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Norwegian apple cake, eplekake, is plenty of apple slices on sponge batter enriched with milk. This recipe is from NY Times but cross-referenced with Norway!
Oatmeal lace cookies, delicate and transparent, are thin and crisp with a wonderful butterscotch flavour. Super easy to make for an ultimate hit of sugar, make them an occasional treat.
Oatmeal raisin cookies, buttery, chewy and delicious. Made with a mix of rolled and pinhead oats which gives them a fantastic texture.
Old fashioned apple cake with brown sugar frosting. We used to have two apple trees in the garden: one eating, one cooking, fruiting every other year each, in alternative years – a perfect arrangement.
Sour cream cake with orange flavour and raw cacao nib crunch is like a sophisticated pound cake with chocolate chips.
Orange and ginger flavoured flapjack, soft and chewy, buttery and slightly sticky. Make it plain as it is, or add a handful of dried fruit or coconut flakes.
Orange and lavender quatre-quarts cake - great combination of orange and a strong unusual flavour of lavender. One of the easiest cakes to bake. Four quarters: there are only four basic ingredients and they are mixed together in equal parts.
Orange flavoured ciambella with dark chocolate glaze is Italian ring-shaped breakfast cake. This one is made without butter but with olive oil; serve it for an indulgent breakfast or for dessert.
Orange dacquoise biscuits, chewy almond cookies made with egg whites, are like a meringue that changed its mind at the last minute and turned into sponge batter.
Orange macaroon cake with dessicated coconut and orange liqueur. This is a glorious cake. Just the right moisture (wet), orange flavour fantastic (no, can’t be less), and slightly chewy on account of the coconut.
Orange and spice muffins with candied citrus peel. These smell lovely while they’re baking – orange-and-spice, Christmas-just-around-the-corner aroma.
Orange and cinnamon scone rolls are two in one: scone dough rolled up and baked like a cinnamon roll. Perfect for a breakfast treat.
Tartlets with ricotta and almond filling, topped with candied orange slices. I can’t honestly say which filling is nicer – the bonus about the ricotta one I guess that you can stick the leftovers into a buttered and floured ramekin and bake for a mini cheesecake.
Dan Lepard’s orange and walnut loaf cake with cinnamon and fresh ginger, a wonderful combination of flavours. One saucepan, a loaf tin and zest from five oranges!
King Oscar II cake is also known as Swedish almond tart. It's an almond macaron style cake filled with almond buttercream, easy to make and absolutely delightful.
Pandoro, Italian festive 'golden bread', the sweet buttery panettone's rival. Come on, Italians - just have both. I’m having both this year, although my pandoro is baked in a panettone tin - and my recipe is a somewhat hacked version of an Italian one.
Panettone - classic Italian Christmas sweet bread. Yes – it’s doable. A word of warning though: it’s a fickle, capricious beast in the truly Italian style, la donna è mobile and so is panettone.
Classic creamy panna cotta, the simple and exquisite Italian dessert. Vanilla flavoured, with whole milk and cream and only enough gelatine to keep it set, served with passion fruit puree.
Panpepato, Italian classic Christmas dessert from the province of Siena, is the ancient version of panforte di Siena, Italian biscuits packed with fruit and nuts. Panpepato is spicy, peppery and very chocolatey.
Old fashioned Yorkshire parkin is a sticky, glorious cake full of ginger and spice, treacle and golden syrup, thoroughly traditional for the Bonfire Night.
Parsnip and orange cake with cinnamon and raisins. Very similar to carrot cake though not quite as moist, it’s good enough to bake at Christmas instead of the fruit cake.
Elevate your dessert game with passion fruit cake with crunchy coconut crumble recipe. Indulge in the perfect blend of sweet and tangy flavours of passion fruit, topped with a crunchy and delicious coconut crumble. This easy-to-make cake is a showstopper for any occasion. Get the recipe now and impress your guests with this unique dessert!
Baked peach with blue cheese and cinnamon crumble. I like a savoury take on a dessert dish. You expect a roasted peach, honey and pillows of whipped cream or mascarpone and here’s blue cheese with its sharp, salty sting.
