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Date shortbread bars, shortcrust slices sandwiched with date, cinnamon and orange filling. Good shortcrust pastry with naturally sweet filling is great for a treat.
Devil’s food cake with hazelnut praline and mascarpone cream is unbelievably good. Just the recipe for the next birthday occasion.
Dome cake made with genoise sponge filled with raspberry mousse and buttercream, for a very special occasion. You don't need a special tin - it's shaped in a bowl after baking.
Easy cherry sponge cake with fresh cherries lightly roasted; the base is gently prebaked and the end result is pure, gorgeous summer dessert.
Doughnut cake, an old fashioned Bundt cake that tastes just like a giant doughnut. It's buttery and covered in crunchy sugar coating, but healthier than oil-fried doughnuts since it's baked in the oven.
Bunettone is panettone hot cross buns, the best of Italian and English Easter traditions combined in one marvellous bake. Easter panettone, Italian hot cross buns, that's what my bunettone are.
Easy chocolate brownie, intense and fudgy but unbelievably quick to make. My best to date recipe for brownie is quite intricate, with beating eggs to a fluff and then folding and folding.
Classic shortbread biscuits sprinkled with sugar. This shortbread is made the easiest way: with melted butter, mixed with a spoon. And it's the best shortbread recipe!
Fancy making Danish pastries without the fuss of laminating dough with butter? This is a revelationary shortcut to making Danish pastry the easy way, plus recipe for homemade apple and raspberry fillings.
Easy kouign amann, butter pastry from Brittany. My recipe is a cheat’s kouign amann, easier to make and not quite as calorific as the traditional Breton pastry
Posh restaurant-style muffins with blueberries and tender, moist crumb. This is a recipe out of Professional Chef. It’s good, it’s cheffy, the muffins stay fresh several days and they are not really muffins but more cakey things that you see in fancy restaurants for petit fours.
Fig and prosciutto tart with ready-rolled puff pastry takes about five minutes to prepare and twenty to bake. A divine, seasonal lunch or starter dish, best made with gorgeous Bursa figs.
Ice cream cones made from sweetened, layered filo pastry. Deliciously easy, they can be also filled with cream, mascarpone or custard.
Financier biscuits, French mini almond cakes made with brown butter are deliciously moist, light and tender, a little like madeleines and really easy to make.
Mixed flavoured meringue kisses, mini meringues with lemon, raspberry, chocolate and pistachio flavour. The quickest, burnt sugar meringue recipe.
Flourless sponge cake with ground walnuts and a layer of apricot jam with grated dark chocolate topping: exquisite, elegant, delicious and gluten free.
Old fashioned molasses cake? Think again – this one has fresh grated ginger added for the zing, and you don’t even need an electric mixer to make it.
Fruity, nut free mince pies made from scratch: the best shortcrust pastry and delicious fruit filling. I never used to like mince pies until I made them at home. The fact is that all shop-bought pies, even the posh, fancy, Hestonised and overpriced numbers taste mainly of too much orange peel and too much booze. As much as I’m the last person to complain about too much booze, I like to keep it separate from cakes. And orange peel is usually nasty, unless you make it yourself (I don’t) or spend quite a bit more money than even Waitrose Cook’s Ingredients charge.
Fruit scones, light and fluffy, with a good raisin count are perfect for a cream tea. The secret: don't twist the cutter and don't overbake the scones.
Galette des rois, an elegant treat for the night of Epiphany, or any other time during the twelve days of Christmas. There are some lovely traditions associated with the galette: a ‘fève’ is hidden inside the cake - a tiny china figurine or an almond - and the lucky person to find it (and not choke on it) is crowned a king or queen for the carnival.
Gâteau Basque is a traditional pastry from the Basque region of France. Basque cake is a rich, buttery tart, plain or filled with cherries, prunes or pastry cream.
Gateau Breton is French butter cake, Brittany's finest. It's an enormous shortbread, a gigantic jammy dodger, the impossibly buttery double tart.
Genoise sponge cake with mascarpone and blueberry filling. The celebration gateau that is all about class, simplicity and sophistication. No wonder - genoise is after all the classic sponge recipe of the French patisserie.
Ginger cake with candied ginger pieces, jam filling and maple syrup icing. I always thought ‘gingerbread’ referred only to cookies until I saw the cranberry gingerbread cake in NYTimes Cooking.
