My most memorable experience of eating mango for breakfast was on a night bus in South America.

If you’ve never travelled by bus in a developing country, you’re in for an eye-opening experience. Setting aside aspects like safety (seatbelts being pretty much unheard of) and toilet stops (this being the operative word for the glamorous task of squatting behind said bus), the most vivid memory I have of my South American journeys is the arrival the indomitable food hawkers.

As any given bus wound its way through the mountains, pit stops would be made at the dusty villages which line the roads. As soon as the wheels ground to a halt, a variety of hawkers would swarm on board, shouting for attention and touting their wares. Great big bags of greasy homemade crisps, sticky tamales, salty white cheese on a stick and all the usual suspects in terms of chocolate and sweets would almost always make an appearance: the snacks of choice for the tired and weary traveller.

Given the heavy, salty nature of most of what was on offer, when a hawker appeared selling fresh fruit on one particularly arduous journey, I couldn’t resist picking out a giant, juicy mango. Rather than being served on a stick and squeezed with lime as is sometimes the case in South America, this specimen was still intact. With  a pen knife in my pocket (originally bought for the purpose of all sorts of outdoor adventure, now consigned to the slightly less life-saving role of fruit eating implement), I decided to give it a go.

My mango provided about ten minutes of sheer eating pleasure. If you’ve grown up in England where the majority of mangoes are about as tasty as a turnip, the joy of eating tropical fruit that is actually ripe is unparalleled. The mango melted in my mouth, sticky juice dribbled everywhere and I couldn’t have been happier . . . Until the bus took off for the longest leg of the journey and I realized it would be several hours before said sticky juice could be removed from my now slightly sickly sweet smelling face and fingers.

For a less rustic but equally enjoyable mango eating experience, I’d suggest this simple breakfast bowl. Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know my slight obsession with bircher muesli and I love experimenting with different grains. While oat, buckwheat, quinoa and rye flakes are all on regular rotation, I’d not tried anything of a completely different texture until this wild rice variation, and it’s a lovely new addition.

The combination of rice, coconut and mango is one that is often seen in desserts but is equally delicious for breakfast. Substitute sticky with wild rice, cut out the sugar and stir through with yoghurt and it’s actually pretty nutritious too. Wild rice is a little firmer and won’t go gloopy like your usual porridge oats or rice pudding, but I think the textures work well with creamy yoghurt and mango, crunchy nuts and the occasional pop from a pomegranate seed.

While this recipe is a little more involved and refined than that memorable mango eating experience so many years ago, it’s every bit as in touch with fresh, fruity flavour. If you’re looking for a way to inject a little sunshine into your breakfast, do give these gorgeous bowls a go. You could even let a little bit dribble down your chin for that truly authentic bus experience. If you must.

Wild Rice, Coconut & Mango Breakfast Bowls

Ingredients:

150g wild rice
400ml can coconut milk
1 cardomom pod, lightly crushed
1 star anise
2 small ripe mangoes, peeled
Zest of half a lime
300ml Greek yoghurt
Handful dessicated coconut
Handful pistachio nuts
Pomegranate seeds, to decorate

Method:

Soak the rice in cold water for at least an hour. Rinse thoroughly under cold running water then place in a pan along with the cardamom and star anise, cover with the coconut milk and 50ml water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover the pan and simmer the rice for about 35 minutes minutes or just until the kernels puff open.  Uncover, fluff with a fork and simmer an additional five minutes.  Remove from the heat, drain off any excess liquid and pick out the cardamom and star anise. Set aside to cool completely.

In a blender, blitz one of the mangoes to a purée. Chop the other mango into bite-sized pieces. Stir the mango purée and pieces into your cooled rice along with the lime zest and natural yoghurt. Divide into four small bowls or containers – at this point you can serve immediately or leave in the fridge overnight.

When ready to serve, set a small pan over a medium heat and toast your dessicated coconut flakes until lightly golden. Roughly chop the pistachios. Sprinkle the dessicated coconut, pistachios and pomegranate seeds over your wild rice bowls and serve.

About twenty miles from my parents’ house in Italy, down from the mountains in a valley where the land rolls gently under golden fields of dinner plate-sized sunflowers, there is a wonderful pizzeria. Serving simple, understated but utterly delicious pizzas, until the age of about fifteen I didn’t even know its name: the doorway lacking in any obvious signage, we simply called the restaurant after the little village in which it was located, a trip to the village and the pizzeria being pretty much one and the same.

Here the pizzas come in a limited number of options, the toppings scant additions to the main event of thin, crisp crust (which every so often erupts in a volcanic bubble of air), rich tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. Wine comes by the carafe, salad is green or mixed and dessert is a pre-packaged affair that emerges straight from the freezer. These basic accompaniments have never been cause for concern: the pizzas are what this place is all about.

