Cranberry, fresh ginger and clementine cake with mulled wine syllabub

I made this cake with a punnet of fresh cranberries intended for cranberry sauce to go with our Christmas turkey, that we forgot to make on the day. It's back to work and school tomorrow so we had a final movie night in front of the fire, and ate it while the cake was still warm. The cranberries are quite tart even when cooked, but balanced perfectly when paired with the sweetened cream of this mulled wine syllabub (made with a syrup from the poaching liquid I'd used for our Christmas poached pears).

Gluten-free granola

My son Mostyn is a big fan of granola but as he is gluten-free, we make our own using gluten-free oats (although they are naturally GF, wheat is often used in the rolling process so you need to make sure you buy oats specifically labelled as gluten-free). You can mix up the recipe as much as you want, varying the choice of nuts, seeds, dried fruit and even the type of oil, sweeteners (I like a mixture of honey, brown sugar and maple syrup, but golden syrup also works really well) and spices (which you could leave out altogether if you so wished).

Energy balls!

I spent a lovely weekend helping out at my friends Ellie and Ruadhan's yoga festival, and had a little stall selling vegan, gluten free energy bars and flapjacks. This recipe was the out-and-out winner, selling out in minutes! 

Banana, date and rum loaf cake - wheat-free, sugar-free and fat-free!

Our new year's resolution is to try to get healthy. We've started going to the gym (I know, I can hardly believe it myself) and watching the calorie counter on the cycling machines tell you that you've sweated for 10 minutes and only burned about five crisps is slightly soul-destroying, not least as it's made me feel guilty about eating cake.  One of the greatest pleasures in life!  So I have to find a way to make guilt-free cakes. This is my first attempt - it is a fat-free, sugar-free and wheat-free cake - and amazingly, it still tastes delicious!  Made with puréed dates, dried apricots and mashed banana, it's lovely and sweet without the need to add any extra sugar.  Instead of flour it uses a bit of cornmeal (or you could try polenta) to bind it together, and is full of pecans, dried cranberries and sultanas, and finished off with a good glug of dark rum (we all need a little naughtiness...).  As good as any fruit cake, and no guilt attached!

Banana, blueberry and cranberry muffins

A lovely recipe to use up blackening bananas, these combine the background taste of banana bread with classic blueberry muffins, and some fresh cranberries for little explosions of tartness.  

Cranberry, apricot and amaretto mince pies with almond, orange and cinnamon pastry

It's Christmas Eve-eve and I've spent a very happy day baking - a couple of cake commissions for friends for Christmas, sausage rolls, ginger biscuits, and these fantastic deep-dish mince pies. Made in muffin tins, they have lots of room for really good filling, so I spruced up some mincemeat with dried apricots, blanched almonds, amaretto and fresh cranberries.  The pastry has ground almonds, orange zest and juice and cinnamon in too for extra festive flavour. Merry Christmas everyone!

Maple, pecan and cranberry granola

I've been using lots of maple syrup and cranberries recently, inspired by their autumnal flavours to make comfort food as we head towards Christmas. This granola recipe was such a winner I had to include it on the blog - the combination of maple syrup with dried cranberries and ground pecan nuts, tossed together with a little honey, oats and golden linseeds makes a brilliant wintery breakfast, but is also great to have in a jar in the kitchen to eat by the handful as you're passing!

Cranberry, apple and maple pudding cake

Since it's Thanksgiving today, I thought I'd use up the last of the cranberries I had left over from my cranberry and clementine loaf cake-baking at the weekend and make something American-inspired. What better pairing than maple syrup, apple, cinnamon? This was inspired by a recipe which also contained cornmeal, another very American ingredient, and although I had some in the pantry from when I made cornbread, I have to confess none of us were that keen on its slightly grainy texture - so I decided to go for ground almonds instead! The result was a lovely warming dessert, somewhere between a pudding and a cake.

And as it's a time of giving thanks, I just wanted to say a great big THANK YOU! to all of you who've visited and enjoyed reading my blog. Today I hit the 20,000 visitor mark - something I'd never have dreamt would happen when I first started this to record my recipes. It's lovely getting feedback from those of you who have tried baking or just enjoyed looking at the cakes I've invented. Come back again soon!

Cranberry and clementine loaf cake

This is the second of the cakes I've made today for a charity fundraising cake sale tomorrow, along with an elderflower, lemon and poppyseed loaf cake and a sloe gin, hazelnut and fig layer cake. I'm really pleased with how this looks, drizzled with a glossy red cranberry glaze that reminds me of toffee-apples, and decorated with white chocolate stars. It'd be a lovely alternative to Christmas cake I think.

