Cath and Gregg – a lovely recipe for thyme-roasted belly of pork from Diana Henry’s amazing book, Food from Plenty.  I served it with yellow, orange and purple heritage carrots, purple sprouting broccoli, balsamic roasted red onions, and celeriac, mustard and parsley mash. Not bad, even if I say so myself!  Anyway, in browsing through Diana Henry’s book, my attention was grabbed by her recipe for blackberry, apple and maple brown betty.  She describes it as “a great, down-home American dessert that’s even easier to make than crumble.”  Anything described as “down-home” sounds good to me!

This is my adaptation of that recipe, but I used mixed frozen berries instead of apple and fresh blackberries.  Apart from that, and the addition of a little cinnamon, I’d followed her recipe exactly when I made this, which included so much sugar (mixed with the cake crumbs, and also mixed with the fruit before maple syrup is poured over them) that it was unbelievably sweet.  So here I’ve written the recipe without any extra sugar, as I’m sure it’s completely unnecessary.  Apart from that, it’s amazing – it feels a bit wrong to use cake instead of a crumble mixture, but wow it’s delicious – it’s so moist and soaks up lots of the fruit, so it’s a bit like a hot SummerPudding (which is my all-time favourite dessert)!

Blackberry, apple and almond crumble muffins

Some quick muffins - these don't need an electric mixer, they are so quick to mix by hand. A nice way to use some lovely blackberries that are in season at the moment, and a left-over bramley apple from the spiced apple, rum and pecan pie I made the other day!

Pimms and elderflower summer pudding

Summer pudding is one of my all-time favourite desserts. Soggy bread shouldn't be a good thing, but this fruit filled pud transforms the bread into a silky cake-like texture! It's really easy to make just using a frozen packet of mixed summer fruits. Once I've put it in the fridge to chill over night, I am desperate for it to be ready. And once it's had its first outing as a dessert, it makes an amazing breakfast! I've added a splash or two of elderflower and Pimms, but it is perfectly good without. I made a Pimms and orange syllabub to go with it, which complements the silky, cloud-like texture beautifully. 

Blackberry almond friands

I've been wanting to try making friands for ages - little cakes made from egg whites, icing sugar and almonds. I think they'd work well with other ground nuts like pistachios or hazelnuts too, and with different fruits or even chocolate. These are unbelievably light and delicious!

Blackberry and almond mini-muffins

Apple and blackberry crumble

A classic recipe with a flap-jacky twist - this is the best crumble topping I've experimented with and so had to be preserved!