Recipe collections

Almond cake with fresh raspberries, flavoured with cinnamon and lemon zest. It’s flourless, dairy and gluten free, yet wonderfully airy and soft.

Angel food cake is light as air, fatless and egg yolk-less. Egg whites whipped to a cloud, with only a whisper of flour and no baking powder, it bakes in a special tin with a chimney, or an ungreased ring tin. Best decorated with cream and berries!

Cider braised gammon joint with apples and garlic, slowly cooked in the oven. The best cooking method for a great ham roast or sensational ham sandwiches.

Rustic apple galette with shortcrust pastry base and sliced raw apple filling. No blind baking, no precooking apples – and no soggy bottom!

German apple Kuchen with roasted apples and breadcrumb and nut topping. Kuchen, I recall, is what my Grandmother used to bake on Sundays, to be consumed, still warm, after lunch with a coffee.

Perfect apple pie with homemade pastry and apple and raisin filling. I have twisted the classic a little by making sweetened crust but if you use tart cooking apples and not a lot of sugar in the filling, it creates a nice balance.

Cheat's apple strudel with apple chunks and raisins wrapped in sweet tea bread dough. This is a cheat’s recipe. There’s no stretching and stretching and stretching and reading love letters through the dough involved.

Christmas pork, apricot and fig stuffing for turkey, duck, goose or chicken. This stuffing has a wonderful flavour, sweet with the dried fruit and spiced with nutmeg and mace. but is very easy to make.

Buttery loaf cake with dried apricot chunks and generous crumble topping; it’s a winter version of the fruit crumble cake, and all the ingredients you should have in your pantry.

Apricot frangipane tart, fresh apricots on a frangipane layer, with Italian shortcrust pastry base. There are three recipes in this one. The tart base is made from pasta frôlla, the Italian equivalent to sable or shortcrust; not really very different but less flaky and crumbly than their Anglo-French brothers

Quick and easy apricot jam with a touch of spice. Kids usually like red jams, at least I did when I was one. Strawberry, raspberry, cherry; once I was hugely let down by redcurrant which was too sour and pippy; and I didn’t quite trust black jams with the exception of blueberry.

Apricot upside-down butter cake. Just when I thought I've seen it all when it comes to cake batters, here comes this little number and what a lovely one it is. The texture is gorgeous, it's not hard to make and it keeps if you let it.

Fresh green asparagus cooked gently in butter, served with some shavings of Parmesan, is a delicious spring treat. To snap or not to snap the ends, make sure you cook them quickly and get them as local and fresh as possible.

Asparagus risotto with frico, Parmesan crisps, is my favourite recipe for spring. A good asparagus risotto is all about fresh asparagus, great flavour and hard work of stirring the pot!

Asparagus tart on puff pastry, modestly cheesy but superiorly easy to make. It’s a delightful springtime brunch or lunch dish, making the most of the short British asparagus season while it lasts.

Athens mess, or Eton mess goes to Greece: fresh blueberries and strawberries, lightly whipped cream and filo pastry brittle. You’ll never want the Eton version again!

Autumn vegetable tian, a cheesy bake of carrots, parsnips, potatoes and other root vegetables, easily made ahead.

Avocado ice cream, dairy free and vegan, made without ice cream maker. For the people who don’t like ice cream, desserts, chocolate, cake, cookies or pudding I have a real treat today: avo ice. Y

Baked fennel with tomatoes and plums: three ingredients and what a burst of flavour. It makes a good vegetarian lunch or an interesting side for meat or fish.

Baked figs with blue cheese, a drop of honey and a drizzle of balsamic can be a gorgeous starter, side dish, lunch or even a healthy dessert.

My best barbecue ideas for meat and vegetable kebabs, with marinade recipes for beef, lamb, pork and chicken. All you need is a green salad and pita bread on the side.

Beef and asparagus stir fry with beef so tender you won’t believe it’s a cheaper cut. There’s a secret to a successful beef stir fry and you’d never guess what it is.

Homemade beef burgers in Hokkaido milk buns. Burgers crown the list and I think the secret really is in that slice of gherkin that a burger should be topped with. Joking aside - good minced beef has lots of flavour and sometimes, but sometimes, it can beat an average steak for me.

