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).

Three-tier wedding carrot cake

I made this three-tier carrot cake for the wedding of our friends Becky and Luke. It was a really moist and flavoursome cake, given texture with a mixture of plain and wholemeal flour and ground almonds, chopped pecans and rum-soaked raisins, and spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. I topped it with a classic cream cheese icing, and decorated it with a colourful array of fruit to go with the rainbow colour theme of the wedding. 

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!

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!

Pecan pie

To go with our American cornbread and chilli today, I made another classic American dish for dessert – pecan pie.  This was delicious and lasted well for days.  In fact, I think it got better over time, as the filling solidified more.  I’ll definitely be making this again – even if I’m not so convinced by the concept of cornbread!

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!

Coffee, maple and ginger cake with maple-caramelised pecans

Today I went to visit my very pregnant friend Lucy for a cuppa and a catch up.  Her favourite cake is coffee cake, so I made this coffee cake with a twist - the flavour is intensified with fresh ginger and maple syrup, so it tastes like a gingerbread latte!  I iced it with a coffee and maple buttercream and decorated it with pecan nuts caramelised in a pan of bubbling maple syrup.

The sponge cake base is loosely based on Dan Lepard's recipe for coffee and ginger cake, but I forgot to add oil - it turned out fine though, I think because I added maple syrup and didn't include ground pistachios.  I also made it more moist by making a coffee syrup which I poured over the hot cake skewered with holes and left it to cool in the tin (inspired by Delia Smith's Austrian coffee and walnut cake, but I also added maple syrup and a little ground ginger).  Rather than Dan Lepard's lemon-cream cheese frosting or Delia's coffee mascarpone frosting, I opted for a simple buttercream flavoured with maple syrup and espresso.

Nutty ginger beer cookies

We're off to Cornwall this weekend to stay in a country house with some old friends. I decided to make some ginger nut biscuits (these contain ground almonds, walnuts and are each topped with a whole pecan) but in a moment of madness/ inspiration I added a good glug of Crabbie's alcoholic ginger beer. It worked brilliantly, adding to the light, soft texture and adding extra oomph to the gingeriness, along with chopped crystallised ginger.

BANG cake (banana, amaretto, nut and ginger)

It's fast approaching that lovely time of year when pumpkins and sparklers come out. In honour of this, I've called this a 'BANG' cake, as it's made from banana, amaretto, nuts and ginger. The cake contains ground walnuts and ground ginger, and is topped with a kind of crumble made from blitzed pecans and crystallised ginger. I'm serving this tonight for my friend Ali who is cooking me supper!

Spiced apple, rum and pecan pie

It's been a few weeks since I last posted anything here, partly because we've been away on a lovely Greek island holiday, to Symi. I have also had a couple of baking disasters since being back - a cake inspired by the holiday made with Greek yoghurt, olive oil and figs turned out just too gooey inside, and another made using a tin of mango purée tasted great but had a really rubbery texture. I was beginning to worry I'd lost my baking mojo - but then I made a fantastic chocolate sponge cake when I had an almighty hangover - I was just too hungover to remember to photograph or blog it! So here we are - I'm back with this deep dish apple pie, gently spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, full of chopped pecans and a dark rum and brown sugar filling. Baking mojo is well and truly back!

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!

Pecan, apple and cinnamon bread

Lots of American cookbooks I own talk about 'breakfast' muffins, bars and quick-breads.  I love the idea of cake being an acceptable, normal option for breakfast - rather than a guilty pleasure I sneakily enjoy when no-one's looking!  The thread running through most of these 'breakfast' recipes is the addition of porridge oats, apples, nuts - the sorts of things a healthy person might turn into muesli, but that a cake addict like me would far prefer to turn into cake!  So inspired by this idea, this morning I woke up wanting a baking fix (yesterday's cherry scones really did vanish like the joke suggests) and decided to alter my apple, carrot, ginger and walnut bread to create this recipe.  What better way to start your day?

Peach, pecan and cinnamon cookies

We're off to our friend Liz's hen party today and so I've made a couple of different cookie recipes to take along.  This one uses dried peaches that I bought at our local farmer's market recently, which gives them a lovely flavour and nice chewy bits!  Rolled in sugar, the cookies have a lovely twinkly crust.

Blueberry, pecan and cinnamon sticky buns

I've seen lots of American recipes for cinnamon rolls, which all use yeast to make a proper dough. I'm too inpatient to wait for dough to rise and so decided to try making sticky buns using just a mixture with self-raising flour - no need to leave it to rise in a warm place for hours, this can be used straight out of the mixing bowl. I added fresh blueberries and ground pecans to the traditional cinnamon filling. It was really quick and fun to make, and they turned out beautifully. Delicious with a cup of strong black coffee!

Peach, strawberry, blueberry & pecan cake

Tonight we're going for a pot luck dinner at my vegan friend Ellie and Ru's new house.  I wanted to make a vegan cake and decided to make a round cake version of my peach and pecan bread - this time with tinned peaches, which worked just as well.  We'd got a small punnet of blueberries and some strawberries in the kitchen so I added them to the mixture, and made a cinnamon icing drizzle using the tinned peach juice, lemon and apple juice.  A lovely, dairy-free way to warm a new home (and it made ours smell wonderful too)!

Pecan, rum and chocolate chunk pie

I've made this for a weekend away with old friends from uni.  What better way to spend hallowe'en than eating scrumptious pud made of rum and chocolate!  This is best served warm when the chocolate is slightly melted and deliciously gooey.

Peach and pecan bread

This is a peach version of my mango bread, with almond essence, pecan nuts and some chunks of diced peach.  I made it as a large loaf but it would be lovely in little loaf cases.  Delicious!