My sister-in-law Riette once made us a delicious South African dessert, which was very much like a steamed pudding even though it was baked in the oven. I then discovered this recipe in my Green & Black’s cookbook – another South African dish with that wonderful steamed pud texture to it, made ‘tipsy’ by the boozy syrup. I made it at Christmas as an alternative to the conventional pudding and in honour of Riette and her homeland! It’s best served with custard we think. The G&B book has its own twist (mainly just have got it into the book if you ask me – you could easily leave out the chocolate). I would never have though this kind of dish would come out of South Africa as I imagine it to be roasting hot all the time (obviously not true), but apparently they’re very into their hot dinners!

Batter:
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
240g dates, stoned (or 250g with stones), chopped
125ml/ 4fl oz boiling water
40g unsalted butter
200g granulated sugar
2 large eggs
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
25g preserved ginger, chopped
100g glace (yuk) or dried cherries – definitely dried!
40g walnuts, chopped (last time I used pecans)
50g dark chocolate, minimum 60 percent cocoa solids

Syrup:
75g granulated sugar
200ml water
salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
25g unsalted butter
60ml brandy or dark rum

Oven and 180 degrees, grease a 23cm flan or pie dish well with butter (needs to be quite deep).

Pat the bicarb over the dates and pour over the boiling water, stir and leave to cool. Cream the butter, sugar together and add the eggs, beat thoroughly. Sift together the flour, bp and salt and stir into the creamed mixture.
Add the date mixture, cherries and nuts. Spoon the mixture into the pie dish and bake for 35 minutes. Place the chocolate in the freezer. Prepare the syrup – you need to pour this over the tart as soon as you get it out of the oven. Boil all the ingredients for the syrup together for about 6 minutes until they form a syrup.
Remove the tart from the oven and prick the surface all over with a fork. Immediately pour over the syrup then grate the chocolate over the top. Delicious! Great with custard on a winter evening, or any time really.

… and a few hearts (it was close to valentines day)

I thought it was about time that Ivy and I did some proper baking together, and what better to start with than Gingerbread men – or people, to be more PC. I nearly made the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book but that involved leaving the mixture overnight – will try that another time. This is good old Mary Berry, but probably fairly basic.

Ivy had a go at rolling out her very bit of dough and helping with the cutting and adding the eyes. She possibly enjoyed eating bits of the mixture more however and dusting flour all over herself and the floor?

I don’t know how good at biscuits I am, I always end up rolling the dough too thin and I slightly over baked some of them! Oh well, they did taste great in the end, I even love them when they’ve been in the tin a while and are little soft. This recipe made a ton but perhaps that is partly because of the rolling out issue.

150g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsps ground ginger
100g Margarine (I used butter)
175g light muscovado sugar
4 tablespoons golden syrup
1 egg beaten
currants to decorate

Preheat oven to 1ª0 degrees. Lightly grease 3 baking trays
Measure flour, bicarb and ginger into a bowl, run on the marg/butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then stir on the sugar. Add the syrup an d beaten egg then mix to form a smooth dough, kneading lightly with the hands towards the end.

Divide the dough in half and roll out one half to  about 5mm thick. Cut out gingerbread men and ladies and place them on the baking traces, decorate with the currants creating eyes and mouths, buttons etc. Repeat!

Bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes until slightly darker in colour. Cool slightly on the tray then lift off on to a wire rack.

Good fun to eat too – biting off limbs and heads.

Another stupendous recipe care of Dan Lepard in the Weekend Guardian. Recipe here.

I wouldn’t call myself a scone connoisseur, but I’ve certainly been making them most of my life. I’ve always been something of a purist with scones – 98% of the time I’ll make plain scones. No sultanas or any of that stuff. Occasionally savoury ones with cheese.

But I do like ginger, I love ginger beer, and I had some crystallized ginger in the cupboard. Dan Lepard does credit this recipe (or at least one using lemonade) to Marilyn and Gary Barker’s Patchwork Teahouse, “set deep in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges”. Never been myself, but thanks to Marilyn and Gary, and thanks to Dan for passing it along, with his ginger beer variation.

They don’t use any butter – you just mix your crystallized ginger and beer with crème fraîche and egg then blend that into the flours. Easy peasy.

Made these on Friday, with my in-laws arriving. They’ve from Devon, home of the scone, but seemed very happy with this variation. And luckily, entirely unbidden, they arrived with a large pot of clotted cream, making the whole experience even more delectable.

This is another recipe from the Green & Blacks book. I’m always a little nervous about pastry and blind baking but this is a great recipe and it turned out well. The only issue was the oven temperature I think it needed to be higher than they recommend (of course all ovens vary) and so it baked for a little too long which dried the pears out a bit. I’ll know for next time though, it’s definitely one I’d make again, it looks impressive and tastes great but is less tricky than it appears.

Pastry:
250g plain flour
1 tsp salt
110g Unsalted b utter
2 large egg yolks
4-5 tbsp water

Filling:
125g unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
2 large eggs
100g dark chocolate (minimum 60 % cocoa solids)
1 dsp finely chopped preserved ginger in syrup
25g plain flour
125g ground almonds
4 just ripe pears
apricot jam to glaze

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Make the pastry – sift the flour and salt in a large bowl, cut in the butter and rub into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. In a small bowl whisk together the yolks and the cold water briefly then add to the mixture. Mix until they come together as a ball, wrap the dough in greaseproof paper and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes before rolling out to line you tin. Bake the pastry blind by covering it with greaseproof baber and filling with baking beans (dried kidney beans in my case) for about 15-20 minutes or until it’s a light golden colour. Remove the pastry and lower the heat to 160 (I may have only lowered it marginally at the stage, on reflection).

Make the filling – cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat the eggs and slowly add to the mix. Melt the chocolate over simmering water, allow to cool for a few minutes before adding to the mix with the ginger. Mix in the flour and almonds and leave to cool before spreading over the pastry base.

Halve, peel and core the pears. Slice into wedges and arrange in a fan shape on top of the chocolate mix, pressing lightly. Bake for around 30-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Brush with apricot jam while still hot.

I served it as they suggest with simple chocolate sauce – evil!
100g dark choc (as above)
125ml double or whipping cream
10g unsalted butter
Melt the chocolate with the cream in a heat-proof bowl over simmering water, stirring frequently. Once the chocolate has melted add the butter and serve warm… With everything!