This is a summer variant on the classic Italian Christmas dish that uses up left over pannetone. It can be light, is quick to make and keeps for days in the fridge, just be careful to keep it airtight or the outside will dry out.

Ingredients

Makes enough for at least 6

300g madeira cake
600ml double cream
200g Bournville choc
75g of nuts, I used almonds and pecan, others used macadamia and hazelnuts
75g of candied ginger, cherries or peel
a teaspoon of cocoa powder for presentation
25ml of brandy or another fruit spirit

1.5 litre bowl

Method

Line the bowl with a double layer of clingfilm

Very thinly slice the madeira cake and tesselate a layer of cake around the bottom and inside of your bowl, trying not to overlap or leave gaps. A thick layer makes for a stodgy dessert, this isn’t a summer fruits pudding.

Use a pastry brush or your finger or something to dash brandy evenly across the cake.

Roughly chop your nuts, not too small, you’re aiming for interest and crunch without breaking people’s teeth. Take a third of the choc and finely chop it, a coarse grater would do.

Loosely whip your cream so that it forms soft peaks, but they sink back down again after a couple of seconds. Split the cream into two approximately even portions.

Into the first half of the cream, whisk in the chopped nuts, fruit or peel.

For the second half, melt the remaining x00g of choc in the microwave or bain marie and whisk it into the remaining cream.

Take the white cream and dollop it into the bowl, spreading it up around the edges and leaving a hollow in the inside that you can fill up with the chocolate cream.

Make a lid with more slices of cake, top it with clingfilm and then put it in the fridge to set for a couple of hours with a heavy plate on top.

To serve, carefully turn it out onto a plate and very lightly dust half a teaspoon of cocoa powder over it with a small sieve or tea strainer.

This is one of my favourite value cakes. It’s still slightly more effort than taking a Mr Kipling cake out of its wrapper and eating it, but not by much. I don’t want to imagine how many calories are in each slice but, well, butter’s nice and it’s nearly as quick to make as the microwave chocolate mug pudding.

Ingredients

Serves at least 10

400g choc, at least 55% cocoa solids
2 tbsp golden syrup
75g sugar
200g glace cherries
250g digestive biscuits
300g butter
2 tbsp kirsche or brandy (optional)

Method

Put a couple of tablespoons of spirits into the cherries tub, give it a shake and leave it to soak overnight.

Line a 900g loaf tin with two layers of parchment or clingfilm

I used a mix of Bournville and hotel choc 70% dark for this. Scientifically break up the chocolate into chunks. I left it in its wrapper and smacked it a few times with a claw hammer. A rolling pin or hob nailed boot would also work.

Loosely dice the butter so it melts quickly.

Put the chocolate, sugar, syrup and butter into a pan and gently gently melt it together, stirring until it’s smooth. Do not let it get too hot.

Whilst the hob is doing its thing, put the biscuits into a plastic bag and gently use your fingers to break them apart. You want chunks, not crumbs.

Once it’s smooth, dump the cherries and biscuits into the chocolate mix. Stir it together thoroughly and pour it into the loaf tin, trying to not leave air gaps.

Choc cherry fridge cake

Leave it to cool to room temperature, then give it two hours in the fridge before turning out and slicing thinly with a sharp knife.

For no apparent reason, I made the full quantity of this recipe, so this week I will mostly be eating fish pie. Luckily, this version is light and summery and it’s freezable in portions. Full credit for this recipe goes to Tastes Divine, I only tinkered with the mix of fish and the topping. Adding pesto and sun dried tomatoes might sound odd but I thought it worked together wonderfully, making it taste very fresh and light instead of the usual cloying creaminess.

I hadn’t met sunblush tomatoes before, but they were going half price from the supermarket’s deli counter. They’re half dried so have a nice concentrated sweet flavour whilst being soft enough to eat. The oil-soaked jars of sundried tomatoes would also work, but you’d need to rehydrate fully dried ones.

Ingredients

Serves 5 – 6

900g of mixed fish. I used about 300g trout, 300g coley and 300g undyed smoked haddock
100g grated hard mature italian cheese. I used Parmigiano-Reggiano
Olive oil
2 hard boiled eggs, shelled and cut into wedges
75g peas
1 bunch of spring onions
250ml creme fraiche
200ml double cream
6 tablespoons of pesto. either basil or rocket is fine.
100g sun blushed or oil soaked sundried tomatoes

600g potatoes
400g celeriac
2 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds

Method

Roughly chop and boil the potatoes and celeriac until they slide off a knife. Drain nearly all of the water, keep a tablespoon or so in the bottom of the pan. Mash it thoroughly, stir in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, 75g of the grated cheese and season well.

Skin and bone the fish if necessary and slice into bite sized chunks, going across the grain if you can so that it flakes on the fork, not on the chopping board.

Put the fish into the bottom of your baking dish or dishes

Chop the spring onions on the diagonal and cut the tomatoes into quarters and evenly scatter them amongst the fish, and do the same with the wedges of egg. Add the peas.

Mix together the creme fraiche, cream and pesto and evenly spoon it over the top of the fish mixture.

If you did a good job with your mashing, you can try piping the potato mix over the top so it looks fun when baked. I didn’t and nearly exploded the piping bag so made do with dolloping it instead.

Sprinkle over the rest of the grated cheese and either freeze it or give it half an hour in a 200C oven until the top is golden and crusty.

Fish Pie