Get new recipes in your inbox
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.
Ciambella, Italian breakfast lemon cake shaped like a doughnut, with an occasional berry, is the Roman way to meet the day. With a cappuccino and a smile.
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!
Japanese milk bread rolls made with tangzhong: a starter cooked like roux, with flour and milk. The roux, or tangzhong, is then mixed with the rest of more ordinary ingredients; proved, shaped and baked in rolls or loaves, whose heel, incidentally, is made into panko.
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.
Joululimppu, Finnish Christmas bread with rye flour, buttermilk, aniseed flavours and treacle – quite an unusual and wonderful Christmas bake. It means just that: ‘Christmas bread’.
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).
Discover the rich history and versatility of kibbeh pie, a traditional Middle Eastern comfort food loved by many, and try out a tasty recipe for yourself!
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.
Festive Krantz cake with chocolate and walnut filling - quite unusual. No idea what its name means and no, it’s not the same as Kranz – creamy ‘crown’ cake. I found my recipe in ‘Baking with Passion’ by Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington.
Kubaneh, Yemeni Jewish bread traditionally baked slowly overnight, is the original croissant except with none of the hassle and lots of fun in the making.
Lavash, Middle Eastern flatbread often served with dips or kebabs, is easy to make and cooked on the hob in a frying pan with a little ghee.
Lazy bread: no kneading, no shaping but still a good flavour. It’s a good option when you’re feeling particularly lazy, that’s why I called it lazy bread.
Lebkuchen - soft, honeyed cookies, similar to gingerbreads. Lebkuchen are of German provenance, invented by Franciscan monks in the 13th century.
Lemon and almond teacakes from Ottolenghi are really mini ring cakes or individual doughnut cakes but so delicious you can call them anything you like, it won’t matter.
Lemon and blueberry flapjacks, easy to make and much healthier than off-the-shelf bars, naturally flavoured with lemon juice and zest, with freeze-dried blueberries.
Andalusia, lemon and chocolate torte is the ultimate chocolate experience. A challenging, but possible to replicate Parisian confection from La Maison Du Chocolat.
Lemon and poppy seed biscuits, zesty and crunchy and not too sweet, are super easy to make without rolling out the dough. And most importantly, they are perfectly dunkable.
Lemon drizzle cake with poppy seeds. The kind of cake that can make you hum when eating it. It’s the one-slice-is-never-enough cake. It’s the how-come-there’s-none-left? kind of cake. And it’s easy, easy-peasy, even my nephew could whip it up.
Lemon whoopie pies with vanilla buttercream – the classic whoopie pies invented in New England, remade in old England with a recipe from an Aussie. Those cookies travel, eh?
Lemon butter cake, soft and spongy, made with condensed milk and flavoured with lemon zest. I love this recipe: it calls for 125g condensed milk which is about two thirds of a tin. And what with the remaining milk, you don’t want to waste it, do you? And the cake is quite nice too.
Lemon cream cheese cookies, soft and chewy, delicate and sweet, with a touch of lemon icing. Cream cheese is a wonderful baking ingredient.
Pound cake with lemon syrup drizzle and light icing glaze. This was a super-disappearing cake – only a few crumbs were left by Sunday afternoon.
Lemon polenta cake, tender and not too sweet; wonderfully crunchy on the bite. It’s gluten free, easy to whip up and it looks like a round of delicious sunshine on the plate.
Lemon ricotta cake Italian style. This is a very good baked cheesecake, not overly cheesy and not too sweet. I’ll say whack in even more lemon – it doesn’t come through that much.
Condensed milk cake with vibrant lime flavour: easy, tender and buttery like a good pound cake. You can put that tin from the back of the cupboard to good use!
Lime marble cake with lime syrup drizzle. Limes both smell and taste gorgeous. The best bit in making this cake was grating the lime zest. Well – almost the best bit. Eating it isn’t bad either.
Lime yoghurt pistachio cake with lime and rosewater syrup drizzled all over it: I swear there isn't a better cake made with yoghurt. Or lime. Or pistachios.
Linzer torte, hazelnut shortcrust tart with raspberry filling. Linzer torte is the flagship Austrian tart/pie: my grandmother was brought up near Linz so it’s close to my heart. Hazelnuts are obligatory; toasting them isn’t, so if you can get hold of ready-ground nuts, I’ll forgive you.
Lumberjack date and apple cake with caramelised coconut topping. Try as I might, I can’t trace the origin of lumberjack cake or why it is called thus.
Mouchous, traditional macarons basques, easier to make than the Parisian variety but just as delicious though presented individually and quite rustic compared to Paris macarons.
Authentic French almond macarons are very expensive, but you can make them at home. With dark chocolate ganache and lemon curd filling, they will be the most exquisite dessert you can possibly make.
Classic French madeleines, buttery and melting. The cookie is lovely – and don’t listen to the evil people who tell you it’s all right to make madeleines with whole eggs.
Malt vinegar rye bread with coriander and caraway seeds, nearly as exquisitely tasty as rye sourdough which it pretends to be, with a fraction of the toil.
Crusty and chewy French dimple rolls with whole grains and malted wheat flakes. A recently refreshed sourdough starter, malted flakes or powder, some whole grains and a dimple.
Light granary bread made with half and half malthouse (malted grain) flour and white bread flour. Basically - the bread 'with bits', it's as tasty as it's healthy.
Easy malthouse or granary loaf. This is a wonderful loaf using whole grain flour, baked in a Pullman tin but just as good in an ordinary loaf tin. Makes the best toast in the world.
Malva pudding is a South African baked dessert, traditionally served at Christmas. It’s a soft cake flavoured with apricot jam and drenched in vanilla cream sauce.
Maple and pecan sticky buns, baked upside down, flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom. It's a rich and sticky, sweet and spicy bliss, best enjoyed warm!
Maple shortbread bars with almonds and pistachios. I like nuts but pecans and walnuts are probably my least favourites so I replaced them with what I like best: almonds and pistachios.
Marshmallow brownie is a fudgy and gooey brownie from Salt & Straw ice cream makers, with marshmallow made from scratch or, more sensibly, shop-bought Marshmallow Fluff.
Marzipan buns flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom. Homemade marzipan fills these soft sweet buns baked in a muffin tin. These are perfect breakfast buns!