Raspberry meringue roulade: the perfect dessert recipe by Ottolenghi, with raspberries and whipped mascarpone cream filling, decorated with rose petals and pistachios. It can be made ahead and frozen.
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...
No churn raspberry ripple ice cream made in five minutes with three ingredients. Does having ice cream about three times a year justify spending three hundred quid on a Gaggia or SubZero ice cream maker, even assuming I had that cash floating about idle?
Red velvet cake frosted with a cream cheese, mascarpone and whipped cream filling. It’s an excellent cake, totally suited for a birthday, layered and all, frosted and decorated – a beauty.
Redcurrant cake, light and buttery sponge topped with fresh tart redcurrants. Redcurrants doth not only jelly maketh, but cake in summer too.
Classic rhubarb fool recipe, ready in minutes. A classic dessert, this rhubarb fool is made with rhubarb puree and whipped cream.
Rose and raspberry heart-shaped biscuits just for Valentine’s Day. Instead of a Valentine card bake a batch of these dainty cookies, tender, sweet and fragrant.
Chocolate sable biscuits with raw cocoa nibs and sea salt flakes. Meltingly tender biscuits with wonderfully crunchy cocoa nibs – these are grown-up choc chip cookies.
Sacher torte - as close as you can get to the real thing, rich in chocolate with a hint of apricot jam. This particular recipe should be trusted because it’s Austrian – from Austrian official travel site.
Schiacciata con l'uva (pronounced ‘ski-a-charter’ and meaning 'squashed'), Tuscan grape focaccia is a sweet version of the flat bread, with grapes and raisins.
Traditional English Easter biscuits, also called Sedgemoor or Somerset biscuits as they originate from the West Country. These are lovely spiced biscuits with currants and vanilla icing.
Sfogliatelle, Italian leafy pastry bites, with creamy ricotta filling. Lobster tails, as they are also known (easy to guess why), must be one of the nicest things that come out of Italy – and that’s of course a serious claim.
Classic shortbread made in the easiest way, flavoured with lemon and sprinkled with sugar. Short. Crunchy. Melty. A spray of crumbs when broken. Sugar covered.
Sicilian pistachio cookies are delicious, meltaway biscuits easily made gluten free. They are about the second best thing you can do with only egg whites, nuts and sugar. Up there with madeleines, financières, said macarons, tuiles and croquants.
The best chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting. Now what we’ve got here is a shortcut to the best birthday cake ever.
Simnel cake with icing and a marzipan layer inside. Traditional English mothering Sunday Simnel cake, a sponge rich with fruit, it is also often baked for Easter.
Skinny homemade ice cream, low calorie, full taste. I made several varieties; the fruit powder works well and you can buy it from specialist and online suppliers.
Snickerdoodles, butter cookies with cinnamon coating. Make them with kids so they roll the dough balls in sugared cinnamon like dung beetles. Also tempting to add choc chips – but then you’d turn the funky snickerdoodles into plain old choc chip cookies which would be a shame.
Sweet sourdough pull apart buns filled with jam. Impossibly sticky, and that’s before the icing. The jam puddle at the bottom of the tin. Pull apart sweet buns are a nightmare to eat but such bliss.
Baked pears with blue cheese, a great starter, dessert or a side dish. These roasted pears are spiced with cinnamon and topped with Gorgonzola.
Chocolate cake with dark chocolate topping and spider web white chocolate drizzle. The cake is so easy to make it’s embarrassing – but excellent for the kids to be engaged.
Spongata di natale, Italian honey and nut Christmas cake is like an oversized mince pie, with shortcrust pastry case and filling of dried or candied fruit, and mixed nuts.
Homemade egg white sponge fingers, aka ladyfingers or savoiardi, for your next trifle, tiramisu or chocolate mousse. Or they might just disappear on their own.
St Lucia buns, vibrant with saffron and elegantly twisted, are Swedish Christmas time bakes. Lucia Day and Lucia buns go back to the history of Lucia, an early Christian martyr.
Sticky fig upside down cake. The figs get sticky and melt into the almond layer; and if they don’t look quite as appealing as I was hoping – well, the proof of the pudding and all that.