While pizzerias all over London and beyond are turning their hand to authentic Italian crusts (Franco Manca I’m looking at you, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, I am not), it’s pretty hard to beat the taste of proper wood-fire ovened pizza, made and served to you by Italians, in Italy, with the sun shining down as you eat. But unless you own one of said wood fired ovens – or decide not to make pizza at home and only eat it in restaurants that do – there has to be some sort of compromise.

I’m absolutely not an expert on the subject, but I’ve been baking (and eating) pizzas for well over twenty years. As a littler loaf, I used to love making homemade pizza with my Mum and as an adult, the occasional ‘Pizza Sunday’ with Carnivorous Fiancé (eating off our laps on the sofa in front of some sort of trashy telly) is up there with one of my favourite meals.

My tips, for what they’re worth? Make a really good dough (my recipe below – a sourdough version is also good, but for simplicity a mixture of strong white and Tipo ’00′ flour is spot on), roll it properly thin, top with scant ingredients (this stops it going soggy) and bake in a hot, hot oven. My pizza stones are the best investment I ever made for a closest-you-can-get to-authentic-without-a-wood-fired-oven crust, and make sure you eat your pizza as soon as its done (just one of the many reasons that takeaway pizzas just don’t make the cut).

The pizza pictured is topped with a basic tomato sauce (tinned tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and salt), mozzarella, capers, olives and a little basil. I love the salty simplicity of this topping but adapt this endlessly to what you love.  Carnivorous Fiancé likes his with shredded chicken, chorizo and chilli (not entirely Italian but it makes him happy and looks pretty tasty too), prosciutto and a little shaved parmesan work well and a few wilted greens with an egg cracked on top are also a very good thing.

The recipe below makes enough for about six pizzas. I wouldn’t recommend trying to make pizza for more than six people at a time unless you’re happy to spend your evening manning the oven, and if you’re feeding fewer than that, the dough freezes absolutely beautifully. I’m never without a frozen batch of pizza dough on hand, enough to tide me over until our next trip to Italy at least.

Homemade Pizza Dough
(makes around 6 medium-sized pizzas)

Ingredients:

250g strong white bread flour
250g ’00′ pizza flour
6g powdered dried yeast
10g salt
330ml water
1 – 2 tbsp olive oil
Wholemeal or semolina flour, to dust

Method:

In a large bowl, combine the flours. Add the dried yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other.

Pour in the water and mix to form a sticky dough. Add the oil, mix again using your hands then tip the dough onto a clean work surface and knead until smooth and silky, about 10 minutes.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise for 1 – 2 hours, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Place a pizza stone, terracotta tile or baking tray in the oven and preheat to its highest temperature. I put mine on about 45 minutes before I want to bake my pizzas.

Dust the work surface with your wholemeal or semolina flour. Take a ball of dough, about 150g, and flatten slightly with the heel of your hand. Stretch it out into a rough circle (the less you roll the dough, the better) then place on the work surface and roll with a rolling pin until about 5mm thick and an even (ish) round.

Place the rolled pizza base on an individual square of baking parchment, from which you can easily slide it onto a tray, then onto the pizza stone. If you have a pizza peel, this will make life a lot easier.

Top the pizza with your choice of ingredients, in this instance a smear of tomato sauce, some torn mozzarella and a sprinkling of capers and olives. Transfer carefully to your hot pizza stone and bake for around 9 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the crust crisp.

Remove your pizza from the oven, drizzle with olive oil, scatter with torn basil leaves and serve.

Breakfast is possibly my favourite meal of the day. I’ve described before my love of waking up after the enforced fast of a good night’s sleep, deciding exactly what it is that I want to eat, pottering around preparing the ingredients then sitting down to start the day. Sharing breakfast with loved ones is ideal, but a solitary bowl of bircher muesli or slice of homemade toast can be just as enjoyable: a good meal setting you up for an even better day.

Recently there have been big campaigns for the latest convenience food: breakfast biscuits. For my American readers, I’m not talking about your soft, leavened quick breads (which I imagine make a rather lovely breakfast topped with jam or used to mop up eggs), but a hard, British biscuit (the kind of thing you might dunk in an afternoon cup of tea). They feel so completely soulless, not only in flavour and texture but in what they suggest about our twenty-first century society: that everything now needs to come in a packet, to be consumable on the go and filled full of sugar and syrup over any other more nutritious ingredient.

The other day, as I was eating oats and blueberries for breakfast, I had the idea that the combination might taste rather delicious as a dessert. Blueberries aren’t yet in season so I rely on a stash in the freezer: sometimes they get defrosted but are often popped straight into milk or my mouth, melting like sweet little bombs of blueberry sorbet. I wanted to bake the oats into a biscuit to contrast with smooth, zingy blueberry, but rather than going down the pernicious breakfast biscuit route (sorry, I really do dislike those things) I decided to create a proper dessert.

