A lemon tart is a beautifully delicate dessert. It’s not too in-your-face but can certainly hold its own. A good lemon tart should have a well-pronounced lemon flavour but it shouldn’t be so tart that it makes you wince (as did my first few attempts of this tart). The silky, buttery filling is zingy and fresh and would be perfect for a springtime evening dessert. A lightly infused basil cream brings some fragrance and playfulness that keeps people going back in for a second or third slice. For a bit of extra frill, I like to blitz some leftover basil leaves in a food processor with caster sugar and sprinkle it on top.
For this tart, you can use either forced rhubarb in the early part of the year, which is pink, tender and sweet, or the typical garden rhubarb from late spring onwards, although you may need to add a little more sugar when marinating the stems. For me, both are delicious.
In 2017, when we were visiting our daughter-in-law Liv's family in Copenhagen, Eva, her mother, made a delicious meringue torte for us, similar to the schaumtorte of my childhood, a dessert the German part of my family served at Passover, but one that I always thought was too sweet. I loved that the hazelnuts and the dark bitter chocolate of Eva's recipe cut the sweetness of the meringue. Now it is part of our Passover Seder menu, though it also works beautifully throughout the year, especially for gluten-free friends. During the pandemic, when I was in New Orleans, I substituted local pecans for hazelnuts.
This recipe offers an elegant twist on the classic pineapple upside-down cake, a dessert that’s been made and reimagined for decades. The basic concept is simple: pour cake batter over slices of fruit and flip the cake after baking to reveal a beautifully caramelized layer of fruit—in this case, pineapple.
The batter in this version is uplifted with the addition of pink peppercorns and cardamom.
Starting out, I was always so scared to try out a Yule Log recipe – they always look so intimidating! But I encourage you to give it a go. Even if it ends up looking like a mess, it’ll still taste delicious! I tried something a little different with this Yule Log and added a line of frozen chocolate cremeux. It’s totally optional but it really elevates the dessert and helps you advance your skills.
This recipe is so light, not overly sweet or heavy. It’s a real showstopper for the Christmas table – the ultimate festive dessert.
Serves 12
I love this incredibly moist pistachio cake made with a few ingredients—just pistachios, eggs, and sugar, plus some almond extract and a pinch of salt. Dorie Greenspan has a Simple Almond Cake in her cookbook, Baking Chez Moi, that my aunt has been making for years, and every time I eat it with her, I say I am going to re-create it with pistachios. I am so glad I finally did, because it’s even better than I imagined! I made my own pistachio flour by toasting the raw nuts and throwing them into a food processor. Surprisingly, almond extract really brings out the flavor of the pistachios here.
Something magical happened the day I decided to dump a container of fresh ricotta into my standard biscuit recipe. I thought I would get lumps and layers of cheese in the biscuits, but I got something better than that. The ricotta melts into the biscuit in most places and creates a fluffy crumb that I had been trying to achieve for years but never knew the secret to. These are dangerously addictive. Proceed with caution.
Ordinary meringue could be used for these nests, but they won’t be quite so firm, nor will they store so well. Meringue cuite is traditional because it holds its shape so well and is drier. Vary the fruit in these nests depending on the season.