Christmas Chocolate Cherry Marzipan Bonbons

Mrs Ribeye and I absolutely adore Xmas and manage to go over-the-top at even the merest sight of a Coca Cola advert, a shop window covered in spray snow, or an opportunity to do a seasonal excursion.

This year, we went to the Harry Potter Christmas tour of the Warner Bros studios in Leavesden; we visited the German market on the Southbank to eat bratwurst and drink mulled things; we just got back from a one-and-a-day Xmas shopping trip weekend to France; our 6 foot cloth Santa advent calendar has been almost bled dry of its innards; there is eggnog in our fridge; and today I am making marzipan sweets - sickly sweet (just like us).

Marzipan is one of those love it/hate it things. Mrs Ribeye can take it or leave it , but then she just loves to be different to everyone else. I, myself, love it with a passion. I bought a huge block of it six months ago and it has sat in my cupboard (it keeps well) ready to use for days like TODAY! Christmas Eve! Yessss!

Very simple to do, homemade sweets of any description are fun to make, but these ones are particularly rewarding. Just tear off chunks of marzipan in clean, wetted hands and roll them to make perfect spheres - then stuff them with whatever you like before dipping them in melted chocolate. I chose glace cherries, but you could use jam or nothing at all. In fact, if I could be bothered I would have made them all different. But I couldn't.

Have a wonderful Xmas and New Year! The Ribeyes are off to visit relatives scattered far and wide throughout the hemisphere and will be back in 2014. Wow that sounds futuristic! Potless is two years old now and I have loved every minute of sharing my recipes, thoughts and love with you all. Here's to more Potless over the coming years!

Makes 32 large bonbons

INGREDIENTS:

400g block of marzipan
16 glace cherries, halved
200g dark chocolate (70% coca solids)
100g milk chocolate (at least 30% coca solids)

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees. Cut the block of marzipan into 32 pieces by making 3 vertical slices and 7 horizontal slices through the block. Take each piece in wetted hands and roll to make spheres. Take a glace cherry half and poke into the centre of each sphere before closing up the hole and re-rolling. Midway through the rolling process, break your chocolate up into a bowl and leave in the oven for 15 minutes until melted. Take each marzipan sphere in thumb and forefinger and dip in the melted chocolate. Drain on a rack and repeat for all sweets. Allow to dry at room temperature for a couple of hours before wrapping in greaseproof paper.

'Victims Of Their Own Success' #4 (in a series): Crepes Suzette

No self-respecting restaurant in 1970's London would dare send out the dessert trolley without a Bunsen burner. Atop the flickering blue/yellow flame would be a pan with a mustachioed waiter in black suit and a white apron tending to the contents.

In most cases those contents would comprise of a couple of folded pancakes nestled in a sickly sweet lemon and sugar syrup, which would then be flambeed with a healthy dose of Grand Marnier or Cointreau. With a hearty 'Voila!', the dish would be presented to the diner, suitably impressed and silently grateful that he still possesses eyebrows.

What has become of tableside culinary theatre, at one time a staple of fine dining establishments, and now consigned to the waste bin of bourgeois restaurant life, along with finger bowls and After Eight mints?

I blame Benihana, and carvery-style pubs, and the 'Mongolian barbecue' - all of them a triumph of staff pissing-about with your food, when all you really want is to be served in a non-interactive, silent and efficient manner. But with the Crepes Suzette, there really is no other way to serve it than in full view of the customer. How else are you going to insist that the dish is anything more than warm pancakes in marmalade?

I'm only joking, this 1970's classic is nothing less than delicious. I made it this weekend at Mrs Ribeye Sr.'s house (me old mum, of course) and the results were spectacular. Soft pancakes in a sharp yet sweet syrup, with backnotes of liqueur and the added bonus of a light show as it is prepared. Who can resist its not-so-subtle charms?

I say 'Bring back the Suzette!'. Of course, this will mean bringing back dessert trollies and immaculate waiters (no bad thing), but it also may mean the return of the waiters' fake French accent and Freddie Mercury moustache (a very bad thing).

Cost wise, these pancakes would probably have set you back a shilling or two in the old days. Or even 'a farthing and sixpence, two guineas and a crown', or something like that. Today, £1 per serving in new money is all.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

100g caster sugar
50ml lemon juice
4 pre-made crepe-style pancakes (you can make your own, but for this dish it makes no difference, so why bother?)
50ml Grand Marnier or Cointreau

In a medium-hot pan, melt the sugar and lemon juice until you have a smooth syrup. Fold the pancakes into quarters and turn the packages in the syrup until well-coated. Add the liqueur and flambee either with a match or by dropping the edge of the pan so that the contents are exposed to the hob flame. Let the flames subside, and serve the dish straight away, by spooning the syrup over the pancakes.