The result is these blueberry and oatmeal ice cream sandwiches. Blueberries appear twice in this recipe: dried then folded into the cookie dough and cooked down with a scant spoon of maple syrup before being blitzed into the most beautiful purple ice (along with thick creamy yoghurt and a little double cream). The cookies stay slightly soft so you can eat them as soon as the ice cream has softened, and the whole mouthful is at once sharp and sweet, smooth, chewy and absolutely divine.

Perhaps because of the breakfast influence, this dessert isn’t overly sweet. The cookies have just a little unrefined sugar and honey, the ice cream sweetened with just enough brown rice syrup to allow the flavour of the fruit to shine through. In fact I’ll be as brave as to suggest that they’re no less healthy than the aforementioned breakfast biscuit, and certainly lacking in any of the nasty gums, syrups and stabilizers you’ll find in anything that comes out of a packet.

I’m sure one day the multinationals will find a way to convince us that eating ice cream for breakfast is healthy. Until then, enjoy these as a simple little dessert. Or sneak one out the freezer at breakfast time, I promise not to tell . . .

Blueberry & Oatmeal Ice Cream Sandwiches

This recipe makes about 8 ice cream sandwiches. Depending on the size of your cookies, you may be left with a few leftover cookies or a little ice cream. Hopefully you’ll find that this is hardly a hardship.

Ingredients:

For the ice cream
300g blueberries (if frozen, make sure they are defrosted)
Scant tbsp maple syrup
120 ml brown rice syrup
240ml double cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
450ml Greek Yoghurt

For the cookies
50g butter
50g golden caster sugar
2 tsp runny honey
1 large free range egg
1 tsp cinnamon powder
50g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
80g porridge oats
50g dried blueberries

Method:

For the ice cream
In a medium sized saucepan, heat the blueberries and maple syrup. Cook for around ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until the blueberries are soft and mushy.

In a separate saucepan, heat the brown rice syrup and double cream over a medium heat until combined.

Put the cooked blueberries, cream mixture, vanilla extract and yoghurt in a blender and pulse until combined. Chill in the fridge overnight then churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a container and freeze until needed.

For the cookies
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar together until soft, then beat in the honey. Add the egg and cinnamon powder and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder then add the oats and dried blueberries. Add to the butter mixture.

Drop heaped dessertspoonfuls of the dough onto the prepared baking sheet (it should make around 16 medium-sized cookies) and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden. They won’t spread much, but if you’re keen on a perfectly round shape, take the cookies out after about 5 minutes and guide into a round with a teaspoon.

Remove them from the oven – the cookies should be golden but will still slightly soft to the touch. Leave the cookies to cool for a minute then transfer to a cooling rack to completely cool.

To assemble
Remove the ice cream from the freezer and allow to soften slightly, about 10 minutes. At the same time, place a large plate in the freezer to chill.

Using an ice cream scoop, place one scoop of blueberry ice cream on the underside of one cookie and top with a second cookie. Gently press down and smooth the outer edge flat with a palette knife. Place the sandwich on the plate in the freezer. Repeat until you’ve used up all your cookies. After about half an hour, when the sandwiches have frozen, wrap tightly in parchment paper.

Remove from the freezer about 10 minutes before you want to eat.

When I was a much littler loaf and unable to be left on my own in the house, I used to accompany my Mum on the weekly supermarket shop. Just small enough to sit in the seat at the front of the trolley, I found it so exciting cruising up and down the aisles, deciphering illegible words from a scrawled shopping list and begging for exotic items that we’d never normally be allowed

To keep me quiet, my Mum would often buy a baguette, rip off the end and leave me be to happily munch away. No butter, spreads or anything in the middle, I was completely content with a piece of plain bread and the simple joys of crust and crumb. While to this day I could happily munch on bread by itself, it’s usually improved by a little extra something: mopping up a glut of unctuous pasta sauce, dipped in fruity olive oil or toasted and topped with anything from anchovies to avocado.

Last week I shared a recipe for using up breadcrumbs. This week it’s a way to eat the bread itself. After successfully experimenting with rye flour in this delicious black pepper and fennel seed  loaf, I was keen to try a recipe that used a more substantial ratio of rye. Often a little intense and dense on its own, I knew I needed something to lighten the load, and this recipe involving both wholemeal, spelt and a generous scattering of seeds felt like just the job.

As a sandwich loaf, this bread is on the heavy side of good. Sliced thinly and toasted is where it really comes into its own, the density taking on a crunchy, chewy texture which provides the perfect foil for creamy avocado and delicate, smooth smoked salmon. A sprinkle of poppy and sesame seeds adds another dimension while the whole thing is lifted by a squeeze of lemon and a little chopped chilli.

Avocado on toast is one of my favourite meals in the world, a way to enjoy the very best bread with a glossy smear of nature’s rich green butter. Add a swirl or two of smoked salmon and you’re onto an absolute winner. Definitely an improvement on an unadorned crust of plain baguette.

