These deliciously satisfying pecan squares are a fantastic solution if you’re looking for an interesting dessert for a dinner party or brunch. Â Use the best quality pecans you can get and keep a close eye while baking to avoid burning.
I also suggest you try my apricot and pecan cake. It makes a fantastic breakfast option!
 Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate – what more do I need to say about this triple chocolate cake recipe?!  Get baking and enjoy. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!
For another rich chocolate dessert to be eaten by the spoonful, try these intense little chocolate pots. They are sinfully tantalising!
4 eggs, yolks separated from whites, whites stiffly beaten
165g plus 2 tablespoons caster sugar
90g semisweet chocolate, melted in 1 tablespoon of water
95g plus 2 tablespoons flour
RICH BUTTERCREAM FILLING:
200g granulated sugar
125ml water
5 egg yolks, beaten
250g butter, softened
1tbsp vanilla extract
125g semisweet chocolate
CHOCOLATE GLAZE:
60g semisweet chocolate
1tbsp butter
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
Instructions
FOR THE CHOCOLATE SPONGE:
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Butter and flour an 8cm deep cake pan and set aside.
Whisk the egg yolks and sugar to a pale foam.
Gradually fold in the melted chocolate and flour, then gently fold in the egg whites.
Blend thoroughly and pour into the buttered and floured cake pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out dry.
Remove from the pan to a wire rack to cool.
FOR THE RICH BUTTERCREAM FILLING:
Stir the sugar and water together in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and boils.
Let this syrup boil without stirring until the temperature reaches 112 to 116ºC on a candy thermometer.
Remove the syrup from the heat.
Whisking vigorously, pour the hot syrup into the egg yolks and keep beating until the mixture is cool, light and fluffy.
Cream the butter in a separate bowl until it's very soft, then beat the butter and vanilla extract into the yolk mixture until it's shiny and firm enough to spread.
Melt the chocolate in in a double saucepan over hot water, let cool and then fold into the butter cream.
FOR THE CHOCOLATE GLAZE:
Melt the butter and chocolate over low heat while stirring.
Remove from heat and bind with the beaten egg yolk.
TO FINISH THE CAKE:
Cut the cooled cake into 3 layers.
Spread thick layers of chocolate buttercream filling between the layers and reassemble the cake.
Carefully pour the rich chocolate glaze evenly over the top of the cake.
A traditional Swedish dessert, this apple meringue pie is a real treat for the apple pie connoisseur. Â With a crispy crust, scrumptious strawberry and tart apple filling, all covered with a light and delicious meringue, this pie is sure to satisfy even the most demanding of palates. Â Although the recipe and finished product appear to be quite complex and difficult, in reality, it’s quite the opposite. Â You’ll have it ready in just over an hour, and judging by past experience, it’ll only last about half that time before disappearing!
This delicious date and raisin biscuit recipe was given to me years ago by a neighbour who was a real baking aficionado, and they instantly became one of my favourite biscuits!  I remember her house (and mine, as I lived right next door) used to always smell of cakes and biscuits at the weekends, which always left me with my mouth watering and wondering if it would be too cheeky to go over and ask for a sample!  Luckily, I never had to, as she eventually came over and offered me some of these delicious biscuits, and many other treats over the course of the years that I lived next to her.
As with most biscuit recipes, it’s pretty hard to go wrong. Just make sure you mix everything well and remember that the longer you let the dough sit in the refrigerator, the better they’ll turn out. Â Enjoy!
Place the dates and raisins in a saucepan and cover them with 250ml of water.
Bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes. Most of the water will boil off or be absorbed by the raisins. What little water is left should not be drained but kept as part of the raisin and date mix. This will help the consistency of the batter later.
Stir in the baking soda and let cool.
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar.
Beat the eggs well, and then beat them into the butter and sugar mixture.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and spices.
Blend the flour mixture into the butter and sugar mixture.
Mix in the vanilla extract.
Add the cooled raisins and dates to the batter and mix well.
Cover the batter with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter onto the greased baking sheet, leaving about 3 to 4 cm between each biscuit.
Bake for around 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges turn golden.
The tartness of the apples provides the perfect counterpoint to the aromatic sweetness of the coffee cake. In fact, I suggest you use the tartest apples you can find, as this really makes the cake stand out from the crowd. For a truly decadent delight, try adding some pecans or walnuts (or any other nut) to the batter. If you do, be sure to coat the nuts with a bit of flour before adding them to the mix, as this will help to keep them from sinking to the bottom during baking.
This apple coffee cake is a deliciously spicy treat that goes extremely well with your cup of morning tea or coffee.
