This recipe is dedicated to two of our regular customers; Gloria and Denis Lee. When I first served arctic roll for Gloria the look and smile on her face is imprinted in my mind. I shall never forget that moment because of the sheer joy and happy memories this dish brought back to Gloria was a picture in itself. She did not have to say anything, her face painted the most wonderful picture and her smile spoke a million words.

I love strawberries, they’re perhaps one of the most fragrant fruits for me, and when I close my eyes and smell a sun ripened strawberry it brings back memories of my childhood and visits to the PYO farm with my family. Dad used to love eating strawberries with a sprinkling of sugar and lots of whipped Chantilly cream.

As I’m now writing this post I can smell the strawberry jam being cooked in the kitchen. We are jamming and bottling it to be sold from the bar. I hope the smell of the cooking jam will remain as a happy memory of summer at the British Larder.

The beauty of this recipe is that everything can be made in advance, at least three days when needed for a special event, and if you have a fantastic old fashioned dish it springs to life and sparks good conversation around the dinner table.

Elderflower cordial has so many wonderful uses and is not only good for a refreshing elderflower drink on a hot summers day but is also perfect for delicious jellies and works a treat in sorbets and ice-creams. The flowers  could be dipped in a light tempura batter and fried until crisp to serve as a garnish for added texture.

I used the elderflower cordial to flavour this delicious crème fraîche tart and paired it up with a lovely array of strawberry treats. Its great fun, you might not have all the tools to make all the garnishing bits, but if you can give the tart a go as it’s simply wonderful.

The recipe for this tart has been in Mr.P’s little black recipe book since he began cooking in 1996. This recipe did cause us a bit of drama and distress as we had filed it’ in a safe place’. We must have  tipped the house upside down looking for it, you can imagine as I do not quite know what it looks like, all I know it’s written in pen on a small piece of paper belonging to this little black book that had lost its cover. We were searching high and low for about a week, Mr.P hardly spoke to me as I obviously got the blame for it’s disappearance. He was walking around like a bear with a sore head who had just lost his best friend. Finally we found the piece of paper and  we could actually get on with making this dish.

To top it all off, the ingredients that we had purchased to make this dish had gone off by the time we found the recipe, so back to the beginning and we started the journey again from scratch. It was definitely worth the effort as it’s delicious and well worth the time, tears, tantrums and effort. I think the lesson learned was not to store things’ in safe places’ or do not purchase your ingredients until you have located the recipe. We are now giggling over the chaos that we caused ourselves; at the time it was quite a traumatic event. Boy’s and their….not really toy’s…but …..well recipes!

Talking about food is my cheap fix and when I get a great idea like this one popping into my head, I’m on a high for a few days. I received a kilo of leafy clementines this week and was wondering what could I possibly cook with them apart from the stollen that I flavoured with dates and clementine rind. I wanted to make something refreshing but spectacularly fun at the same time. After a dig through my kitchen larder, which by the way is very tidy for a change… thanks  to Mr.P, I discovered the tiny jar of leftover citric acid that I used for making elderflower cordial in the summer. Then it came….. drum roll…. the idea of making a clementine sherbet.

Like it??? I love it!! Grrrr… the idea of trying to use the whole clementine was magic! I dried the clementine skins in a cool oven for about 30 minutes until they were very crispy but still bright orange. I was fairly bemused on how quickly they dried, if you leave them for too long in the oven they will discolour and not look very attractive. I ground the very crispy clementine skins, added the critic acid, bicarbonate of soda and icing sugar, child hood memories here they come!!!!

Amazing I love the citrus fizzy feeling and taste, truly magical!

I wrapped the left over crispy clementine skins in muslin along with a couple of cloves and hung it inside the kitchen larder, it smells very Christmasy indeed. I’m pleased I found a use for the skins, as I am not entirely sure if the worms in the wormery would have appreciated them at all.

To finish off my clementine sherbet verrines  in the tiny shot glasses, I added a clementine mint salad, a spoonful of granita, topped with a natural yoghurt espuma  and a dusting of clemetine sherbert.