Instant Pear Sorbet

Ernest Glaces in La Rochelle makes the best ice cream in the world. Forget Italian 'gelato' or Pinkberry frozen yoghurt (NOT ice cream, whatever they may say) or other fancy concoctions, go to La Rochelle and tell Ernest that Reggie sent you. I will be reviewing Ernest properly in a later post.

So at Ernest's ice cream-a-porium, I ordered my favourite combination - pear sorbet and chocolate fudge ice cream in an attempt to recreate a 1970s dessert favourite of mine: Poires belle Helene - and it was like eating heaven. So, this weekend I thought I would attempt to re-live a holiday culinary treat and buy the same from an ice cream parlour in the UK. But...

Pear sorbet is surprisingly impossible to find in London.

I tried everywhere (except possibly Fortnum's or Harrods - but then I'm not really in the '£10 per tub' ice cream market), but had to use lateral thinking to come up with this dish in as short a time frame as possible. After all, I wanted to eat it NOW!!!

So an instant homemade miracle it had to be. Just check out the non-huge list of ingredients for this fantastic dessert. I really don't think you can call this a recipe - more of a technique to be used when you can't buy the flavour of sorbet you want from your local supermarket. Due to the huge success of this treat, I just bought a tin of mango pulp in syrup to add to my own range of flavours. I'll let you know how it goes.

I didn't bother to make the chocolate fudge ice cream - Ben and Jerry helped me out with that.

Cost-wise, a tin of pears at my local Waitrose is 69p, so the whole recipe is £1.38, which means less than 13p per serving. So at 2 Euros a boule in La Rochelle, I reckon Ernest Glaces is raking it in.

Makes 10-12 servings

INGREDIENTS:

2 x 400g tins of pear halves in syrup

Freeze the tins until hard, then remove the contents by opening both ends of the tin and using a wooden spoon to prod the pears through into a strong bowl. Using a hand blender, blend the pears until smooth and transfer to a freezer-proof container. You can serve the sorbet immediately (which will be fairly soft but still slushily frozen), or freeze until hard and then remove the sorbet from the freezer 20-30 minutes before serving to allow to soften slightly. 

Individual Peach and Caramel Pavlovas

Dinner at our friends Ophelia and Kumar was a blast last night.

Mrs Ribeye mentioned that she had read in the newspaper earlier in the day that 'Fifty Shades of Grey', the mummy-porn novel by British author E.L. James, was the first book to outsell Harry Potter. 'Why?' asked Kumar absolutely ingenuously, 'Does it have goblins in it?'

Brilliant.

Kumar actually cooked for us for the first time ever, and he made us a traditional Pakistani spicy beef stew called Nihari. I have asked him for the recipe so that I can recreate it at home. It was incredible - once he emails me the recipe, I'll post my version on Potless.

After last night's dinner, with the inevitable five million drinks to accompany it, Mrs Ribeye and I had a restorative day in bed today with the Sunday Times, 'Come Dine With Me' on More 4, and some comfort food. After eating some chicken soup, I asked the wife what she fancied for dessert. 'Pavlova, please' was the reply.

I find this answer both ridiculous and utterly adorable. Firstly, how am I supposed to rustle up something that complicated in a few minutes? Secondly, it is adorable that my missus, without any hint of irony, expected me to deliver it without any hesitation. I love her for that.

She was absolutely correct, of course - I had a sumptuous pavlova on a plate ready for her to eat within four minutes. There was no way that I could have eaten one myself, so the challenge had the added dimension of me having to create this complex dish for one person. And not only did I manage it, but Mrs Ribeye told me that: 'This is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth'. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Of course, there is a knack to being able to deliver this miracle: Prepared store cupboard ingredients. I had a tin of condensed milk caramel in the larder, alongside a carton of meringue nests. The remnants of a tub of double cream happened to be in the fridge from a dinner we had had with our friend Natalia mid-week, and the peaches were in the fruit bowl. If I had had berries or pineapple or cherries instead, then the recipe would have a different name - but in this instance the peaches were an inspired lucky non-choice. Mrs Ribeye loved how their subtle sharpness cut the richness of the dessert, saving the dish from becoming too sickly-sweet. I would definitely make this dish again for a dinner party next time, but I would actually make the meringues from scratch instead. But for a night-in emergency pudding, this is very hard to beat.

