Category: Dessert

Baked bananas

Ingredients (4 people)

  • 5-6 large bananas per person
  • 50g butter
  • 50g honey
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon
  • Blueberries

Method

  1. Slice bananas length-wise and lie them in a baking dish
  2. Melt butter, honey and cinnamon in microwave
  3. Pour/spoon the melted butter/honey cinnamon mix over the bananas
  4. Sprinkle with blueberries
  5. Bake for 20 minutes
  6. Serve with cream and ice-cream

Banoffee Pie

Ingredients

  • 200g Butter, melted
  • 400g Light digestive biscuits, crushed
  • 150g Butter
  • 150g Dark brown soft sugar
  • 800g Condensed Milk
  • 3 Bananas
  • 300ml double cream for whipping
  • Chocolate shavings or cocoa powder, to dust

Equipment

  • 29cm loose-bottomed cake tin

Method

Make the base

Classic Banoffee Pie Step 1
Base made of 225g of digestives and 100g melted butter
  1. Put the crushed biscuits into a bowl with the melted butter. Mix it together thoroughly, then press the mixture into the base and sides of the tin.
  2. Chill for 10 minutes.
    • Has your base turned out too crumbly? Be sure to make sure it’s well chilled before you go to the next step – you can chill in the freezer if you’re short on time! 

Make the caramel

Classic Banoffee Pie
Caramel centre made from 75g of butter and 400g of condensed milk
  1. Place 75g butter and 75g sugar into a heavy based, non-stick saucepan over a low heat, stirring all the time until the sugar has dissolved.
  2. Add the condensed milk and bring to a rapid boil for about a minute, stirring all the time for a thick golden caramel.
  3. Spread the caramel over the base, cool and then chill for 1 hour.
    • If your caramel is too runny, you probably didn’t get it hot enough. The mixture needs to boil for 1 minute until it starts to thicken, but no more or it may catch and go grainy. To avoid it catching or going grainy, you should always use a heavy based, non-stick pan, keep stirring so it doesn’t catch and make sure you use a timer!

Assemble

Classic Banoffee Pie
Assemble the pieces
  1. Carefully remove the pie from the tin and place on a serving plate.
  2. Slice the bananas and place on top of the caramel, top with the softly whipped cream.
  3. For the perfect finishing touch, dust with cocoa powder or use grated chocolate to decorate the banoffee pie.
  4. Chill until ready to serve.

Chocolate Brownie Waffles

Makes 16 waffles

Ingredients

  • 4 cups unbleached flour
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 4 cups milk
  • 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1 1/3 cups semi-sweet mini chocolate morsels
  • 1 cup finely chopped walnuts/pecans

Method

  1. Combine the dry ingredients, and mix well
  2. Add the milk, eggs, and vanilla, and blend
  3. Stir in the melted butter until completely combined
  4. Fold in the chocolate morsels and nuts
  5. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes before cooking

Basic Waffles

Makes 16 waffles

Ingredients

  • 6 cups unbleached flour
  • 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 cup baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 3 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 cup + 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 4 large eggs, lightly beaten

Method

  1. Combine all ingredients, and whisk until well blended and smooth.
  2. Let batter rest for 5 minutes
  3. Pre-heat waffle maker
  4. Pour a little less than 2 cups of batter onto the centre of the lower grid; spread evenly
  5. Close the lid; when the red and green indicator turns on, the waffles are ready.

Rhubarb crumble

Ingredients

  • 10 sticks of rhubarb
  • 4 tbsp water
  • 8 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 tsp powdered ginger
  • 110g/4oz butter, softened
  • 110g/4oz demerara sugar
  • 180-200g/6-7oz flour
  • double cream (to serve)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
  2. Cut the rhubarb into 7.5cm/3in long sticks and place on an oven tray, sprinkle with the water and caster sugar and roast in the oven for 10 minutes.
  3. Once cooked, remove from the oven, sprinkle over the ginger and mix well.
  4. Fill an ovenproof dish about 4cm deep with the rhubarb.
  5. Rub the butter into the flour and sugar to make the crumble toppping. Sprinkle over the rhubarb and bake in the oven.
  6. Remove and allow to cool slightly before serving with double cream.