These little gems are the perfect refreshing replacement for the old classic trifle, they are not fatty nor heavy; just perfect!

I have had the privilege to use the previous models of the Thermomix in the superb professional kitchens that I have worked in the past. The rediscovery of the Thermomix (TM)  and the sublime TM31 model was a true revelation, so much so, that I acquired one for home use. As a matter of fact we have two in our household. My TM31 travels everywhere with me, it provides that extra pair of hands.

The TM31 is the best machine for the job when making purees. The smooth and ultra fine results deliver a puree with quadruple the impact in flavour. The incredibly fast rotation of the blades which  work at  four different angles means that the job gets done in a fraction of the time  and prevents bruising and oxidisation of the produce, hence the extension and expansion of flavour. Cooking directly in the TM bowl not only saves time at all different levels but also saves in resources and your yield is greater as you do not need to transfer the same ingredients twice or three times over. When I think in Thermomix terms I think in seconds not minutes, this reflects the speed that it operates at.

The discovery that I do not need to cut and stone the damsons was a serious time saving find. The trick to prevent the  puree from being bitter is to make sure you use the reverse blade setting at a very low speed. The blades will only be used to stir the damsons whilst cooking the puree, you are left with a puree packed with pectin. All you need to do is pass the puree through a fine sieve and then discard  the stones. Easy!

Making parfaits has and will always be a lengthy and complicated process. I have made this whole dish using the TM31  in half the time  it would have taken without  the machine and used only a third of the amount of dishes. The sabayon is perfect, better than using a double boiler as you can control the cooking time and temperature to perfection.

The consistency that the Thermomix offers is invaluable to any kitchen.

With the crisp autumn mornings comes the fantastic seasonal gifts. I think it’s almost mother natures way of apologising  for the change in temperature. The arrival of the ripe Victoria plum is a treasure and I associate this with the central focus point of a traditional English country garden. Roy has a Victoria plum tree in his beautiful well kept garden and I’m ever so grateful every year when I get a basket full of these beautiful and fragrant plums.

As you have most probably guessed I try and preserve the season for as long as I can and for that reason I divide my gift from Roy in three. One third is for immediate eating, one third for cooking and one third goes in the freezer for enjoyment at a later stage.

Last season I made cinnamon baked plums with  one third ,which was a delicious compote used for a cupcake filling and it made a yummy breakfast topping for porridge. I also made a mulled plum sorbet with the plums that I had in the freezer. This year is no exception as I have already planned to make the sorbet again for a special dinner party that’s coming up soon.

We are still enjoying some warm and sunny days which are perfectly suited for barbecues, gardening and enjoying lunch on the patio.So I thought that this delicious and indulging Victoria plum and blackberry frozen ice cream slices was the perfect treat to say farewell to the summer and welcome autumn with a smile. This dish is better known as a parfait in France and would be served during their long lazy lunches under the veranda during the summer. We still see parfaits in the posh restaurants but as I am using a true seasonal British ingredient I’ll only borrow the techniques and give it a slightly more appropriate name.

If you like the sound of this desert but do not have Victoria plums, I can recommend that any fruits,which can be pureed, would be a perfect substitute.

I wrote the thermomix method in the green colour so that it’s easy to follow but , as shown, you can still make this dessert the conventional way. Either way it’s delicious and perfect to be made in advance. As it’s a frozen pudding I recommend that you slice and serve it immediately or slice and place it back in the freezer until every one is ready to be served. Remember they are ice cream slices which will melt  fairly quickly, especially when it’s hot .

How amazing is it that your taste, likes and dislikes change as you get older. I  never did really like ginger especially stem ginger, only recently I have started to use ginger  more in my cooking and I am slowly coming round to like stem ginger too!

I’m pretty pleased with this recipe as I enjoy the diced bits of ginger. You get a chewy surprise with every bite, not only does it make the ice cream interesting but it’s like little explosions of ginger with every mouthful. That’s pretty special and exciting for me!

