Amongst the freezer-load of muffins and cupcakes we have a variety with apple and cinammon added to the basic yoghurt cake mix (with a sprinkle topping of crystallised cinnamon sugar). Good on their own for breakfast and picnics. But they also work really well as a dessert:

Fry rounds of apple in butter/brown sugar and cinnamon until cooked and caramelised. Allow to cool a little. Assemble:
vanilla creme anglaise, slice of apple, and top with an apple and cinnamon cupcake (yes, take it out of its paper first! warm through gently in the oven or microwave). Add a dusting of cinnamon icing sugar and a sprig of somthing green from the herb garden.

I’ll be serving it to the next walking group table d’hote in a couple of weeks time.

use any fruit for compote; and any spiced cake as long as it doesn’t include dried fruit

APPLE CRUMBLE

Serves 8

For the crumble topping
225g unsalted butter
175g plain flour
140g unrefined caster sugar
100g ground almonds
125g gingerbread
Pinch of salt

For the apple compote
2 vanilla pods
6 braeburn or cox’s apples
150g unsalted butter
100g sultanas
A little ground cinnamon, to taste

To make the crumble, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a gentle heat for a couple of minutes, until slightly brown. Place all the ingredients along with the melted butter into a food processor and reduce to crumbs. Cover a large baking tray with parchment paper, add the crumb mixture and place in the preheated oven. Cook for 20 minutes until golden brown and crunchy, turning the mixture halfway through cooking. Keep an eye on it, as you don’t want it to get too crunchy.

In the meantime, make the compote.

Halve the vanilla pods, scrape out the seeds and reserve. Peel, halve and core the apples, then cut them into 1cm cubes. Heat the butter in a large pan (such as a sauté pan) over a medium-low heat until golden. Sauté the apple cubes for about 2 minutes, in batches, stirring frequently. Add the sultanas and cook for a further 3 minutes or so, then stir in the vanilla seeds and cinnamon and remove from the heat.

Place the apple compote in an ovenproof dish (about 23cm sq) and bake at 200C/400F/ Gas Mark 6 for 10-15 minutes. Once the compote is cooked, sprinkle the crumble mixture over the top and serve

Serves 4

For the meringue
100g egg whites
100g caster sugar
100g icing sugar

For the mess
4 bananas
2 tbsp lime juice
200ml double cream
Seeds of 2 vanilla pods
1 tbsp kirsch
Grated zest of 4 limes

Preheat the oven to its lowest setting (110C/ 225F/Gas Mark ) and line a baking tray with parchment. Beat the egg whites until very stiff — this is important as they must stay stiff when the sugar is added. Beat in the caster sugar, then the icing sugar. Spoon the meringue mix onto a baking tray, in 12 even shapes. Cook for 4 hours, or overnight. They should be crisp all the way through, with no colour. Turn the oven off, open the door and leave the meringues inside so they cool down slowly.

Peel the bananas. Purée 2 of them with half the lime juice. Cut the other 2 bananas into 3mm-thick slices and mix with the remaining lime juice to prevent them browning. Whisk the cream until stiff — being careful not to overwhip it — and stir into the crushed or puréed banana. Then fold in the vanilla seeds and kirsch.

Break the cool meringue into large pieces, mix with the banana cream and the sliced bananas. Spoon into a bowl and grate over the lime zest before serving.

I did this christmas 2006. An advantage was I could calmly prepare it before the hoards arrived. The added marinating time (it will hang in in the fridge for up to a week) was really useful. Because when it came to eat it – I could really appreciate it as it was ready and waiting to serve.

Serves 4

1 bottle good-quality red wine
200ml crème de cassis or blackcurrant syrup
200g sugar (or 300g if not using crème de cassis)
1 cinnamon stick
6 cloves
1 star anise
20g ginger root, peeled
25g liquorice root
Zest of 1 orange, peeled in one piece (using a sharp peeler)
Zest of 1 lemon, peeled in one piece
8-10 ripe, unblemished pears

Bring the wine to the boil in a casserole big enough to hold the pears and boil for 10 minutes to drive off the acidity. Remove from the heat, then add all the other ingredients, except the pears.

