Profiteroles with Chocolate Sauce

Profiteroles are one of those desserts that are a real luxury. Pastry, cream and chocolate. Where can you go wrong with that combination? Well, quite a lot of champagne won't help...

I recently moved house, and so I have a new kitchen! We had our first "dinner party" and I made these. Unfortunately by the time I came to make the chocolate sauce I was a little (very) drunk, and so it was less "sauce" and more "solid". So, take my word for it that they taste better than they look!

Ingredients (makes approx. 24)
60g plain flour
1 tsp sugar
50g butter
2 eggs, beaten
275ml (½ pint) double cream, whipped
200g dark chocolate

Sunday Roast - The Desserts

The final post in my Sunday Roast special. I made two desserts for 'afters'. I chose quick and easy desserts so that I could concentrate on the roasts.

Firstly, Stewed Rhubarb with Cream, which I served with coconut macaroons

And the second, my mum's one-pan cake. The quickest and easiest chocolate cake you can make!

Rice Pudding

I'm staying with my gran this weekend, and after a discussion about what to have for dessert we both agreed a proper, baked rice pudding would do the trick. I found a recipe on BBC GoodFood and we popped to the shop for some pudding rice.

Ingredients (to serve 2)

50g pudding rice

25g sugar
350ml whole milk

ground nutmeg

Blueberry Popovers

This recipe is both quick and easy. Popovers are basically American Yorkshire puddings. Here is a little poem I found to teach you the difference, it claims the popover came first...

Let's call Yorkshire pudding

A fortunate blunder:

It's a sort of popover

That turned and popped under. 

(Ogden Nash)

These blueberry ones are great for breakfast on the run or as a healthy dessert.

Lovely Lemon Pud

Despite owning all twelve of Jamie Oliver's cookbooks I rarely cook from them. I'm not sure why, perhaps the sheer volume of them overwhelms me. My friend Sophie made this for me a while ago and it was so tasty and didn't look overly complicated. I had a friend round for dinner so after serving up home-made pizza and home-made chips I cracked out this lemon pud!

Quick Chocolate Pudding with Custard

The farmers are rejoicing, weeks of no rain and it's finally come to the south-east of England. Being a farmer's daughter I definitely appreciate the necessity of it, however, it certainly made my commute a bit miserable, and so by the time I got home I was in the mood for some comfort food. I whipped up these puddings in less than 10 minutes and they were in the oven before I'd taken my raincoat off. They are relatively healthy as they have no butter and not much sugar, so you can enjoy them without feeling guilty. 

Strawberry & Raspberry Ginger Crunch Yoghurt

Controversially, no baking was involved in this recipe. Before you take off the 'bakes' part of my name, wait for a second - this recipe includes gingernuts, which are baked (and you could make them yourself), therefore, technically it passes. Phew! This posts comes from my friend Rowan.


A few weeks ago our lovely host Roxanne dared to let me cook her dinner. After a pleasant-but-not-exciting veggie stir fry, I wanted something a little unusual for dessert. A combination of drunken Eurovision madness and stolen health-kick ideas seemed to deliver the goods, and so Roxanne asked me to tell you about it...

Strawberry & Raspberry Ginger Crunch Yoghurt

DAY 3 - Verdict (+ Pancakes & Molten Chocolate Babycakes!)

I had friends round for dinner this evening, and far be it for me to inflict pure cake for dinner on them, so I decided to whip up some pancakes. Delia's recipe is best, you can find it here. I made 2 sauces to go with the pancakes.
The first a creamy mushroom sauce - fry a sliced onion and a crushed garlic clove in some sunflower oil, add about 75g of sliced button mushrooms, 100g soft cheese and 2 tbsp milk. Cook over a gentle heat until the mushrooms and onion are softened.
I also made a tomato-y sauce - fry a sliced red onion and a crushed garlic clove in some sunflower oil, add 1 punnet of quartered cherry tomatoes, ½ tin of peeled plum tomatoes, a tsp of brown sugar and a tbsp tomato purée. Cook gently until the cherry tomatoes have softened, and then add a handful of torn spinach leaves before serving.

Easy Egg Custard

Those who know me well know that custard is my number 1 favourite food. I will eat it with anything, in anything or on its own.

I've wanted to try making egg custards for a while, but I was under the impression they are very difficult to make. So when I saw what looked to be a simple recipe in a Nigella book I decided to give it a go. Despite internet searches I couldn't find the exact recipe, (a good reason to buy the book!) so I half remembered it and made the rest up as I went along.

Roxanne's Easy Egg Custard

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
2. Heat 225ml milk, 20g caster sugar and a couple of drops of vanilla essence until almost boiling.
3. Meanwhile crack an egg into a large bowl (big enough to have the milk poured in) and whisk.
4. When the milk is almost boiling pour onto the egg, stirring continuously.
5. Sieve the mixture into 2 greased ramekins (about 8cm diameter), and sprinkle a little nutmeg on top of each.
6. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until set. It's best to let them cool slightly before eating.

This recipe made enough for 2 ramekins.

They tasted yummy, and I was very impressed by how easy they are to make. Definitly one to add to my 'easy dessert' repertoire!