Seeded Rye with Salmon, Sesame & Avocado 

Ingredients:

For the loaf
100g pumkpkin seeds
50g sunflower seeds
About 300ml warm water
30ml maple syrup
2 tsp fast-action yeast
25ml pumpkin oil
250g stoneground rye flour
75g wholemeal flour
75g spelt flour
1 tsp salt

To assemble (serves 2)
4 slices seeded rye bread
1 avocado, peeled and stoned
1 small chilli, deseeded and chopped
Olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper, to taste
100 – 150g smoked salmon
2 tsp sesame seeds
2 tsp poppy seeds
Coriander, picked (optional)

Method:

For the loaf
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Place the seeds on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 10 minutes before setting aside to cool. Turn the oven up to 200 degrees C.

Once the seeds are cool, set aside a small handful (to top your loaf) then put the rest in a bowl along with the water, maple syrup and yeast. Leave for a few minutes, then add the oil, flours and salt, mixing to form a firm dough You may need to add a very little more liquid.

Leave the dough for 10 minutes then lightly knead for 10 seconds. Return the dough to the mixing bowl, cover with a clean cloth and leave for 45 minutes (you don’t want to overwork the rye as it doesn’t have the same gluten structure as wheat).

Grease a large, oblong bread tin with olive oil. Shape your dough into a fat sausage roughly the same length as the tin, tuck the ends under then squash it firmly in. Brush the top with water, sprinkle on the reserved seeds then cover and leave until risen by about a quarter. You only want a slight rise here; any more, and the bread will crumble when it’s sliced.

Bake the loaf for 45 – 50 minutes or until the base sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from the tin, cover with a cloth and leave to cool. Wrap well in paper and leave until the next day.

To assemble (serves 2)
Pop the rye bread slices in the toaster. While the bread is toasting, use a fork to coarsely mash the avocado in a small bowl. Stir in the chilli, a glug of olive oil, squeeze of lemon juice and scrunch of black pepper.

Spread the avocado over the four slices of toast. Top with curls of smoked salmon, drizzle with a little more olive oil and sprinkle with the seeds. Garnish with a little coriander, if you like.

When it comes to using up leftover bread, classic British baking is particularly brilliant.

Of course the recycling of breadcrumbs occurs in cultures around the world, from Italian panzanella and pangrattato to Spanish migas, Japanese panko and Lebanese fattoush, but on the sweeter side of things, it seems to be our homegrown puds which really excel.

Bread and butter pudding is, perhaps, the one that’s been most widely accepted around the world, often dropping the ‘and butter’ (surely the best bit?!), while summer pudding still elicits the occasional raised eyebrow. Move into the territory of brown bread ice cream and that eyebrow shoots even higher while treacle tart is often met with an openly blank expression.

I’ve posted a couple of recipes for treacle tart before (one with a rosemary sea salt, one with almonds and another stirred into ice cream), and the response from readers outside the UK is almost always the same: ‘Isn’t that Harry Potter’s favourite dessert?’ ‘Where can I buy golden syrup?’ And ‘Breadcrumbs in a tart, really? Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to try that . . .’

Well today is your day. Whether you’re an American wondering what treacle tart really tastes like, a Brit who’s only ever eaten it in restaurants or even if you’re already a die-hard fan of this classic sticky pud, I’d love you to make this recipe. The version here lightens the breadcrumb load with a grating of fresh pear, is steeped in maple syrup and given a little more texture with the addition of crunchy, creamy nuts. It’s a sort of fruity treacle tart/pecan pie hybrid and utterly irresistible because of it.

I baked these in six individual tart cases – four for a dinner party where I’d promised to bring pudding, with two leftover for taking photographs and dessert the next day – but you could also bake it in a large deep tart tin, meaning more oozing golden filling in proportion to the buttery crust. I used sourdough breadcrumbs here but any sort will do – blitz your bread crusts and all for a lovely, rustic texture or whizz them fine for something slightly more refined.

After weeks of snow and rain it looks like the weather is finally starting to do what it should for this time of year. Before summer arrives with all its ice creams, sorbets and lovely light desserts, bake up a batch of these rib-sticking little treats, stick in your spoon and rejoice in recycling of the best possible kind.

Maple, Pear & Pecan Treacle Tarts (adapted from Jamie’s Dinners)

(makes 6 individual tarts)

Ingredients:

For the pastry
85g unsalted butter, room temperature
50g granulated sugar
1 large free range egg yolk
140g plain flour
Pinch salt

For the filling
35g butter
220ml maple syrup
50ml golden syrup
125g breadcrumbs (I used white sourdough)
1 pear, grated (you could also use an apple here)
2 handfuls of pecans, half chopped leaving the rest whole
Zest of one orange
1 scant tbsp double cream

Method:

For the pastry
Beat the butter and sugar at a low speed in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until just smooth, about one minute. Add the egg yolk and mix for 30 seconds, then add the flour and salt, mixing until the dough just comes together.