This stem ginger ice cream is perfect eaten on it’s own or to enjoy with a slice of warm sticky toffee pudding….my mouth starts watering again as I’m writing this! What am I like?

I made this ice cream using the Thermomix, it’s easy and quick. Alternatively you can make the ice cream base the conventional way and churn the anglaise in an ice cream machine. Remember to drop the diced bits of stem ginger in at the end, I would say for the last minute of churning time. This will prevent the stem ginger from disappearing  and getting squished.

Walking through the fruit and vegetable department of my local supermarket this morning I realised how many different citrus fruits are available. All imported of course, as we can not grow citrus fruits successfully in England due to the lack of sunshine.

It’s time to confess! I do not really know the difference between clementines, satsumas, tangerines and mandarins. Time to do a bit of research and make a contribution  to my personal bank of food knowledge.

Basically I now understand  that  satsumas and tangerines are the same, just called different names in different countries.

The satsumas in our shops might sometimes have a green blemish on the skins, but this does not affect the taste, as they will still be juicy and sweet.

Mandarins on the other hand are difficult to peel, have plenty of seeds and  are particularly sour.

Clementines are sometimes mistaken for tangerines, but the clementine has a thinner and easy to peel skin, a sweeter fruit and very few seeds. The skin is a deep orange colour with a smooth glossy look.

I have used my trusted old friend the Thermomix to make this sorbet recipe. The only difficulty  about this recipe is understanding the differences between these citrus fruits. The recipe is easy to make and could be prepared well in advance. No reason not to be ready  when the sun finally puts his hat on!

Substitute the mandarins for any citrus fruits of you choice; I also like to use blood oranges when they are available. Taste the juice first and add more or less sugar if needed.

Sat is very proud of his Indian roots and when questioned on his favourite spice his response was fenugreek.

I then asked the obvious question why had he not opened an award winning curry house, and with a broad and very infectious smile Sat replied  ‘I’m born British’

It was an unexpected answer but he is incredibly proud of his upbringing which was obvious when he was telling us about his mothers cooking and how she used fenugreek in a potato dish that she used to make for them.

I was very pleased to have discovered that Sat has on his menu a dish called  “Sweet Curry”, which we were privileged enough to taste and it’s delicious. The dish was developed by Sat’s pastry chef and this clearly shows how Sat is influencing and inspiring his team.

This dish has the perfect properties to seamlessly transport your taste buds from savoury to sweet.

This demonstrates to me a person that understands flavours.

Sat stated that he is controlling the acidy tones in his food as a high acid consumption within one meal can cause taste fatigue. Again it all makes brilliant sense.

I have eaten many sticky toffee puddings in my lifetime and have found that more than once the texture is heavy, gloopy and the sweetness nearly suffocates you. Not this little beauty!

I have been making this particular recipe for a few years and love the light airy texture.

I change the presentation from time to time to keep it interesting.

The combination of bananas, Earl Grey Tea and Stem Ginger might sound very confusing but it adds to the sophistication of this traditional old time favourite.

I serve these in small portions as I  feel too much of a good thing can destroy the effect. It needs to be just enough for your guest to want to lick the plate and look for more but not suffer the sickly sweet feeling.

I have used the Thermomix to make the stem ginger ice cream. I like this method as I can control the size of the stem ginger. Chop the stem ginger by hand and add it at the very end when whipping the ice cream with the butterfly whisk, this ensures large chunky bits of stem ginger.

Being gadget freaks there is probably very few kitchen gadgets that we have not owned. We had an ice cream maker which unfortunately broke when we moved home. Without the ice cream machine, we never really bothered making ice cream until the Thermomix arrived. It’s actually quite simple and the golden rule is that the mixture must be frozen solid otherwise your ice cream turns to slushpuppie.

I make the crème anglaise and pour the mixture into ice cube trays, place them in the freezer over night until solid. When needed I follow the instructions below, it’s as simple as that. If you do not have a thermomix but still like the sound of this recipe then cook the anglaise as per normal, chill the mixture and churn the ice cream using a ice cream machine.