dessert

At the front of the house we have a bank of lavender, it smells wonderful as you brush past it, especially with a wheelie bin! I have seen recipes for lavender biscuits but have not tried them, today I rectified that. I chose a recipe from Meeester Nik it looked like the biscuits would be light and fragrant, and they were.

I followed the basic Rocky Road recipe from Nigella but changed some of the 'rocks'. I exchanged malteasers for amaretti biscuits, macadamia nuts for Brazil nuts and added crystallised ginger.

This recipe appears in Nigella's book Feast, published by Chatto & Windus.

I made Summer Pudding yesterday there's a recipe for it here . I have to say I have no shame, I cheated and bought frozen Summer fruits from Tesco only £1.29 a bag. I think they're perfect for this pudding.

Today I made the brown bread and marmalade version of the classic bread and butter pudding the recipe for it is here It's so simple but delicious! 

What a difference a day makes, yesterday I sat in the garden with Daryl chatting, drinking coffee, enjoying the warm sunshine. Today the weather is miserable, time to create some faux sunshine in the form of a lemon drizzle cake, bask in its warm lemony glow!

Lemon Drizzle Cake 

Ingredients

This recipe is great if you want to use up very ripe bananas

Oven temperature 180C (350F, Gas 4)
Grease a 20cm (8in) deep round sprung cake tin 

1. 125g/4oz of butter 
2. 185g/6oz caster sugar 
3. 2 eggs 
4. 185g/6oz self raising flour 
5. 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 
6. 3 small very ripe mashed bananas 

In a mixing bowl cream together butter and sugar. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time 

Beat in mashed bananas 

Sieve flour with bicarbonate of soda and fold into mixture 

I made this tart today it was delicious

Chocolate Ricotta Tart with Mascarpone
By Ed Baines

Ingredients:
350g ricotta
85g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 lemon, juiced with zest grated
Half an orange, juiced with zest grated
60g almonds, blanched and finely chopped
60g mixed peel, chopped
4 drops vanilla flavouring
100g dark chocolate, grated
1 pinch icing sugar, to dust
1 tbsp mascarpone

Yesterday in the garden we had two foxes, out in the day time. Obviously food is difficult to find in the snow. Then a heron landed in the garden. He helped himself to the last fish we had in the pond. Even though we live in a city we still see lots of wildlife. I'm baking some apricot Bakewell tarts today.

This is the recipe

It's snowing here today. We live on a hill and vehicles are being abandoned because they cannot negotiate the hill. All this snow calls for comfort food and my pudding of choice is:

Bread and Butter Pudding

I made this cake for Ashley's birthday. It really is the easiest carrot cake recipe. I cut-out the recipe from the Family Circle magazine in 1983. It never fails to please and it's so moist. It will keep for two weeks without the frosting if wrapped in cling film and stored in a tin.

INGREDIENTS