Divide the dough into six equal sized pieces and line up six individual tart tins (mine were 9cm in diameter). This is a cookie-like dough so you don’t need to roll it out – simply use the heel of your hand to press right out to the edges and up the sides of each tin. Once the dough is evenly distributed in the six tins, prick the bases with a fork and pop in the freezer for one hour.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Get your tart shells out of the freezer. Bake for 6 minutes (no need to line with beads) then give them a check. If the pastry is starting to puff up, push it back gently with a metal spatula, then continue baking for a further 8 – 10 minutes until crisp and golden. Remove from the oven (turning the oven down to 180 degrees C) and leave to cool while you make your filling.

For the filling
In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter with the maple and golden syrups. Stir in the breadcrumbs, grated pear, chopped pecans, orange zest and double cream until combined.

Take your pre-baked tart shells and spoon the mixture into each one until just about level with the top of the pastry. Place the whole pecans on top of the tart in any pattern you like.

Bake the tarts for 20 minutes or until lightly firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving with thick clotted cream or ice cream. The tarts can easily be reheated and possibly taste even better the next day as the filling relaxes into its sticky, syrupy self.

When was the last time you tried to recreate a restaurant dessert at home?

One of the joys of eating out is the complexity of the dishes on offer. I love to cook and bake but it’s not often I’ll take the time to make the numerous reductions, drizzles and sprinkles that often adorn a single plate.

In a small seaside town in Le Marche there’s a restaurant (one of my favourites in the world) where they deconstruct tiramisu into something almost unidentifiable and utterly delicious. Each element of this dessert is so intricately perfect, I’ve often wondered about the work that goes into it but never attempted to make it myself. The recipe remains elusive, placed on a pedestal and perhaps all the more enjoyable because of it.

Other restaurant desserts are a little less complex, offering inspiration in the form of unusual flavour combinations, ingredients or textures. A couple of weeks ago we visited the Michelin starred Harwood Arms to belatedly celebrate my Mum’s birthday. My dessert was delicious, but made up of surprisingly simple elements, so with blood oranges still in season (just), I decided to have a go at making it myself.

I’ve been on a bit of a coconut oil kick lately, using it successfully in this hot cross loaf and various savoury recipes. While I love the rich, buttery flavour of, well, butter, I was intrigued to see how coconut oil would work as a substitute when dairy is a dominant flavour, as is usually the case with financiers.

The original Harwood Arms dessert featured a moist, buttery almond cake, yoghurt cream, blood orange ice cream, segments and toasted flaked almonds. My version substitutes coconut oil for butter, resulting in a cake that is soft on the inside and crisp round the edges when warm, turning into something more dense and slightly chewier when cooled. The blood orange ice cream is substituted with granita (which felt like a better fit with the coconut), the sweetness balanced by a sharp yoghurt cream and the crunch of toasted nuts.

This isn’t an exact replica of that Harwood Arms dessert, but it’s a perfect example of why I love eating out and trying new things. The combination of ingredients is one I’d not necessarily have thought to try (generally opting for a simple scoop of ice cream or cream on the side of a cake) and the result is both delicious, and different enough to call it my own.

Coconut Financiers with Blood Orange Granita & Yoghurt Cream
(makes 8 large cakes – as pictured – or 12 smaller ones)

I think these little cakes are best when still slightly warm – soft in the middle and crisp round the edges. If you leave them to cool, they still taste good but take on a slightly strange – but not unpleasant – chewy texture.

Ingredients:

For the blood orange granita
300ml freshly squeezed blood orange juice
30ml brown rice syrup

For the yoghurt cream
200ml double cream
300ml natural yoghurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the coconut financiers
110g coconut oil
1 tbsp good quality honey
120g free range egg whites (about 4 eggs)
Pinch salt
100g golden caster sugar
30g flour
125g ground almonds

To serve
Flaked, toasted almonds

Method:

For the blood orange granita
In a medium saucepan, combine 25ml of the blood orange juice with the brown rice syrup and warm gently until the syrup is completely dissolved. Stir in the rest of the juice then chill in the fridge for several hours (or overnight).

Pour the mixture into a container and freeze until icy around the edges. Use a fork to break up the ice crystals then return to the freezer. Fork up the crystals every 30 minutes or so for 2 hours then your granita should be ready.

For the yoghurt cream
Whip the cream until soft peaks form, being careful not to overwhip or it will become too stiff. Fold in the yoghurt and vanilla extract then refrigerate until ready to serve.

For the coconut financiers
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. I used individual non-stick tart tins but if you don’t have any, grease a twelve hole muffin tin or line with silicone/paper cases.