Ingredients
110g butter
2 apples, peeled, cored and grated
2 eggs
200g granulated sugar
2tbsp buttermilk
1tsp vanilla extract
½tsp ground cinnamon
¼tsp grated nutmeg
¼tsp salt
2tsp baking powder
½tsp baking soda
250g flour
30g icing sugar for decoration
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Butter and flour a loaf pan.
Melt the butter in a heavy frying pan over medium heat.
Add the apples and stir well to coat them with the butter.
Simmer for about 30 seconds, remove from heat and set aside for later.
Beat together the eggs and the granulated sugar.
Add the milk and vanilla extract and mix thoroughly.
Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking powder and baking soda and blend well.
Add the flour a little at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
Fold in the apples and melted butter and mix well.
Pour the batter into the buttered and floured loaf pan and bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until a knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes and then remove from the pan to a wire rack to finish cooling.
This is a French recipe originating from the Basque region, an area that borders France and Spain. That´s where I first tried this cake, after a very long morning walk around the city of Soule, France, and a quite heavy meal that included Coq Au Vin in a great restaurant where everything was fantastic. I didn´t know what to order for dessert, so the waiter recommended this delicacy, which is difficult to find even in Basque bakeries. Luckily, this rustic jewel is not hard to make, just hard to resist.
I really liked its textures and flavours, and thought it could also be an ideal afternoon tea time snack. It’s a cake with a crunchy textured top and bottom, and then a soft middle. The filling is simply pastry cream. The cake I first made consisted of a cake that was basically dripping with rum, a vanilla pastry cream and slivered almonds on top.
It is known in French as Gateau Basque, where the traditional filling is cherries; there are countless variations to the cake depending on where it is made. The stuffing can be varied depending on the requirements and availability: sometimes, powdered almonds or lemon zest may also be used to make the pastry of the cake, and the yeast may be replaced with baking powder. The cream filling may be flavoured with almonds, anise, rum or Armagnac, or it could also contain cherry jam.
A simple, yet satisfying, hazelnut torte recipe that is quick to prepare, and even quicker to disappear! (For those of you who like hazelnuts mixed with chocolate, you should definitely try this white birthday cake with nutella frosting as well.)
Butter and flour two layer-cake pans and line them with baking parchment. Set aside for later.
Spread the hazelnuts along the bottom of an oven-safe pan and roast in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, or until the skin cracks open and the nuts are toasted. Shake the pan every few minutes to keep the nuts from burning.
Remove the nuts from the oven and pour them onto a clean kitchen towel.
Reduce the heat of the oven to 150ºC.
Rub energetically with the towel to remove the skins.
Grind the skinned nuts with a nut grinder or food processor.
Sift through the ground nuts and eliminate any large pieces.
Grind the larger pieces again and add back to the rest of the ground nuts, along with the almonds.
Beat the caster sugar into the egg whites a little at a time.
Continue beating another few minutes after all the caster sugar has been added.
Add two teaspoons of the vanilla extract and all of the lemon juice to the mixture and beat for two or three more minutes to ensure that all of the sugar has been completely dissolved into the egg whites.
Carefully fold a little more than three-quarters of the ground nuts into the mixture.
Pour half of the mixture into each of the buttered and floured cake pans.
Bake in the 150ºC oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cakes are firm but not browned.
Turn the cakes out onto wire racks and remove the baking parchment.
Allow the cakes to cool.
While the cakes are cooling, mix the whipped double cream with the granulated sugar and the remaining vanilla extract.
Fold the rest of the nuts into the whipped cream.
Place one of the cooled cake layers on a serving plate and spread the whipped cream and nut mixture on top of it.
Carefully lay the second layer on top of the first and serve immediately.
As with most rolled cakes, this apple sauce ginger roll is a little bit labour intensive, so it’s not the best option if you’re short on either time or patience. However, if you’ve got the time to do it right, the end result is more than well worth the effort required!
Another example of an elaborate cake roll is this Chocolate Caterpillar Cake. The author of this recipe made it for her niece’s birthday, and I think it was really clever!
My apple sauce ginger roll recipe is one of my kids’ all-time favourites. Hopefully soon they’ll be old enough to help with the preparation! The recipe calls for apricot jam, but any other fruit jam should work just as well; let your taste buds be your guide and you can’t go wrong!
Every summer when I was a little girl, we used to visit my great-aunt who lived in Canada, Â and she would often take us blueberry picking. Â The picking itself was pure torture, bending over for hours on end picking the berries, scraping our hands on the bushes and wilting under the hot sun, but when we finally got home she would always make tons of blueberrydesserts, which made all the effort worth it. Â My favourite of those desserts was blueberry cake. (A similar version is this delicious pistachio and blueberry cake.)