Peach pound cake is the richest, most buttery and tender crumb made with peach puree, with diced fresh peach embedded in the batter. Jerrelle Guy’s recipe from NY Times Cooking with minor tweaks.
Italian style pear tart with an easy sponge base, soft yoghurt filling and pear, cinnamon and almond topping. A cross between a pear tart and a pear cake.
Pecan Linzer bars with easy, nutty shortcrust pastry and jam filling are one of those ultimately comforting sweets: a posh version of jammy shortbread bars.
Petit beurre biscuits: the childhood throwback and a plain and simple accompaniment to a cup of tea or coffee. Easily made with a special stamp cutter.
Pistachio and chocolate chip cookies - chewy inside and crunchy around the edges. No brainer how to make them, is it? Mix the brown with the white sugar, add enough butter and just a little flour and you’re in business.
Pistachio and lime loaf cake, with apricot and honey topping. So there we have it – health in a loaf tin. Well okay – there is a bit of sugar and flour added, plus a generous amount of butter...
Pistachio lemon shortbread bars, with nutty shortcrust base and tangy lemon topping filled with more pistachios. Those New York Times recipe inspired bars or slices are easy to make, easier to eat.
Pistachio and cherry tart based on Ottolenghi’s recipe, with pistachio paste frangipane filling studded with glace cherries. It’s bliss. It’s the queen of tarts.
Soft and rich brioche base with plum and cinnamon crumble topping. It means brioche is not just for breakfast. It means turning bread into cake!
This is the best and the easiest plum cake with crumble topping. German plum cake with streusel where plums can be swapped for any other soft fruit, it's brilliant every time.
Plum crumble breakfast bars, cinnamon flavoured, reduced in sugar content, are just the thing for those whose sweet tooth is awake at breakfast time.
Poilâne corn sablé biscuits, made to the recipe from Poilâne bakery with very fine corn flour, look like little suns. Sablés are French shortbreads: sandy coloured and deliciously crunchy.
Pompe à huile, sweet olive oil brioche traditionally served in Provence, South-East France, at Christmas. With orange flavour and a strange name (‘oil pump’), it’s one of 13 Provençal Christmas desserts.
Traditional poppy seed cake in a bundt tin, made the old fashioned way, by soaking poppy seeds in milk. It's buttery and tender, dense with blue poppy seeds.
A classic pound cake with simple apricot jam glaze, made with equal amounts of sugar, eggs, flour and butter. Also known as quatres-quarts or madeira cake.
Pumpkin and cranberry pie with filling made with condensed milk and canned pumpkin purée. Homemade pie crust from scratch and a cranberry layer are the winning factors in this festive pie.
Pumpkin bread spiced with cinnamon and cloves, with walnuts and cranberries. I’ll say it very quickly: pumpkin bread is good. Very much the thing to do with this tin of puree knocking about the cupboard.
Raisin cake spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, baked in a Bundt tin. The cake is incredibly easy to make, with boiled raisins, no eggs and no milk; hence also called a wartime cake.
Raspberry and almond slice, a gorgeous buttery traybake with flaked almonds, sugar and butter topping: it’s easier to make and tastier than Bakewell!
Ottolenghi teacakes are really mini ring cakes but perfect with afternoon tea so who can argue? My version has raspberry and chocolate glaze topping.
Raspberry and lemon Battenberg cake made in a regular square cake tin, wrapped in homemade marzipan which makes it taste simply heavenly.
Sponge cake roll with cream and raspberry filling. A Swiss roll, jelly roll, or cream roll – it can be filled with buttercream, mascarpone or whipped cream plus any seasonal or frozen fruit. Truth be told, it’s lovely even rolled around good jam.
Raspberry crumble bars with oats, brown sugar and fresh berries; recipe adapted from the New York 'Baked' bakery cookbook.
Raspberry meringue roulade: the perfect dessert recipe by Ottolenghi, with raspberries and whipped mascarpone cream filling, decorated with rose petals and pistachios.
Raspberry muffers are not muffins. There’s no milk, or cream or yoghurt in the ingredients. It’s an ordinary cake mix baked in muffin tins, just for the variety. And no – they aren’t cupcakes either because no icing? No pink colouring? No little roses...