This recipe has the added bonus of being very cheap to make. £1.50 per very generous serving.

Serves 1

INGREDIENTS:

2 meringue nests (home-made, if you can be bothered)
4 tablespoons of double cream, plus a little extra for garnish
2 tablespoons of tinned condensed milk caramel
1 peach, stoned and finely chopped

Spoon two tablespoons of cream onto each meringue and add one tablespoon of caramel to one. Place half of the peach bits onto each meringue and place the non-caramel meringue on top of the other one to create two layers. Dot the remaining tablespoon of caramel all over the pavlova and pour a little extra cream on and around, as a garnish, to bring everything together. Serve immediately.

Mint Creme Brulee

The conversation over at Andrea and Darryl's place last night turned to cooking, and I asked why it would be unheard of that fried eggs aren't ever considered a dessert. After all, eggs are neither savoury or sweet, so why not have a fried egg atop a cake as a custardy sort of garnish?

Andrea reckoned that the art of frying something makes it savoury, which I don't think holds water, because crepes and French toast can be sweet. Darryl reckons that it's the association with an English breakfast which precludes the fried egg from ever becoming a pudding. I'm not sure about that one either - I'm going to have to come up with a recipe which includes a sweet version of the fried egg and see whether I can start a new trend.

Today's recipe is an eggy dessert, without a hint of a frying pan. Another friend of ours, Ophelia, made us a mint creme brulee a few weeks ago, when we went to her and her fiance (soon to be husband, on April 18th, eek!) Kumar's place for dinner, and I'm not sure I want to eat this classic dessert any other way now.

Creme brulee should be a light dessert with a very fine layer of a caramel crust. Don't use a traditional deep ramekin to serve them in - use a shallow dish with as much surface area as possible. You don't want to be wading through inches of custard with a tiny spot of caramel having already been greedily scoffed, which then becomes a very pleasant but distant memory, while you still have three-quarters of your brulee to finish.

Creme brulee is very cheap and easy to make. Get them made in good time and chill them way before your guests come over - that way you'll have plenty of time to think up a fried egg dessert recipe which you can serve to your friends as a joke, before the brulees are unveiled. £1 per serving, is all that these will set you back.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

500ml double cream
1 vanilla pod
100g caster sugar
6 free range egg yolks
12 fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of icing sugar, for glazing

Preheat oven to 160c. In a saucepan, heat the double cream with the vanilla pod to boiling point. Scrape the vanilla seeds into the cream and discard the pod. Whisk the sugar and egg yolks together until fluffy and then pour them into the cream, and stir vigorously to avoid lumps. Fold the chopped mint leaves into the mixture. Fill four shallow ovenproof dishes with the mixture and place in a large roasting tin. Fill the tin with water until the water level comes to halfway up the dishes and then place the tin into the oven to bake for 45 minutes. Take the tin out of the oven and allow the brulees to cool to room temperature. Sprinkle icing sugar over the surface of the brulees, and either grill or blow torch the tops until the sugar turns to caramel. Refrigerate until needed.

Apple Pie, with a Touch of Jazz

All of a sudden, from being content to buy Braeburns, Galas and even the occasional Granny Smith, I have become a member of the 'Jazz' apple cult. This new strain of apple hit the supermarket shelves a few months ago, and now they sell out almost as fast as the produce aisle racks are restocked. I've discovered that they're certainly good for eating, but what about cooking?

I wanted to make an apple pie, but after some trial and error cooking experiments, I found that the Jazz is a bit too sharp and holds its shape a bit too well, and desperately needed a softer, mellower apple to help balance it out; like a Bramley, maybe.

Flavour-wise, the Jazz apple is crisp and tangy, with a hint of citrusy sweetness, while the Bramley apple provides a blander, solid foundation that holds the pie together well. Absolutely a perfect match. The key is to microwave the Bramley apples first to redistribute their juices - otherwise you'll end with dry, mealy apple pieces surrounded by soggy pastry from the leaked moisture.

I made this pie as the dessert a couple of days ago as part of our Saturday night dinner, after having eaten a starter of Black Pudding, Bacon, Poached Egg and Avocado Salad, followed by Beef Rendang as a main course.

