Apple and mincemeat galette

Mince pies have been filling up the supermarket shelves for the last few months and jars of ready-made mincemeat have sneakily taken their place amongst the baking ingredients ready to jump out and berate you for being completely unprepared for Christmas months in advance. If you’re one of those wonderfully organised souls you’ll have made your own batch of mincemeat several weeks ago. I, on the other hand, found myself baking with the tail-end of last year’s jars until my lovely mum kindly handed me a jar she’d made the other weekend.

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Blackberry and sloe gin puddings

Summer pudding has long been a favourite of mine and it was a staple in the dessert rotation when I was growing up. My parents were keen gardeners and Mum still grows lots of her own fruit and vegetables despite not having much time to devote to the garden. On a Sunday afternoon I would often be dispatched up the garden to pick raspberries, strawberries, tayberries and blackcurrants for one of Mum’s spectacular puddings. I always find it a sad farewell to summer when the berries come to an end. This year, inspired by a Valentine Warner recipe, I decided to extend the Summer pudding into Autumn and make the most of the wild blackberries and the remaining little bit of last year’s sloe gin. I toyed around with calling these Autumn puddings but I like it when the name of the recipes tells you a little about what’s inside, especially when there’s gin involved.

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Marmalade and chocolate chip ice cream

I’ve been wanting to make ice cream for weeks now and have finally made enough room in the freezer to warrant a batch. But when it came to it I struggled to pick from a plethora of delicious recipes. I should just declare this the summer of ice cream and make a different recipe each week. In fact,  I’m seriously tempted to take up the challenge. I don’t know how I settled on marmalade ice cream but I couldn’t wait to make it and ended up starting the process on Friday night so I could churn my ice cream the next morning and have a taste before lunch. I get very impatient when I have to wait for a taste so it’s something of an achievement that I actually waited until my ice cream was frozen! The scent of the custard as it was cooking was mouth-wateringly good and I was seriously tempted to stop the recipe right there – just think of how good a creamy, thick, orange custard would be with a slice of chocolate cake.

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Rhubarb and strawberry semifreddo

More Italian-inspired food today, this time in the form of a cool, fruity frozen dessert that’s lighter than ice cream but far more rich and creamy than sorbet. It’s also much easier to make than those other two treats – no fancy-schmancy churns needed here but I was glad to be in possession of an electric whisk, I tell you. That’s the secret of a good semifreddo – whisking in air, and lots of it. By trapping as much air as possible in whipped yolks, whites and cream you create a fluffy mousse-like confection (and a lot of washing up!) that stays smooth once frozen. Being a ‘semi’ freddo, or half cold, you need to take your dessert out of the freezer a good half hour before serving to let it start to melt (or in my case, having what we affectionately call the ‘absolute-zero freezer’, a full hour).

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Cherry tiramisù

On a recent trip to Rome we rented an apartment just outside of the historic centre and a stone’s throw away from the famed Bar Pompi, renowned for its tiramisù. The classic Italian dessert comes in a variety of sizes from dinky single-serving boxes to giant take-away slabs for dinner parties. Their excellent tiramisù also comes in all manner of flavours: there’s the classic coffee, nutella, chocolate and banana, pistachio, strawberry, forest fruits and this summer’s limited edition piña colada! I didn’t happen to see a cherry version but I’m certain it’s been done before. Inspired by the delicious Italian amarena ice cream and all the fresh cherries appearing in the shops I decided that it was time to make a tribute to Bar Pompi.

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Three citrus meringue pie

Every so often I find myself craving a particular food after reading a (non-cook) book. Joanne Harris’ Five Quarters of the Orange made me yearn for fruit tarts and cherry liqueur and Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson brought on a porridge fest. From a very early age I found recipe inspiration from literature; I remember asking my mum to let me make stone soup and trying my hardest to imagine what the Hot-Cold Goodies in Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree tasted like. I wonder how many foodies start off this way, obsessing about food before they even start school? I even used to get excited by pictures of food; I adored the idea of the Very Hungry Caterpillar munching his way through fruit, ice cream and cake.

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Apple pie with spiced brown butter crumble

Apple crumble pie was my Valentine’s gift to my husband (I’ll make an effort not to bore you with adulation but he’s awesome). He’s an excellent crumble maker and connoisseur and it’s rare that I can produce a crumble that measures up to his; he also makes a mean pie, mainly of the chicken variety. Perhaps I was setting the bar rather too high when I aimed to woo him with his signature dish? To my mind I was aiming to produce the ultimate in desserts by combining two of his three favourite puddings (there was no way I was trying to fit a cheesecake into the mix but, having said that, I’m now plotting some kind of apple crumble cheesecake). So, in order to surpass his best efforts, I knew I had to go further than just sitting a plain old crumble atop a pie crust.

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Chocolate orange tart

The orange trees in Rome were covered in fruit, I was so tempted just to reach up and pick one. But having already attracted attention by taking pictures of a tree  I don’t think stealing oranges would have done me any favours! Fortunately I picked up some lovely oranges which were on offer at the greengrocer back home and used them to make this gorgeous twist on a custard tart.

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Lime and ginger cheesecake

Every year in July we celebrate my husband’s birthday by hosting a barbecue for our friends. Come rain or shine we sit out in the garden enjoying burgers, sausages and cold beers as well as occasionally throwing Maltesers, singing stupid songs and sending toy hamsters through ‘the ring of fire’. Every year I ask my other half what kind of birthday cake he would like and every year the answer is cheesecake. We’ve seen double chocolate, dulce de leche and tiramisù versions come and go but last year’s cake seems set to stay. Inspired by a dessert he had at a Mexican restaurant well over a year and a half ago, once again the request was made for lime cheesecake with a spicy ginger crust. To lift it from the realms of delicious dessert to birthday-worthy celebration cake it is topped with a cloud of whipped cream, curls of lime zest and a cute flag I found in my favourite card shop.

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Lychee sorbet

I’m not sure I could pick a favourite fruit, there are so many delicious things out there, but if you pressed me, lychees would be a serious contender. Once I start on a bowl of the pretty, pink fruits I am wholly unable to stop until every last one is gone, until I have sticky juice running down my arms and dripping from my elbows. Such is my lychee-love, my mum and husband give me a bag of them for Christmas every year and no matter how toe-curlingly expensive they are, if they’re in stock, I buy them. So it is something of a miracle that I managed to hold off eating some long enough to blitz and freeze them into sorbet.

I was blown away by the depth of flavour in this sorbet, it’s floral and sweet with a citrus edge and a heady perfume. When not devouring it by the bowl full I’ve been mixing it with lemonade for gorgeous summer slushies. I thoroughly recommend you give it a go while the sun is still shining!

Lychee sorbet

Adapted from BBC Good Food

• 2 x 400g tins of lychees in syrup
• 30g sugar
• juice of 1 lime
• 60ml lychee liqueur (I used Soho) or vodka*

Drain the syrup from one of the tins of lychees and heat. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Pour in the syrup from the other tin and chill.

In a blender or food processor blitz the lychees with the lime juice until smooth. Stir into the chilled syrup, add the liqueur and pour into a freezer-proof tub.

After 5 hours the sorbet should be almost frozen but still slushy. Tip it into he food processor and blend until smooth. Pour back into the tub and freeze for another few hours until solid (it should stay scoopable).

Alternately, use an ice cream maker following the manufacturer’s instructions.

*The alcohol content stops the sorbet freezing solid, if you don’t want to use alcohol you could replace it with 1 egg white (see original recipe).

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