Christmas Pudding Ice-Cream

Ingredients

  • christmas pudding
  • vanilla ice cream.

Method

  1. The ratio is about 4 parts ice cream to one part christmas pudding. Maybe 5 parts if people are unsure about it.
  2. Pudding into the food processor first.
  3. Quick whizz to break it up. Not mush!
  4. Break ice cream in around the bowl evenly and blend til just mixed. Refreeze.
  5. Take it out a good 5 mins before you want to use it.

Pears poached in red wine

  • 250ml red wine
  • 110g caster sugar
  • 2 pears
  • Greek-style yoghurt to serve

Preparation method

  1. Peel and quarter the pears
  2. Place them in a saucepan, ideally sized so that they all fit on one level, covering as much of the bottom of the pot as possible
  3. Sprinkle 2-3 teaspoons of sugar over the pears
  4. Add red wine – not so much that they are covered – maybe 1-2 cms deep.
  5. Poach the pears gently for at least 20 minutes or longer if time allows, until the pears are soft.
  6. To serve, reduce the poaching liquor until slightly thickened to form a sauce. Spoon the sauce into a serving bowl.

Serve with Greek-style yoghurt

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

This is a fantastic unbaked cheesecake.
To be honest, it’s a bit boring to make because it’s so easy, but on the plus side … it’s so easy!

Ingredients

Base

  • 250g Digestive biscuits (finely crushed)
  • 100g (6tbsp) butter (melted)
  • 3tsp cocoa powder

Cheesecake layer

  • 750g full-fat cream cheese
  • 250g low fat cream cheese
  • 200g icing sugar
  • 1 orange
  • 200g dark chocolate (melted)
  • 2tbsp brandy

Method

Simple instructions

  1. For the base, mix all the base bits together in a bowl, then put them in the cake tin.
  2. Repeat for the cheese-cake layer.
  3. Put it in the fridge for four hours.

Detailed instructions

Base

  1. Finely crush the digestive biscuits. A good way of doing this is in a blender. If you have a slicing tool then that can be a good starting point to get all the biscuits into quite small pieces. Then use a mixing blade to get them much finer.
  2. Melt the butter in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl. Remember to cover the bowl to avoid splatters. It will take about 30-45 seconds.
  3. Mix with the crushed biscuits in a large bowl.
  4. Add the cocoa
  5. When it is all mixed, pour the breadcrumb base into a ~22cm cake tin. Use a rubber spatula or a large spoon to push the crumbs down firmly to make a smooth flat base. It should no longer look like crumbs but like a single flat chocolatey disk. Use the spatula to clean out the bowl thoroughly.

Filling

  1. Using the same bowl that you just used for the base, which should no longer have more than one or two crumbs in it, but may have buttery cocoa around the sides …
  2. Add all four tubs of cream cheese. Notice that we’re using 3 full-fat and one low fat. Using only low-fat makes the cake too runny, and if you use 4 full-fat it is a bit too solid. 75% full-fat seems to be the right mix, but you could also try 50/50.
  3. Add the icing sugar
  4. Melt the chocolate. Melting this in the microwave doesn’t really work that well – Google it if you’re interested in why. A better method is to break the choc into small pieces (single lumps) into a small bowl that fits inside a saucepan. Add some water to the saucepan, then put your small choc bowl in. i.e. the small bowl of choc is having a bath in the saucepan of water. Now you can melt the choc on the stove.
  5. Add the chocolate to the cheese and icing sugar.
  6. Clean the skin of your orange to remove any nasty chemicals, then use a zesting grater to take the outer 1mm of skin from your orange. Add that zest to your bowl. Taste a tiny bit – it’s super orange-y, but not sweet. Kind of odd!
  7. We need the juice of half your orange. Only use half the orange for juice because too much juice will make it difficult for the cake to set.
  8. [optional] Add two caps of brandy
  9. Mix it all together using an electric whisk. If you haven’t got one you can use a spoon, but you’ll need strong arms!
  10. Use your rubber spatula to pour all of the filling into the cake tin. It will likely just be a big pile in the middle and won’t be smooth. You can settle it down by jiggling the cake tin.
  11. Cover it in cling film then put it in the fridge for 2 hours.