Prepare the pears. Peel them, leaving the stem intact. If you are keeping them whole, remove the core so that they cook evenly all the way through. To core them, insert the tip of a peeler into the base of the pear just on the edge of the core, push into the fruit and turn the peeler around the core, cutting it out. If halving the pears, do so lengthways. Neatly cut out the root and core.

The liquid will have cooled down a little by now. Place the prepared pears side by side in the pan and top with a disc of greaseproof paper cut to the same size as the pan. Pierce a few holes in the paper and press it down slightly so that some of the poaching liquid comes through the holes: this will keep the pears submerged during cooking. If the liquid does not cover the pears, add a little water until it does.

Place the casserole back on the heat and bring to a simmer. As soon as this happens, turn down the heat and cook at a gentle simmer — just enough to form the odd bubble on the surface of the water — for 30 minutes, or until the pears are done. Test by inserting a small pointed knife into the flesh. If it goes in with little resistance, they are ready.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool. When cold, carefully transfer the fruit to a sealable container. If you have added extra water, reduce the liquid to the required consistency and taste. If it is still too thin, thicken with a little cornflour. Reserve the zest and spices for decoration, if required. Pour the liquid over the pears in their container and store in the fridge for at least a day. The pears will keep for a week in the poaching liquid. Serve hot or cold.

Lots of variations on a theme – I’ll add variations as I come across them.
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Figs in sweet Beaume de Venise muscat wine

8 fresh figs
1/2 bottle of beaumes de venise
strip of lemon zest
1 vanilla pod

stab the figs 2 or 3 times, and gently poach covered 5 – 10 mins in the simmering wine, lemon zest and vanilla pod. Use a wide frying pan that will take them in a single layer. Drain, remove lemon and vanilla, reduce liquid, pour over figs, cool.

Alternatively, cut them through into quarters, but not right the way through the core; put into baking dish with montbazillac (sweet desset wine); or rasteau, or even cassis; bake … and I serve at room temperature.

Serve with creme fraiche, creme anglaise (vanilla custart), or vanilla icecream.

Or vanilla fromage frais, or any of the varieties of not quite yoghurt/not quite cream/not quite cheese stuff that fill the dairy of shelves of french supermarkets (and range from 0% through to 33% fat content). Just add sugar and the vanilla seeds from a vanilla pod

I found this one on the BBC web site – by Rachel Allen

I’ll come back and give some news on how it works. This is for a large “tart”, whereas the one I ate was an individual sponge with a whole poached pear inside.

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Ingredients
175g/6oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
50g/2oz plain flour
100g/4oz ground almonds
1 lemon, zest only
5 free-range egg whites
175g/6oz butter, melted, plus extra butter for greasing
2 ripe pears, peeled, cored and quartered, then cut into long slices about 5mm/¼in thick
25g/1oz flaked almonds

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
2. Lightly grease the sides of a 23cm/9in tart tin with a removable bottom and place a disc of greaseproof paper on the base. If you prefer, you can serve this tart on the tart tin base,
in which case do not use a disc of paper.
3. Sieve the icing sugar and flour into a clean bowl and stir in the ground almonds and
lemon zest.
4. Place the free-range egg whites into another clean bowl. Whisk the egg whites for 30 seconds, until just frothy.
5. Add the whisked egg whites and warm melted butter to the bowl containing the dry ingredients. Mix the ingredients until the Ingredients combine and become smooth. Then pour the mixture into the prepared tart tin.
6. Arrange the pieces of pear on the top of the mixture and sprinkle the flaked almonds onto the top of the pears.
7. Transfer the tin to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the heat of the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and cook for a further ten minutes or until the mixture has risen and has a pale golden colour. The filling should feel firm to the touch in the centre when cooked through. Remove the tin from the oven and allow it to sit in the tin for a few minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack.
8. To serve, place the tart on a clean plate and dust with icing sugar.

VARIATIONS
Instead of pears I sometimes use 100g/4oz raspberries or blackberries (either fresh or frozen) for the topping. Alternatively, I use 50g/2oz pine nuts instead of fruit. You can also make this with 100g/4oz peach or nectarine slices, which is particularly nice in the summer!