I’m not a dessert cook, so when I make sweets they need to be relatively quick and easy. It is nice to end a meal with a simple dessert or to produce something delicious to serve with a cup of coffee when friends drop by. Sweet treats make great gifts too. Here are some of my favourite easy sweet recipes.
Pomegranate Sorbet Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Italian cooking class featuring the food of Sardinia! I love this Italian pomegranate sorbet – and the Italian name for pomegranates, melograno meaning ‘many seeds’. It’s so appropriate for this jewel-like fruit. This simple pomegranate sorbetto, with its balanced sweet/sour flavour from the pomegranate juice, lemon […]
Jamaican Coconut Drops Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Caribbean cooking class inspired by Paul Carmichael! Also called simply ‘drops’, Jamaican Coconut Drops are a favourite sweet treat of Jamaicans everywhere. I love the punch the ginger adds to cut through the sweetness of these chewy toffees. Don’t be tempted to take the mixture […]
Caribbean Flan Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Caribbean cooking class inspired by Paul Carmichael! Caribbean flan is a simple dessert similar to a French crème caramel or Spanish flan, except it’s a bit denser. The traditional Caribbean version is based on condensed and evaporated milk as fresh milk wasn’t always readily available in […]
Indian Rice Pudding (Kheer) Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Indian cooking class inspired by Ajoy Joshi! Called payasam or kheer, this rice pudding is one of the most typical southern Indian desserts and has as many variations as there are cooks. At its simplest, it’s rice simmered in milk with a pinch of […]
Caramelised Baked Strawberries Like this recipe? You’ll love my online cooking class Inspired by Janni Kyritsis! https://youtu.be/WgVm-DFJlTg This easy dessert of baked strawberries is inspired by one my friend Janni Kyritsis taught me when we wrote Wild Weed Pie together. Throughout much of the year, strawberries are more about colour than taste. Baking them, especially […]
Coffee Granita Join my food & wine tour to Southern Italy to discover more Italian regional specialties! My favourite dessert at MG Garage – in fact perhaps my favourite dessert of all time – was coffee granita with chocolate mousse. When chef Janni Kyritsis and I wrote Wild Weed Pie, we did a whole section […]
Saffron Poached Pears in White Wine Like this recipe? You’ll love my online cooking class Inspired by Janni Kyritsis! I love the simplicity of these saffron poached pears in white wine that chef Janni Kyritsis taught me to make many years ago. At MG Garage he served them alongside a delicate cardamom-scented blancmange made with […]
Glutinous Red Rice Dessert with Lychees Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Vietnamese cooking class inspired by Mark Jensen! I love glutinous rice desserts and have always wanted to experiment with them so, inspired by a red rice dessert that Mark Jensen served me several years ago, I came up with this easy, tasty […]
Coppa di Mascarpone Join my food & wine tour to Italy to discover more Italian regional specialties! This simple dessert was a fixture on Italian restaurant menus in the ‘70s and ‘80s but seems to have fallen from favour now, replaced I suspect by the more complex tiramisu. While tiramisu is an excellent dessert (see […]
Coconut Jelly Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Malaysian cooking class! This light, fluffy, slightly sweet coconut jelly, often seen on yum cha trolleys, is also a popular finish to a spicy meal in Malaysia where it’s known as agar-agar kelapa. When I don’t have time to make my own coconut milk, I use […]