This isn’t the exact recipe she used, but it’s fairly close to what I remember from those hot and humid Canadian summer afternoons so long ago.  I particularly like the way the blueberries seem to explode in your mouth with a burst of sweetness when you bite into one side of the cake.  Just make sure you let it cool well before you eat it as the blueberries retain the heat quite well and you can burn your tongue – trust me, I’m talking from experience on this one!
If you can’t get fresh blueberries, frozen ones will work perfectly well in their place. In fact you can’t really tell the difference, so if price is a problem, then go ahead and use the frozen berries which are generally a lot cheaper unless it’s the right season. Â You can also try sprinkling a 50/50 mix of sugar and cinnamon on top for an extra-decadent delight.
Ingredients:
125ml butter
400g granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten
500ml blueberries, washed and dried
250g all purpose flour
250ml buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 175ºC.
Butter and flour a 20 cm round cake pan.
Cream together the butter and the granulated sugar.
Mix in the eggs and buttermilk.
Add the flour, cinnamon and baking soda and stir well.
Add the blueberries and mix well.
Pour the mixture into the buttered and floured cake pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until  a knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
This is a recipe for traditional pound cake, just like Grandma used to make! Â The reason it’s called pound cake is because of the original quantities of the main ingredients in the old imperial measuring system – a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of flour and a pound of eggs. Â My now, doesn’t that sound healthy!?!
Well, be that as it may, this recipe has been a classic for ages, and it’s easy to see why.  Aside from being easy to remember and easy to make, it’s also very moist and delicious and loved by almost anyone with a sweet tooth!
I top my cake with icing sugar, but if you have a preference for chocolate, you could make this dark chocolate ganache to cover it.
Ingredients:
115g butter, softened
190g cake flour
300g granulated sugar
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
4 eggs
Icing sugar for dusting
                                         Â
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 175ºC.
Grease and flour a 25cm x 15cm x 7cm loaf pan, or line with parchment paper. Set aside.
Cream the butter on medium speed in an electric mixer. Gradually add the granulated sugar and beat until light in colour.
Add the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl in order to make sure mixture is well-blended.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
With the electric mixer on low speed, blend in the flour, baking powder and salt just until blended.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with just a bit of crumb on it.
Remove the pound cake from the oven and place it on a wire cooling rack. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
Carefully remove the cake from the pan and continue to cool on the wire rack until it’s completely cool. Remove and discard the baking parchment.
 Dust the top with the icing sugar and serve in slices.
 Any unused cake can be stored wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature, or it may also be frozen for later use.
These deliciously satisfying pecan squares are a fantastic solution if you’re looking for an interesting dessert for a dinner party or brunch. Â Use the best quality pecans you can get and keep a close eye while baking to avoid burning.
Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate – what more do I need to say about this triple chocolate cake recipe?! Â Get baking and enjoy. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!
This delicious date and raisin biscuit recipe was given to me years ago by a neighbour who was a real baking aficionado, and they instantly became one of my favourite biscuits!  I remember her house (and mine, as I lived right next door) used to always smell of cakes and biscuits at the weekends, which always left me with my mouth watering and wondering if it would be too cheeky to go over and ask for a sample!  Luckily, I never had to, as she eventually came over and offered me some of these delicious biscuits, and many other treats over the course of the years that I lived next to her.
A simple, yet satisfying, hazelnut torte recipe that is quick to prepare, and even quicker to disappear! (For those of you who like hazelnuts mixed with chocolate, you should definitely try this white birthday cake with nutella frosting as well.)
As with most rolled cakes, this apple sauce ginger roll is a little bit labour intensive, so it’s not the best option if you’re short on either time or patience. However, if you’ve got the time to do it right, the end result is more than well worth the effort required!
Every summer when I was a little girl, we used to visit my great-aunt who lived in Canada, Â and she would often take us blueberry picking. Â The picking itself was pure torture, bending over for hours on end picking the berries, scraping our hands on the bushes and wilting under the hot sun, but when we finally got home she would always make tons of blueberrydesserts, which made all the effort worth it. Â My favourite of those desserts was blueberry cake. (A similar version is this delicious pistachio and blueberry cake.)
This is a recipe for traditional pound cake, just like Grandma used to make! Â The reason it’s called pound cake is because of the original quantities of the main ingredients in the old imperial measuring system – a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of flour and a pound of eggs. Â My now, doesn’t that sound healthy!?!
Canada
Russia
Greece
Spain
Mexico
Brazil
Argentina