After eating such an eclectic array of ingredients in the first two courses, I felt that a non-challenging, easy dessert would be an appropriate end to the meal. It's weird how things turn out though, because the apple pie was every bit as complex and interesting as anything else we had already consumed. The combination of these two apple strains created a cacophany of flavours and textures normally befitting far less humble creations than the apple pie.

As you can see from the picture, I dispensed with a pie tin, opting instead to make a puff pastry envelope, which I scored in a diamond pattern, before dredging the top in sugar and cinnamon to create a crunchy caramel glaze. It looked great.

N.B. Use ready-made puff pastry sheets (life is too short to make your own), and this pie still only sets you back £1 per serving.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

2 large Bramley apples, peeled, cored and quartered
50g sultanas
2 tablespoons of demerara or caster sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
10ml lemon juice
2 Jazz apples, peeled, cored and cut into 5mm thick slices
1 x 375g puff pastry sheet
1 egg yolk, beaten
Demerara sugar and cinnamon, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 200c. In a bowl, place the Bramleys, sultanas, sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice and microwave on high power for 4 minutes. Using a fork, beat the Bramley apple mixture to a smooth sauce. Cut the puff pastry into two equal rectangles. On one rectangle, spread the Bramley apple sauce, leaving a 2cm border around the edges. Arrange the Jazz apple slices onto the sauce in an even layer. Place the other pastry rectangle on top and pinch the edges together to form a seal. Score the top with a knife, into an attractive diamond pattern, and brush the surface with the egg yolk. Scatter the remaining sugar and cinnamon over the pie and bake until the pastry has risen and is golden and crunchy (25-30 minutes approx).

Frozen Mint Julep (or Mojito, or Daiquiri, or Caipirinha, or Caipiroska...)

Last September, I went on a trip to visit friends at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. On one occasion, I was taken to a local restaurant called Crooks Corner, where a  frozen mint julep was served as a dessert. A dish of mint sorbet, liberally doused in bourbon. Incredible.

I got to thinking, as long as you make a sorbet of any kind and keep it in the freezer; any time you fancy a frozen cocktail (or dessert, as the North Carolinans do), then just cleave off a big chunk and pour over any booze you like.

If you use white rum with your mint sorbet, you have a mojito. If you use cachaca, and omit the mint from the sorbet recipe, you have a caiparinha. If you use vodka instead, you have a caipiroska. If you use a fruit-flavoured sorbet with white rum, you have a frozen fruit daiquiri. You get the idea - experiment!

All you need to do, is make a stock syrup with a 1:1 sugar to water ratio, and flavour it, to make your sorbet. It's so easy and cheap to make - only the booze will cause a signifcant dent in your wallet. If you make the frozen mint julep with Wild Turkey whiskey, as I have here, the cost is around £1 per serving.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

200g caster sugar
200ml water
Juice and finely grated zest of 2 limes or 1 lemon
Large handful of mint leaves
4 double (or treble!) shots of Wild Turkey whiskey, to serve

In a pan, over a moderate heat, dissolve the sugar in the water and lime or lemon juice and zest. Add the mint leaves and allow mixture to cool. Once cool, take out the mint leaves and place the mixture in a freezer-proof container. Freeze until there is a 1cm layer of ice on the surface. Mix the surface ice vigorously into the rest of the liquid. Replace back into the freezer and repeat one or two more times until you have a smooth sorbet. Serve with a dousing of the whiskey.

Valentine's Day Chocolate Cornflake Banoffi Pie Cake

Waitrose are doing a Valentine's Day meal-for-two offer of a starter, main course, two side dishes and a bottle of wine for £20. In the name of research, I wandered down to the Edgware Road branch to see what you get for your money, and I was more than a little disappointed. Apart from the wine (which was admittedly a lovely bottle of Spanish rose cava), the food was uninspiring and nowhere near worth the extortionate price tag.

I could have chosen from some meat pie thing, two bits of salmon with a herby butter or two wafer thin sirloin steaks; together with dull prepared vegetables, and a liver pate to start (there was no other starter choice - poor old vegetarians). Dessert was either a stodgy-looking chocolate fudge cake or a passion (haha, very topical) fruit dessert. To be honest, the price tag was immaterial - the food was just SO dull.

Having left Waitrose not feeling like I'm missing out on anything, I have decided to make Mrs Ribeye and I a feast to get the motors revving.