Sticky toffee pudding - date cake with delicious toffee sauce, best served warm. Let’s face it: it’s a date cake. Easy to make, nice and slightly gooey, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with baking it, leaving it dry and eating a slice or two cold.
Stollen bites, mini treat versions of the German fruited Christmas log. I make them with pistachio marzipan and apple marmalade and they are completely irresistible.
Light Victoria sponge cake filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Airy sponge, almost-melted zesty strawberries, a pillow of cream…
Strawberry cake - or use the mix with any soft seasonal fruit. Very easy, melt-in-your-mouth cake. Once I got so pissed off with l’homme de ma vie that I ate six pieces at one go to make me feel better. It did. The bathroom scales the next morning didn’t though. The basic recipe is pretty much a simple pound cake...
Strawberry crumble cake, the easiest cake batter in the world thickly covered with fresh strawberries and finished with crunchy crumble topping. The only summer cake recipe you'll ever need.
Italian style homemade ice cream without eggs with pureed fresh strawberry swirl. It’s not always all about raspberry ripple, you know.
Strawberry yoghurt cake with fresh strawberry icing, baked in a Bundt tin. It’s tender and buttery like the best pound cake, with fragrant fresh strawberries giving it a pink tinge.
Summer berry ice cream, the easiest no eggs recipe for homemade ice cream. Yes, I know – proper ice cream involves custard. Contrary to what The Weather Man believes*, there are eggs in the best Italian gelati. You temper eggs, make custard and watch so it doesn’t come to the boil – fuss and bother.
Summer cherry cake with a hint of cinnamon and minimal effort involved. This cake mix is pathetically simple – it takes 5 minutes to prepare and always comes out well.
Swedish almond caramel cake, Toscakaka, is a lovely and easy cake to make ahead. Bake the base in advance, then add caramel topping and blast it under the grill just before serving.
Sweet puff pastry straws brushed with jam and sugar glaze, twice baked and still the easiest biscuits there are. Shop-bought or homemade puff pastry sheet makes dessert ready in less than an hour.
Date cake with tamarind paste and lemon and cardamom icing. I'm sure it would go amazingly with a caramel sauce, served warm from the oven or heated up in a microwave but it’s really good just left at the ‘cake’ stage.
Tarta de Santiago, traditional Spanish almond cake. Three basic ingredients and no electric appliances required: that’s St James’ cake, or tarta de Santiago. It’s a Galician specialty going back to Middle Ages;
Traditional panettone made on sourdough starter known as lievito madre or pasta madre in Italian. Step-by-step recipe for classic panettone with gorgeous sugar glaze.
Traditionally Simnel cake was a rich yeast cake, with marzipan layer inside and marzipan topping. This adapted Victorian recipe is made with yeast dough nad homemade marzipan.
Chewy and crispy chocolate chip cookies with white and brown sugar. These are triple choc, but you can add the chocolate chips of your choice: dark or white or milk.
Triple chocolate profiteroles, made with choux pastry filled with Chantilly and chocolate mousse, glazed with white and dark chocolate sauce.
Twice baked cake with filling of lightly roasted fresh apricots – an ingenious idea of a sponge pie, cake with baked-in filling, all-baked layer cake. And it’s as easy as it is delightful.
Mini heart shaped sponge cake for Valentine’s Day. A cute and easy Valentine Victoria sponge sandwich filled with jam and whipped cream, made with a heart shaped cookie cutter.
Vanilla chocolate cupcakes with meringue buttercream frosting. These are good though for a dinner party dessert: you dish out individual items which is neat and stops people from devouring the whole large cake in one sitting.
The best vanilla ice cream: no eggs, full fat cream and milk and real vanilla pods make totally luscious vanilla ice cream. Vanilla is really expensive at the moment but there’s no question that no extract matches up to the genuine article.
Venetian carrot cake, gluten free carrot cake with pine nuts and a handful of boozy raisins. This is a lovely cake, squidgy and wet (‘wet’ being the word I’m campaigning for to replace the hateful ‘moist’).
A very chocolate ice cream, rich and creamy, made without eggs. The challenge for me was to create as chocolatey chocolate ice cream as those chez Glacerie Lambert – and they were very chocolatey indeed.