Soft molasses and ginger cookies coated in coarse sugar are a cross between gingerbreads and ginger nut biscuits. And yes, you can substitute black treacle for molasses.
Thin and super-crunchy, spicy and melting, old fashioned ginger snaps are a snap to make! Grab that jar of stem ginger from the back of the cupboard and put the syrup to good use.
Gingerbread biscotti spiced with Christmas flavour, crunchy and dunkable, with mixed nuts and cinnamon sugar coating. Honey and spice and a festive spirit twice cooked!
St. Louis gooey butter cake made from scratch, with the best gooey buttery topping. The gooey butter is sold as breakfast pastry and there are two variants, fiercely defended by the respective factions. One: ready cake mix and a cream cheese topping sounds lovely and easy but the yeast base and buttery sugary goo on top appeals to me with the force of the original.
Gooey butter cake bars with raisins and almonds, chewy sticky topping on an Italian pasta frolla shortcrust base. Inspired by St Louis gooey butter cake!
Pink guava cake with pink buttercream frosting, made from concentrated guava juice. It looks like a six years old girl’s dream. It tastes like heaven.
Hamantaschen are Jewish pastries filled with utterly delightful poppy seed mixture. 'Haman's pockets' or oznei Haman are a traditional eaten treat for the celebration of Purim.
Hazelnut ricotta cake with apricot and chocolate glaze is smooth with a poppy crunch, like velvet dipped in glitter. It is rich but tastes light, so you‘re tempted to have another slice.
Honey and apricot brack, inspired by traditional Irish bread with raisins and currants aka barmbrack, this one is full of dried apricots, sultanas and walnut chunks.
Cinnamon honey buns glazed with butter and honey, made from sourdough. Sure enough, honey buns recipes galore out there. And the most interesting fact about them is that they seem to be much valued prison currency and I’m not using any slang here.
Honey cake with dates and apples from Nigella Lawson’s collection is not only suitable for Rosh Hashanah: it’s simply the perfect autumnal cake.
Frozen Greek yoghurt ice cream recipe with raisins and honey, low-calorie and sugar free. The best thing – you don’t need to churn it in the ice cream maker. Just scrape into a tub and enjoy it a few hours later.
Best hot cross buns ever: wholemeal, with tons of raisins, piped crosses and delicious sticky honey glaze. There’s no better spring breakfast than a buttered hot cross bun.
Learn how to make a delicious hummingbird cake, a southern classic with a tropical twist. This moist and fruity cake is easy to make and perfect for any occasion. Find out the history and variations of this popular dessert.
Hungarian flourless hazelnut torte with hazelnut buttercream, a topping of apricot jam and chocolate shavings. A riff on the famous Esterhazy cake, this one is much easier but just as delicious.
Ice cream sandwiches in choux pastry buns, with ice cream flavour of choice, homemade or your favourite brand. I first made choux pastry at the age of about 11, in my technology lesson at school.
Island buttermilk cake: no eggs, no butter, just fresh berries and the magic ingredient - buttermilk. The cake originates from Cranberry Island Bakery in Maine which sadly is no more. Huge shame as their defunct Facebook page also shows some divine whoopies.
Italian ricotta cookies, soft and tender lemon biscuits made with ricotta cheese and butter. Soft and pillowy, the icing is optional and the sprinkles even more so.
Italian yoghurt cake or torta allo yogurt, also known as torta 7 vasetti. Simple but genius: use the yoghurt pot to measure all the other ingredients.
Large supersized jam tart with easy shortcrust pastry bottom and lid, and no rolling out involved. Get that jar of your best raspberry jam into action!
Mokonuts-style jewelled cookies with chopped pistachios, dried apricots, cherries and dates. So tasty you’ll want to visit the Paris bakery instantly. Or make double the amount.
Julekake (pronounced yoo-le-kar-ka) is a traditional Norwegian Christmas bread, with Sukat (candied citrus peel) and raisins. Julekake is flavoured with cardamom and it’s best toasted, served with gjetost (brown cheese).
Karpatka, Carpathian mountain cake is a well-known Polish dessert made from layers of choux pastry with Chantilly cream filling, like a giant éclair.
Koulourakia are Greek Easter cookies, flavoured with mahlep and coiled into twisty shapes. This traditional recipe uses ammonia as raising agent and exotic mahlep spice, which can be replaced with ground cardamom and fennel seed.