Melt the coconut oil and honey together then set aside to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until slightly frothy (but nowhere near meringue stage). Sift in the sugar and flour, gently folding to combine. Add the ground almonds and fold again. Pour in the melted coconut oil mixture and stir to combine.

Divide the batter between your eight tart tins (or twelve muffin cases), tapping gently on the worksurface to flatten the tops. Bake for 5-6 minutes before turning the oven down to 200 degrees C and bake for a further 6 – 8 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the financiers in for a further 5 minutes or so to firm up then remove and allow to cool in their tins a further 5 minutes.

To serve
Place cakes on individual plates. Top with a spoonful of yoghurt cream, some icy crystals of granita and a few flaked almonds. Serve.

Amongst her many talents in life, my Mum is an excellent Easter bunny.

Discovering colourful, foil-wrapped eggs in unexpected places is an annual occurrence in the little loaf household. Despite the fact that my brother and I are adults (with our own flats and jobs and lives outside of our family home), my Mum still manages to sneak us a bounty of chocolate treats when we least expect it. In fact, the bigger the challenge, the more I think she relishes it.

Easter eggs have appeared in bathroom cabinets, unopened suitcases and, on one memorably sticky occasion, in my beach bag on holiday in Antigua. This Friday just gone, my parents came round for dinner. After they’d left I headed into the bedroom only for my eye to be caught by the shiny glint of foil from the bedside table, the bookcase and – when I shook out the covers – even tucked underneath our pillows. The Easter bunny Mummy strikes again.

Whether or not your parents and family are quite as devious when it comes the giving of eggs at Easter, I imagine the majority of you may have consumed your fair share of chocolate this weekend. Not to mention the family roasts, chocolate nests, slabs of Simnel cake and obligatory hot cross buns smothered in butter. Easter is all about indulgence, but the morning after, you might just be craving something a little lighter.

This bircher muesli is one of my favourite breakfasts at the moment. Prepared the night before, I can pop it in my bag to eat after the gym in the mornings, or enjoy it at leisure on the days when I’m at home. It can be thinned down with milk (or a dairy free alternative), thickened with yoghurt then stirred through and sprinkled with any combination of berries, nuts and seeds for juiciness and crunch.

In the winter I grate a little apple or pear into the mixture, at the moment I’m enjoying beautiful beads of ruby red pomegranate and as cold of winter fades, I’ll be introducing strawberries, peaches and more to make a colourful bowl of breakfast goodness. Greek yoghurt is my staple addition, but if you’re feeling incredibly indulgent you could stir through a spoonful of cream which will make it taste a little more like the Bircher muesli you may have eaten in restaurants.

Muesli can get a bad name for being boring, but this Bircher version is anything but. Creamy, sweet and utterly delicious, it’s the perfect way to start a wholesome, healthy week after Easter. Until you discover that hidden chocolate egg down the back of the sofa, that is.

Bircher Muesli Bowls with Nuts, Seeds & Berries
Makes 6 small bowls

If you like your bircher muesli soft and pulpy, mix the wet ingredients together the night before you want to eat it. If you prefer a little more bite, it’s fine to make it 30 minutes or so before serving. I sometimes substitute the oats with quinoa flakes or throw in a handful of rye flakes – as long as you stick with the basic ratios, this recipe really is extremely adaptable.

Ingredients:

For the muesli
240g rolled oats
425ml cloudy apple juice
100ml almond milk
1 tbsp poppy seeds

To assemble
3 tbsp natural yoghurt, plus extra for serving
Handful pumpkin seeds
Handful lightly toasted nuts (I used almonds & walnuts)
2 large handfuls fresh berries (I used blueberries & raspberries here)
Seeds from half a pomegranate
Drizzle maple syrup (optional)

Method:

In a medium sized bowl, mix together the oats, juice, milk and poppy seeds. Stir to combine then set aside.

When ready to serve, stir through 3 tbsp of yoghurt or until you achieve a consistency you like. Mix through most of the seeds and nuts, reserving a few to sprinkle on top.

Divide the mixture between 6 small bowls. Add an extra dollop of yoghurt if you like, then scatter with berries, pomegranate and the remaining nuts and seeds. Add a little drizzle of maple syrup, although if the fruit is perfectly ripe, you probably won’t need it.

Serve immediately with juice, coffee and any other favourite breakfast accompaniments.

Hot cross loaf made with wonderful, natural ingredients

Coconut is one of those ingredients I’ve never been one hundred percent sure about.

As a little girl, I can remember waiting for what seemed like forever at the local fair while my Dad and brother threw wooden balls at a row of coconuts in the attempt to win this exotic prize. Once the hairy husk was prized open and crumbly white flesh exposed, I’d try a tiny nub but soon be distracted by the other edible excitements on offer: burgers from the BBQ, bags of sweets or a stick of candy floss that melted with every messy, fuzzy mouthful.