Fruit cake (7 inch square)

I’ve been asked by my friend Debbie in work to make a three-tiered wedding cake for her friend Lorna’s wedding in October.  We’re about to go on holiday for a fortnight, so I decided to get a head start and make the fruit cake for the top tier before we leave.  I’m then going to give it to Debbie to cake sit for me, and feed it brandy every few days while we’re away!

Spiced honey, fruit and nut muffins

Since getting home from Sark I’ve had the most horrible fluey cold.  I think it is proof that too much fresh air and exercise is bad for you – what I need is CAKE to make me feel better!  Feeling pathetic and also fairly exhausted from all the baking I did for the wedding cakes, I want something really easy and quick, and something to nourish my sickliness.  I’m living on mugs of hot lemon and honey for my sore throat.  The answer?  Honey muffins – the quickest and simplest of all baked goods!

Part of the simplicity of muffin making is using American cup measurements for baking – it is a really quick and simple way of rustling up some delicious muffins in no time at all.  Just pour your ingredients into the cup measures, use a hand whisk to lightly beat together the wet ingredients, then add the dry ones, and give it all a quick stir (muffins shouldn’t be over-mixed – the batter is meant to look lumpy.)  Quarter of an hour in the oven is just enough time to clean up and make a cup of tea, ready to enjoy with your delicious hot muffins!

This recipe is based on a honey oat muffin recipe from the White House – you can’t get much more American than that! I added nuts and dried cranberries (any dried fruit would work just as well).  This makes it feel like breakfast (not that I need any excuse to eat cake first thing in the morning) and since there is no sugar or butter in the recipe, I think I can officially call these healthy, and definitely guaranteed to put a smile on the face of someone feeling under the weather!

Cranberry, clementine and ginger Welsh cakes

I've started working part-time and I have to say I'm absolutely loving it!  Today has been a beautiful sunny day, just beginning to melt the snow we've had this week. After a lovely walk around Cosmeston lakes with our dog, I came home and rustled up another batch of Welsh cakes (they are proving to be very addictive - to make and eat!).  This time, I soaked dried cranberries in a pan with a little clementine juice, so the fruit plumps up (inspired by the juicy blueberry Welsh cake fritters I made the other day, but wanting to make them quickly out of what was in the house).  I added ginger instead of cinnamon, which went very well with a pot of fragrantly spiced chai tea.

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.

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.

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!

Kitchen sink cookies

These cookies are so-called because you can chuck in any mixture of chocolate, nuts and dried fruit you have in your cupboards.  I used a mixture of Galaxy chocolate (milk and cookie crumble), toasted macadamias and pecans, dried cranberries and natural glace cherries.  You could substitute this for anything else - white chocolate, dark chocolate, crystallised ginger, pistachios, peanuts, hazelnuts, dried apricots, pears, peaches, fudge, mini marshmallows... These are lovely chewy, soft cookies and will disappear quickly!

Cranberry beetroot heart-shaped scones

My lovely wife Lu is very sad at the moment after her nan died this week.  I've been making lots of comfort food like stews and casseroles, and for my Saturday morning baking session today I made her some heart-shaped scones for breakfast in bed.  These are coloured pink with beetroot powder - I bought some in the farmer's market a while ago and haven't known quite what to do with it, but discovered using it in these scones that it's a brilliant natural food colourant.  The beetroot powder has very little taste, just a slightly sweet earthiness to the overall flavour which goes beautifully with the traditional nature of scones.  I also added dried cranberries which have a lovely sweet tartness and bright red colour.  Finally, I added a little of the beetroot powder to whipped double cream, which gave it a lovely pale pink colour and a slight sweetness.

Mini egg rocky road

I love the excuse of Easter to gorge on chocolate.  This recipe is easy and indulgent - lots of chocolate and colourful goodies (cranberries, mini marshmallows) topped with Cadbury's mini eggs.  These were quickly devoured!

Apple, carrot, ginger and walnut bread (with optional cranberries and crumble topping!)

It's a work colleague, Tim's, last day tomorrow and the office has made him a hamper as a leaving present as he's a bit of a foodie. I was asked to make a cake for the hamper that would be a bit 'unusual' so came up with this - a version of carrot cake but with fresh ginger, grated apple and walnut. Unfortunately I have to give it wrapped up whole, so won't get a chance to taste it - but it looks and smells so good I'll definitely be making this again!
                                                                                                                                                                  

Ahem... I am officially a greedy guts.  I was so disappointed not to have tried tasting this, that the next day I came home from work and made another one! Never able to resist 'tweaking' a recipe, this time I added a crumble topping... and some cranberries. (Told you I can't resist). I've amended the recipe with these 'optional' extras (but I recommend them - it was amazing cake!!)

White chocolate cranberry fudge

I love white chocolate and cranberries together (they make fantastic cookies) - and it makes very good-looking fudge for Christmas!