Recipe collections

Bakewell tart with a smudge of raspberry jam, soft and chewy frangipane filling, almondy crust and a cherry on top. Gorgeous textures and flavours in a classic English cake.

Banana fried with bacon makes a great breakfast. Bacon fried banana slices, seasoned with maple syrup, are best served as a breakfast sandwich filling, on toasted sourdough.

White chocolate banana blondie with chunks of brazil nut toffee. Banana blondie recipe from Dan Lepard’s Short and Sweet recipe book.

Banana bran muffins with raisins and cinnamon - perfect for breakfast. Most pastries can be frozen when baked and just cool and they will be good as fresh after an hour on the kitchen top. The only problem is they can never, ever win with the competition from a bacon butty…

Banana loaf cake with raisins. Not sure why some call it banana ‘bread’ – it’s cake all right, sweet and raisiny, and just to make double certain no one will cut a slice of it for a ham and cheese sarnie, I’ve glazed it with sticky honey and cream topping.

Banana and chocolate chip cake with olive oil, spices, molasses and dark brown sugar. Super easy recipe, no mixer needed for this banana chocolate chip cake.

Buckwheat banana fritters for delicious (and gluten free) breakfast. Smashed bananas in buckwheat pancake batter, and a drizzle of honey is a must!

Banana muffins with dried mango and pineapple chunks. This is a good cake mix – the best, the banana cake. I honestly can’t recall where the recipe comes from.

Banana and nut granola clusters, crunchy and fragrant homemade cereal for those who like it ultra-crisp. The mix bakes into one large bar to be broken up into crunchy clusters.

Banana scones made from just one overripe banana make excellent breakfast. Especially delightful toasted and buttered.

Bang bang chicken made the authentic way is poached, shredded chicken served with crunchy vegetables and a mind-blowing peanut butter sauce.

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.

Basic sourdough bread made with ‘old dough’ or pâte fermentée. This method uses a reserved chunk of dough instead of a starter and it makes for a tasty, long lasting, flavoursome new sourdough loaf.

Homemade basic tomato sauce made from scratch, and a couple of tins of good quality tomatoes. It is simple and delicious, making it no excuse to use shop-bought sauce on your pizza or pasta.

Basic white bread, a simple sandwich loaf made at home is miles better than any shop bought bread. Try it once, you’ll be converted.

Bazlama, Turkish flatbread enriched with yoghurt is not only tasty: it’s absolutely spectacular when it cooks on a hot griddle, inflating like a balloon!

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.

Beef and shiitake mushroom fried rice is the best dish you can make with the smallest piece of beef fillet or sirloin. Make sure you use fridge cold rice for any fried rice dish.

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.

Beet, horseradish and dill cured salmon, it takes only three days and the taste is unparallelled. Beetroot doesn't do much for the taste but the colour is to die for. Next - pork belly!

Beetroot bread with grated raw beetroot, flavoured with caraway and studded with sunflower seeds and an occasional raisin. A proper loaf, good for slicing, toasting and sandwiches, with spectacular colour of the crumb and excellent, moist and chewy texture.

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.

Mixed raw and cooked beetroot in tangy dressing. As all things dark red or purple, beetroot is incredibly rich in nutrients especially when eaten raw.

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!

Victorian Savoy cake, or biscuit de savoie, is the lightest butterless sponge cake. Fuller taste than angel food, more forgiving than genoise and far more sophisticated than Victoria sponge.

Crunchy biscuits with milk and white chocolate chip chunks. These chocolate chip biscuits are crispy rather than chewy, keep their shape and are excellent for dunking in coffee or tea.

Black bread flavoured with treacle and coloured with coffee. The apparently odd list of ingredients - rye, fennel seed, grated raw carrots - produces a very interesting loaf.

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!

Nigella’s black forest brownies, with sweet dried cherries soaked in kirsch or orange juice, is the brownie recipe you didn’t know you were missing.

Black forest gâteau, rich and dark chocolate base layered with pillows of cream swathing fresh, lightly roasted cherries. A luxurious idea for the next birthday or celebration bake.

Gluten free black hearted cookies with dark chocolate and brown sugar. There is an industrial quantity of chocolate in these cookies – and you can tell after just one bite.

Black rice risotto cooked Italian style, with poached pear quarters and gobbets of blue cheese, is the best way to enjoy the black or purple, ‘forbidden’ rice variety.

My take on French veal casserole, blanquette de veau a.k.a. blanket de veau in my house. With dried wild mushrooms and lots of cream, it's deliciously rich.

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.

Blood orange and olive oil cake with zest and chunks of orange in the mix. If you’d like to ice it, beat juice of half a blood orange into 80g icing sugar until smooth. Pour over the top of the cake and spread with a palette knife.

Blood orange muffins with poppy seeds and orange syrup drizzle. These muffins could well be made with ordinary oranges but for the pleasure of handling that lovely fruit, use blood. BLOOD. Not blush. Recipe courtesy Good Food Magazine.

Biscuits made with blue cheese and toasted oats. Unlike most cheese biscuits, these actually look HEALTHY. It might be because of the oats visible when you slice the pastry block – or the greenish tinge courtesy of blue cheese.

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, almond and lemon loaf cake by Ottolenghi with the sugar amount cut down a little by CuisineFiend. It’s still a masterpiece of a cake – all credit to Ottolenghi.

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!

Blueberry duck is an oven-roasted duck breast fillet with blueberry sauce, flavoured with a hint of rosemary. It's the nicest and the simplest blueberry sauce for duck.

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.