Toasted & spread with butter, this is the perfect breakfast loaf

On holiday in Italy, alongside the peddlers of sarongs and sunglasses, friendship bracelets, beads and other seaside tat, I was always intrigued by the man who sold coconut. Muscley, suntanned and glistening with sweat, he’d carry an enormous basket of coconut in one arm and a bucket of iced water in the other, his cry of ‘Cocco, bello cocco’ audible from miles across the sand. It looked and sounded so exotic, but when push came to shove, the lure of an Italian ice cream or granita would always win out.

Butter, on the other hand, is an ingredient that I absolutely love. Salty or unadulterated, spread thick on homemade bread, creamed into cakes, crumbled into pastry or melted into nutty beurre noisette, butter brings flavour and texture, all-round richness and deliciousness to almost any dish.

Glaze the loaves with apricot jam for a sticky, shiny crust

Despite this love, I’ve finally decided to experiment with coconut oil. Buzz around this ‘superfood’ seems to have been building for the last five years and now seems to have reached an all time high with nutritionists and bloggers around the world praising its use in everything from frying fish to baking cakes. Although high in saturated fats, coconut oil burns off quicker than butter, helping boost metabolism and is said to help towards a healthy heart and a myriad of other benefits.

The recipe below is an experiment with coconut oil and my contribution to Easter baking for this year. I love hot cross buns (previous recipes here - Verison 1 and here - Version 2) but find a full batch can be a bit too much for the two of us to get through before they go stale. I know that they freeze well, but once the idea of a hot cross loaf had lodged in my mind, thickly sliced and toasted on demand, I knew it had to be made.

Surprisingly light for a wholemeal loaf, this hot cross bread is delicious toasted

I’ve adapted Paul Hollywood’s hot cross bun recipe using a list of ingredients that I hope you will fall in love with as much as I have. My loaf is 100% wholemeal, the dough enriched with coconut oil, maple syrup, almond milk and spice, kept moist with a juicy grated apple.  I appreciate that the inclusion of eggs may be annoying for anyone looking to create a completely vegan loaf, so although I haven’t actually tried it, I would think you could replace the beaten egg with a small amount of mashed banana to reasonable effect. If you try it, let me know.

If you’re a butter-loving sort of a baker, this loaf is the perfect introduction to coconut oil. If you’re already on board, it’s a great way to use any oil you’ve got going spare. In amongst the excesses of Easter, the slices of Simnel cake, towers of chocolate eggs and rich roast lamb, this lovely loaf is equally delicious but a little bit more virtuous.

Which means you can smear on that little bit more butter, of course.

Sweet, moist & full of flavour – what more could you want in an Easter loaf

Healthier Wholemeal Hot Cross Loaf (adapted from Paul Hollywood’s How to Bake)
(makes two 1lb loaves)

Ingredients:

For the dough
500g strong wholemeal bread flour
10g salt
65ml maple syrup
10g instant yeast
40g coconut oil, melted
2 medium eggs, beaten*
120ml warm almond milk
120ml cool water
230g mixed dried fruit (I used flame raisins, sultanas & apricots)
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
Juice of half an orange
1 apple, cored and grated
2 tsp cinnamon
Nutmeg, grated, to taste

For the crosses
75g plain flour
75ml water

For the glaze
50g apricot jam

Method:

For the dough
Put the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the salt and maple syrup to one side and the yeast to the other. Add the coconut oil, eggs and milk and mix together with your fingers. Add the water, bringing together to make a soft – but not soggy – dough.

Use the mixture to clean the sides of the bowl then tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead for ten minutes or so, until the dough starts to form a soft, smooth skin. This dough is fairly sticky so if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, now would be a good time to use it.

Lightly oil a bowl, pop the dough inside, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise until doubled in size. This could take as little as an hour, but two or three is fine.

In a small bowl, mix together the dried fruit, orange zest, orange juice, grated apple and spices. Once your dough is ready, tip onto a lightly floured surface, push into a large flat rectangle and scatter over the fruit mixture. Knead in until evenly incorporated then return to your bowl, cover and leave to rise for a further hour.

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees C and lightly oil two 1lb loaf tins. Tip the dough onto the work surface and press out into a large rectangle. Divide the dough into two equal sized pieces. Taking one piece, roll one third of the dough into the middle and press down. Repeat the other side and press down until you have a firm sausage shape then tuck the ends under and place in your baking tin.

Put the two tins inside a clean plastic bag and leave to prove for one hour. The dough should rise up above the edges of the tin and double in size.

For the crosses
Mix the flour and water to a thick paste. Fill a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle.

Take your loaves out from inside the plastic bag and pipe a large cross over the top of each one. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from the oven and place on a wire cooling rack.

For the glaze
Warm the apricot jam with a splash of water and brush over the tops of the loaves to glaze.

Served in thick slices, this moist loaf is delicious as both bread and toast.

