Pomegranate, macadamia and banana bread

Macadamias are just about my favourite kind of nuts - as creamy as white chocolate yet deliciously nutty. A perfect accompaniment to banana bread to use up the black bananas, ripe-as-you-like in our fruit bowl, which were sitting alongside two pomegranates that were beginning to look tired and a little wrinkly. I felt like they were calling out to me to bake them into something wonderful - and this was the result!

Pomegranate molasses cookies

These cookies were an experiment to try using pomegranate molasses in baking. It's got an amazing but really unusual flavour - an almost sweet and sour tang - so I added some lemon zest, spices (cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg) and sweetened it with a little cocoa and white and milk chocolate chips. 

Chocolate ginger cake with pomegranate and raspberries

Today I was invited to make the cakes for an 80th birthday party for one of my fellow board members at Butetown History and Arts Centre, held at the gallery. It was a fantastic turnout of  so many of Paddy and Gaynor's family and friends, politicians, academics, artists, and a privilege to contribute some cakes to a day full of amazing stories and reminiscences. This cake was an enormous chocolate and ginger cake, layered with whipped dark chocolate cream and fresh raspberries and topped with shiny chocolate ganache, pomegranate berries and edible gold dragees. It was nerve racking to transport but arrived in one piece, and went down a storm. Happy birthday, Paddy, who looked as dapper today as the Great Gatsby!

Pomegranate, ginger and Old Jamaica muffins

Tomorrow night we're off to an engagement party for our friends Ben and Matt. Since it's Valentine's Day next week, I thought I'd make some heart-shaped muffins using my new silicone heart muffin mould (I found a John Lewis one in a discount store for £2!).

The recipe I created used half a bar of Cadbury's Bourneville Old Jamaica rum and raisin chocolate and a couple of packs of pomegranate seeds.  (If you're using whole pomegranates, the best way to remove the seeds is to score the fruit into quarters, and pull it apart in a bowl of cold water - the seeds will sink to the bottom and the flesh will float so you can scoop it out.)  A bit of grated orange zest and some crystalised ginger minced in a mini blender, and hey presto - UNBELIEVABLY delicious Valentine's muffins!

I decorated them by dipping them into melted Bouneville plain chocolate and sprinkling them with pomegranate seeds and diced crystallized ginger.  They may just be the prettiest muffins I've ever made...

White chocolate pomegranate flapjacks

I recently bought a pack of dried pomegranate seeds in an Asian supermarket.  They were quite sharp and crunchy, so rather than using them in cupcakes or cookies, I decided to try using them in flapjacks as an alternative to raisins or nuts.  I soaked them for a while first in some pomegranate juice and sugar to bring out the full flavour and sweeten them as they'd become quite bitter (I'm sure they're really designed to be used in Moroccan tagines and savoury dishes).  I also decided to add some sugar to the butter and syrup mix to compensate for the sharpness of the pomegranate.  They came out really well - the seeds were still quite crunchy, but the whole flapjack had a lovely fruity flavour and a gooey texture from the melted white chocolate.

Apple and pomegranate Tarte Tatin

This is one of my favourite desserts and one of the easiest – I quite often make it as a mid-week pudding for after dinner on a hard day when I’m too tired and hungry for proper baking but need a cake fix!  This version adds pomegranate and cinnamon to the classic recipe.

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!

Pomegranate and white chocolate cupcakes

These little cupcakes are fruity and sweet, with pomegranate berries adding a lovely juicy crunch.  The icing is quite sweet, so you could try them without any icing and just a light sprinkle of icing sugar or a glaze made with low-sugar jam and a few pomegranate berries to decorate.

Doug the Pug was desperate to get his paws on them!