Beef fillet stuffed with porcini mushroom duxelles: it's a keto Wellington or filet de boeuf sans croûte. Beef tenderloin opened up like an envelope, spread with mushroom filling and roasted beautifully pink.

Beetroot gratin, thinly sliced beets baked in garlic and dill infused cream, a gorgeous side to a fish course. No need to pre-cook the beetroot.

Beetroot leaf tart is a great way to use beetroot leaves. Never throw them away! Beet greens are nutritious and delicious, small young ones on baby beetroot can be used raw in salads.

Bigos, traditional Polish dish a.k.a. hunters’ stew, is a long-cooked, hearty pot of sauerkraut and assorted meats. Best after three days of cooking!

Caribbean Christmas black cake with rum soaked fruit and burnt sugar flavour. It is the Jamaican or Trinidad cousin of British Christmas cake and it stands tall in comparison!

Blistered green beans or sugar snap peas charred under the grill and flavoured with crispy chilli oil, that’s a quick and easy version of Sichuan dry fried beans.

Blueberry and cream sponge cake is a magnificent dessert. Blueberry Victoria sponge, with layers of lightly roasted blueberries and whipped Chantilly cream is easy to make but very impressive to serve.

Blueberry buckle cake with wholemeal flour and quinoa and oats topping. That of course refers to the way the topping buckles on top of the fruit in a wavy manner. Very descriptive. I think I’ll adopt it now, especially that the blueberry kind is the most common buckle and that is my firm favourite.

Blueberry cookies, chewy and delicious, with fresh blueberries or bilberries (wild European blueberries), easy and quick to make as there’s no need to chill the dough.

Blueberry cornmeal shortbread tart from Alison Roman, slightly tweaked, is the best pie/tart/cobbler for the summer season. No soggy bottom!

Sweet focaccia-style tea bread topped with blueberries and crumble. Ordinarily, thinking focaccia will bring to mind an image of flat, thin bread decorated sparsely with whatever, preferably savoury, preferably olives.

Frozen yogurt, blueberry flavour, with frozen or fresh blueberries, made without ice cream maker. No churn frozen yoghurt with perfectly smooth texture is made in a mini chopper or blender that will fit into your freezer.

Fragrant blueberry jam made in a small batch with a sprig of rosemary and a little balsamic vinegar is the flavour made in heaven. This will be your all-time best homemade jar of jam.

Blueberry poppy seed cake, easier to make than a pie and delicious warm or cold. It is a pie of sorts or a tart, or flan, with the filling surrounded by a golden brown crust.

Blueberry upside down polenta cake. Polenta cake batter is so nice because of its crunch. And let's be honest: since anything with blueberries is gorgeous, so is this and I shouldn't have doubted it for a second.

Braised pheasant with chestnuts, tender and flavourful, it is also the ultimate sustainable food and free range meat.

Braised pork shoulder with chillies and cumin, Mexican style flavours. Beer braised pork shoulder joint takes four hours to cook in the oven and the result is pork so tender it can be pulled or shredded.

We call it bramble crumble, you might know it as blackberry crisp. It’s a delicious dessert, put together in minutes, divine with a scoop of ice cream.

Bramble jelly, old fashioned seedless jam made from wild blackberries. Pick your brambles and get jamming – and there’s no need for special equipment.

Simple brine for juicy festive turkey, advice on roasting times and a recipe for the best gravy - that's all I want for Christmas.

Broad bean and smashed pea bruschetta with herbs, garlic and a drizzle of olive oil is a starter, lunch or appetiser to kill for. It gives a completely new meaning to beans on toast!

Broccoli and Stilton soup, easy, tasty and proper comfort food. This one is made without blender, just chunkily mashed with potato ricer.

Spiced brown apple cake with cocoa, probably the easiest apple cake recipe of the 'mix and bake' kind. It's fragrant with cinnamon and cloves, dark brown with cocoa and dotted with pale chunks of apples.

Brunsli, Swiss Christmas biscuits are incredibly easy to make, gluten free and very delicious. Brunsli, or Basel brunsli for the Swiss city where they originate from means 'little brownies'.

Crispy roasted brussels sprouts and blanched sprout tops with almonds. They need to be salted and peppered about twice as much as an amount you think sensible.