Soft slices of light rye bread – perfect with cheese or smoked salmon

‘All sorrows are less with bread’ – Miguel de Cervantes.

While I’d like to accredit the infamous Spaniard with being as big a fan of baking as I am, he is, of course, referring to the importance of a full stomach to society in general, daily bread being a synonym for food. Going back tens of thousands of years, bread has been a staple of cultures around the world, playing its part in everything from riots and revolution to tea time treats and the humble packed lunch.

Poppy seeds & an egg wash create a lovely crunchy crust

But attitudes to bread are changing. No longer in need of the extra calories and carbohydrates as we sit at our desks with a more sedentary lifestyle, society is getting fat and bloated from excessive consumption of the previously popular wheat. Bread baskets are shunned, burgers served in lettuce leaves rather than buns and (often insanely sugary) cereals seem to be overtaking toast as our breakfast meal of choice.

As we try to cut excessive wheat from our diets, the food giants are plugging billions into making sure they keep up. Loaves now come smaller and lighter, enriched with strange ingredients and boasting their health-giving properties in any way possible. I’m not a fan of mass produced bread at the best of times (look at a pre-packaged loaf next time you’re in the supermarket and if – as is likely – it contains more than ten ingredients, you’ll see what I mean), but perhaps the most pernicious of all these marketing tricks is the ‘Crusts Away’ loaf, a crustless (what?!), sorry looking loaf with ‘hidden wholegrain’ for those who couldn’t possibly cope with even the tiniest taste of wholemeal flour.

Say it with flour – I gave my Mum a loaf for Mothers Day rather than flowers

While I appreciate that bread isn’t for everyone, that there are some very serious gluten allergies out there and that obesity is an issue that isn’t going away, I would argue that these sorts of mass produced loaves are simply feeding the problem rather than helping it to go away. Bread should be enjoyed in moderation, made from fewer than five ingredients (unless you’re adding spices etc) and eaten with respect, not crammed with preservatives and stashed in a sweaty plastic wrapper that will allow it to last for weeks.

Speaking of fooling people with appearances when it comes to bread, the lovely little loaf featured in this post does exactly the opposite of those hidden wholemeal loaves. Made with two thirds white flour to one third rye, the addition of coffee makes the crumb a lovely light brown, giving the appearance of a slightly more wholesome loaf than it actually is. Perhaps not something to boast about but, as I said above, a little bit of anything enjoyed in moderation should be absolutely fine.

A lovely, light loaf with none of the heaviness often associated with rye

Having said that – and yes, I’m aware that this post is full of contradictions – you may find it pretty hard to moderate your consumption of this bread. It’s beautifully soft with a shiny, golden crust, crunchy with poppy seeds and strongly spiced with both black pepper and fennel seeds. Freshly sliced it’s a dream, delicious with smoked salmon and cream cheese or other salty, smoky flavours. Toasted up it’s even more aromatic, wonderful with a smear of homemade hummus or simply spread with salty butter.

I made this loaf to give to my Mum for Mothers Day last weekend. As someone who doesn’t wear perfume or eat chocolate and who prefers the flowers growing in her own garden to anything cut or imported using unnecessary air miles, my Mum is a pretty hard person to find presents for, but I’m hoping this did the trick. As soon as she’d tasted it, she asked me for the recipe (a Dan Lepard creation which you can find on the Guardian website, here – I didn’t change a thing) and that’s the highest form of praise in my book. I hope you enjoy it as much as she did.

Poppy seeds are the finishing touch on each delicious slice

Crisp pastry, sticky jam & almond sponge

With spring just around the corner, winter doesn’t seem quite ready to relinquish its icy grip. The mornings are bright, sunshine streaming through windows and skies clear and blue. By evening, the clouds have descended, rain transforming into snowy shards, shivers and umbrellas the order of the day.

Blackberries & raspberries create little pockets of juicy fruit

In the kitchen, heavy puddings and warming pies are on their way out as the first flavours of spring inch their way in. But somewhere within this period of transition, there is still a place for heartier, more comforting food: sweet and sticky with just the slightest nod to the warmer weather to come.

Ground & flaked almonds give a lovely nutty flavour & texture

This recipe is exactly the kind of thing I feel like eating at this time of year. Fresh berries are just around the corner, so what better time to start using up the fruits from my freezer? Frozen in warmer months, raspberries and blackberries add a little ray of sunshine to this simple pastry slice, juicy pockets of fruit melting into sticky jam and soft, sweet sponge.

Replace the plum with any other jam or top with hazelnuts or pecans

Today I’m sharing the recipe for this Plum, Raspberry and Blackberry Bakewell Slice over on Poppy Loves blog. If you like crisp pastry, light, soft sponge, sticky jam and juicy fruit, head over there now and grab the recipe. Happy weekend!

The bright purples & pinks brighten up a grey British day