Passionfruit, lime and pistachio layer cake

Our friend Jon’s flatmate Shivaji is moving home to India this week and cooked us a fantastic Indian meal to say goodbye.  I contributed this cake to the feast – made with pistachios and passionfruit pulp in the cake batter, then iced with a mascarpone mixed with passionfruit curd, an amazing find from a recent farmer’s market.  You can buy the curd online or make your own from scratch – Nigella Lawson has a nice recipe on her website.  

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. 

Elderflower and lime cheesecakes with greengage compote

It was our second wedding anniversary on Tuesday and we went out for a lovely meal to celebrate.  For pudding, Lu ordered a deconstructed lime and elderflower cheesecake.  I wasn't such a fan of the 'deconstruction' (blobs of cheesecake mixture on a plate with a shortbread biscuit) but the combination of elderflower and lime was delicious!  It inspired me to make this for dessert this evening for dinner with our friend Kirsty.  I think it would be really lovely with gooseberries but unfortunately couldn't find any at my local greengrocer's.  Greengages are a good replacement though and compliment the elderflower beautifully.  This would also be nice with ginger biscuits in the base, but I just added some ground ginger to malted milk biscuits.

Lime muffins with kiwi, pomegranate and strawberry jam filling

I'm still using up the last of the sweet salsas from the Mexican dessert the other night - this recipe uses the microwave to make a quick and easy jam out of diced kiwi fruit, strawberries and pomegranate.  It takes a while to cool down so you need to make it at least an hour before the muffins to give the jam time to cool.  And make sure you use a really big bowl in the microwave as the jam bubbles up really high!

Passion fruit, lime and ginger cheesecake

Always a winner - but remember to make it the night before so that it's properly set...