As Mrs Ribeye's favourite meal in the whole wide world is lasagna (she has simple tastes, bless her), I'm making my Easy Lasagna Pasta Bake as a main course, but I'm making this Chocolate Cornflake Banoffi Pie Cake for dessert. That should do the trick.

This delicious dessert comes in at £1 per serving. Enough left over to buy that Spanish rose cava - I hope Waitrose is still open.

Serves 4 (with leftovers for tomorrow)

INGREDIENTS:

100g golden syrup
100g dark chocolate
100g cornflakes
1 x 400g can of sweetened condensed milk
2 large bananas, sliced into 1cm rounds
200ml whipped cream
Cocoa powder, for dusting

Heat the golden syrup and chocolate in a microwave until amalgamated (1 minute approx). Allow to cool and mix in the cornflakes. Submerge the tin of condensed milk in a water-filled saucepan and boil for three hours, ensuring the tin is always covered with water to avoid exploding. In the meantime, spread the cornflake mixture into a loose-bottomed 20cm flan tin. Lay slices of banana evenly over the cornflake base. Allow the condensed milk toffee to cool and spread over the bananas. Top with whipped cream and dust with the cocoa. Refrigerate for an hour or two before serving.

Lemon Drizzle Fairy Cakes

6,6,6,3 is not my debit card PIN number, nor my squash club locker combination - it's my (not so) secret cake formula. You may have noticed from my Apple, Cinnamon and Sultana Cake recipe that my cake batter of choice is 6 ounces of the dry ingredients, plus three eggs. Well, in new money, 6oz is 175g; but more importantly, it is the magic measurement to create almost any flavour of cake you fancy.

Today, I fancy making fairy cakes to brighten up a dismal weekend of drizzly weather (hence, 'drizzle' cakes). You may think that fairy cakes are not a particularly 'manly' pursuit, but Mrs Ribeye will be delighted - and that's what counts.

These lemony treats could very well be made with any fruit of your choosing - just substitute the lemon zest in the batter for another fruit zest, chocolate chips, caramel chunks, fruit compote, nuts or marshmallows. The topping can be sugar frosted, melted chocolate, or a candied fruit - whatever you like really.

Cakes are always cheap to make. These little darlings come in at about 20 pence each. That's why bakers are all as rich as Croesus.

Makes 20 cakes

INGREDIENTS:

Lemon Cake Batter

175g self raising flour
175g caster sugar
175g margerine
3 eggs
Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Drizzle Topping

100g icing sugar
Juice of 2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 180c. Beat the cake batter ingredients together until light and fluffy. Transfer spoonfuls of batter to individual paper cases on a baking tray, or a muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes, until the cakes have risen and are golden on top. While the cakes are cooking, mix the drizzle topping ingredients in a bowl. Remove the cakes from the oven, and while still warm, pierce the top of the cakes with a sharp knife and pour the drizzle topping over the surface of the cakes. Allow to cool before serving.

Honey Cake with Maple Cheesecake Frosting

I love honey (strictly speaking, golden syrup) cake. I love cheesecake. I love maple syrup. Put them together, and BAAM! The best cake in the whole wide world ever.

This honey cake is really just a carrot cake recipe without the carrot, so I decided that I would add the normal cheescake frosting to see whether the slightly acidic flavour would cut the richness of the cake. But did I leave it there? No! I had to take it one step further. By adding maple syrup I think I may have defeated the whole 'acidic' purpose thing. I don't care though, because this cake is the reason why gloomy February days are now full of sunshine.

This cake is so rich, that it will feed 16 people. I use a roasting tin, instead of a cake tin because it's so big. That means that this recipe comes in at about 30 pence per serving. It will, of course, come in at about £5 per serving if you decide to eat the whole thing yourself (which I might).

Serves 16-20

INGREDIENTS:

For the honey cake

450g tin of golden syrup
1 golden syrup tin volume of water
3/4 golden syrup tin volume of sunflower oil
450g self raising flour
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
200g tub of low fat cream cheese

For the frosting

3 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of cinnamon, for dusting

Preheat oven to 160c. Heat the syrup, water and oil in a bowl in the microwave until everything has amalgamated together (1 minute approx). Allow mixture to slightly cool, and then beat in the rest of the cake ingredients to form a smotth batter. Transfer to a greaseproof paper-lined roasting pan and cook in the oven for 1 hour. While the cake is cooking, beat the cream cheese with the maple syrup and refrigerate until needed. When the cake has cooled, spread the frosting in an even layer over the top surface. Dust with the cinnamon.

Apple, Cinnamon and Sultana Cake

This is such a great 'Wow Your Friends' recipe. A simple 6,6,6,3 fairy cake batter with a spicy apple filling, which means minimum preparation for you, and maximum delight for your friends when they come round for tea on Sunday afternoon. The weather in London today may be snow, but my kitchen today is definitely warm with a delicious outlook.

Cakes always offer amazing value for money - and this one, particularly, is no exception. The whole 8-10 serving cake comes in at £3, which means less than 40 pence per serving. Put the kettle on...

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS:

175g self raising flour
175g margerine, softened
175g caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and finely sliced
75g sultanas
1 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon
1 tablespoon of demerara sugar
1 tablespoon of icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 180c. Beat the flour, margerine, caster sugar and vanilla together until the batter is light and creamy (10 minutes approx with an electric mixer). In a springform (loose-bottomed) 20cm tin, lined with baking parchment, place 5/6 (five-sixths) of the batter. In a bowl, mix the apples, sultanas, cinnamon and demerara sugar. Spread the apple mix, in an even layer, over the cake batter in the tin. Take the remaining batter and spoon it unevenly over the apple mix, leaving gaps. Bake the cake until risen and golden (1 hour approx). Wait for the cake to cool before removing from the tin. Dust with the icing sugar.

My Mum's Jewish Baked Cheesecake

This is the best cheesecake EVER. I know that everyone says that their mum is the best cook in the world - but mine actually is. It is an empirical fact. Everyone says so, alright?

My mum's cheesecake is light, fluffy, rich, moist and delicious. Make it every day (if you're not too keen on living a hugely long life).

Curd cheese is the proper ingredient to use, but sometimes hard to find. Use Philadelphia, or another high quality shop-bought cream cheese, and the effect will be almost as good, but slightly less authentic to the Russian-esque original recipe.

Desserts are cheap to make and fantastic to eat. A 'Potless' sound bite, if there ever was one. £5 for a cake that serves 10-15 people, means a maximum 50p per serving.

Serves 10-15

INGREDIENTS:

300g curd or cream cheese
150ml double cream
150ml sour cream
200g caster sugar
1 tablespoon of plain flour
3 eggs, with whites separated
Juice of 1 small lemon
100g amaretti biscuits (the hard type), crushed

Preheat oven to 180c. Whisk together the cheese, both creams, sugar, flour, lemon juice and egg yolks, until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peak stage. Fold the egg whites into the cake batter. In a 20cm round or square, foil-lined, spring form (loose-bottomed) cake tin, spoon in the crushed amaretti biscuits until you have an even 1cm layer. Spoon the cake mixture on top and smooth the surface. Place into oven and bake for 45 minutes approx. Check the cake; if still soggy in the middle, cook for a further 10 minutes, otherwise leave the cake in the oven and turn off the heat. Leave cake to cool in the oven to room temperature. Take the cheesecake out of the oven and place in the freezer for an hour, to assist in removing the foil (it is too difficult when the cake is at room temperature). Place on a platter and serve.

Apple Strudel 'Samosas'

Man oh man, do I love messing around with classic recipes. In this one, I not only ruin the traditional concept of a samosa, but also the apple strudel! What a day!

Samosas are triangular pastries normally containing savoury spicy fillings - but who says they won't make a brilliant dessert?

Not me. By loading these individual filo parcels with a traditional strudel filling, not only are these crisper than a bog-standard, family sized strudel, but they look so attractive. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.

Tomorrow: chocolate covered salt cod fritters (just kidding, honest).

Serve 2 per person, at a rock-bottom £1 per serving.

Serves 4 (8 samosas)

INGREDIENTS:

4 shop-bought filo pastry sheets
100g melted butter
3 cooking apples, peeled, cored and finely sliced
50g sultanas
4 tablespoons demerara sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons creme fraiche (for serving)

Preheat oven to 200c. Using a sharp knife and leaving the filo sheets layered togther to ensure uniformity, slice the sheets lengthwise until you have 8 long strips. Take an eighth of the apple, sultanas, sugar and cinnamon and place in a pile at the end of one strip. Brush the rest of the exposed strip with the melted butter. Take a corner of the strip and fold it over the filling until you have a neat triangle at the end of the strip. Keep folding all the way down the strip until you have created a samosa. Repeat, until you have 8 similar samosas. Place them on a large oiled baking sheet and brush with melted butter. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Place a large dollop of creme fraiche with each serving.