I’m pretty pleased with this recipe. I really like Argentinian empanada pastry and as we are heading towards canapé and finger food season, I thought it’s a great pastry to showcase the game season’s best.

I have used the hare haunches for this recipe, and by cooking them in duck fat this keeps the meat moist and succulent (roasting the meat is too harsh and will dry it out too much). The pumpkin then adds a welcome natural sweetness to the hare.

I do make these quite a lot with different fillings such as forced pink rhubarb, cherry, raspberry, apricot and plum. When I make the raspberry and rhubarb ones I do not cook the fruits, all I do is add a teaspoon of raspberry jam in the centre of each piece of pastry, then arrange the prepared fruit and cream cheese on top. The baking time is enough to cook the fruits to perfection and the jam adds a dash of sweetness. Delicious!

These turnovers are perfect for picnics, afternoon teas, packed lunches and even breakfast, or try them served warm as a pudding with plenty of custard or pouring cream.

Do not refrigerate these tartlets as the chocolate ganache will set too hard; also, the caramel is hydroscopic which means it will dissolve and return to liquid. My best advice is to make and serve these on the same day.

European tour visiting Linz in Austria. It was really interesting because I learnt that the Linzer Torte is thought to be the oldest known torte recipe in the world.

So, armed with that knowledge, I thought it’s time to do a quick Google search and be inspired to make my own version of a Linzer Torte, so here it is. I have made one fundamental change and that is to use walnuts instead of the more traditional almonds, but the choice of nuts is yours and you can use almonds, hazelnuts or even pecan nuts instead, if you prefer.

That particular week, Mrs Cochrane brought me a couple of kilos of fresh greengages and I also needed to make a new dish for my set lunch dessert menu. Well, hey presto, problem solved as the greengages were turned into jam in a jiffy, so the next stage was to perfect my pastry to make the tart. This pastry is slightly tricky to handle as it’s so short, but it’s well worth the effort as the results are ridiculously fantastic!

You don’t have to use greengage jam for this recipe (though it works very well with the walnut pastry, I must say), you could use another flavour of good-quality shop-bought (or home-made!) jam instead, such as raspberry or loganberry jam or even marmalade.

All credit for this recipe goes to Ross. We change our set lunch menu each week, and a few weeks ago Ross had left planning a vegetarian starter until the morning (he is quite good at leaving things to the last minute, much to my despair!). After discovering he had not ordered special ingredients for his ‘special’, he had to go and ‘forage’ in the fridge for something to use for his dish. He found puff pastry trimmings, a few pears and some boulangère potato leftovers from the main course section, plus some goat’s cheese. He came into the kitchen as smug as a cat that had found the cream and I laughed at him asking what he thought he was going to achieve with his findings. Still smug, he shrugged his shoulders at me, said nothing and set to work. I thought to myself he has got his work cut out, but I soon had to ‘eat my words’ when he pulled this one out of the bag.

The puff pastry, potato, cheese and onion pie smelt absolutely delicious when he pulled it out of the oven. He made one big pie and then cut it into slices and served it with more crumbled goat’s cheese, some crushed roasted walnuts, shavings of fresh pears and dressed salad leaves. It not only makes a perfect starter, but is equally suited as a main course or even as a light lunch.

These tarts are rustic, not pretentious, and they are very gutsy in taste indeed. If you are going to do it properly, do it with meaning, I say! I have chosen a Norfolk-made blue cheese, called Binham Blue, made by Mrs. Temple, and it’s a punchy blue cheese with perfect acidity and creamy ratios. I like it to such an extent that I class this as one of my all time favourite blues. It’s from our region and simply feels right, but do find your own favourite local blue cheese for this recipe, if you like.

With the really chilly weather, hearty and punchy flavours are needed to keep the cold at bay. The combination of blue cheese, walnuts and pears is a classic, but I do not mind classics as they taste good together and work very well for me.

Our beehives are doing well – fingers crossed we shall gain a few jars this season for our own pleasure and joy. John Buzz our bee man has warned me that with the cold and wet the bees are not particularly productive, well only time will tell and we still have a few more weeks of summer to go.

Here at British Larder HQ we make everything in bulk, I usually make a test batch large enough for tasting and selling, in this case I made 12 tarts for the restaurant and one for me. However the honest truth and I feel confession time coming on, drum roll…, I shared one with everyone and then had another whole one all to myself. Oops does that sound selfish? Hope not as they are really delicious; go on give it a try.

The pastry I used is my good and trustworthy sweet shortcrust pastry, we make up to five times the volume of the recipe, divide the mix into small blocks and freeze them, it comes in handy as it will defrost overnight in the fridge ready to be rolled and turned into these delicious little numbers.
The ice cream is equally delicious and in my opinion if you are going to bake and make a treat, do it well. This recipe is not for anyone on a diet that is for sure! I make the honey ice cream base and use an ice cream machine to churn the ice cream; when it’s ready I transfer the ice cream to a chilled tub and pour the honey crushed raspberries over then take a fork and give it a gentle mix, not too much as I like the ripple effect.

Make the tarts one day in advance and the ice cream can be made up to three days in advance, the longer you keep the ice cream the harder it will get to scoop so my advice is that it’s best to be used within a week. The tarts are delicious when they are slightly warmed through in a mild oven before serving.

The financiers are made using ‘burnt butter’ (also known as beurre noisette) combined with finely ground desiccated coconut, flour and meringue. This mixture is left in the fridge overnight, then the following day it is spooned into metal moulds with some blackcurrants added and then baked until the edges are crisp and golden. When the financiers come out of the oven, the aroma of warm baked coconut lingers in the room, embraces your nostrils and makes your taste buds salivate.

The sharpness of the plump blackcurrants baked in the financiers mixture cuts through the buttery richness and sweetness of the coconut sponge cakes beautifully. For the poached blackcurrants served alongside, I have chosen to combine tarragon with the blackcurrants as I quite like the aniseed taste, not loads of it, just a subtle amount that makes you ponder what the extra flavour is. The blackcurrant mousse adds a creamy soft texture that is perfect spooned alongside the warm baked financiers. The whole dish is then decorated with shavings of fresh coconut and tarragon sprigs. The fresh coconut is optional, but if you have bought one, see Cook’s Notes for instructions on how to prepare it.

Remember you will need to start this recipe the day before you want to serve it, to allow the financiers mixture time to chill overnight and to also allow the mousse and poached blackcurrants time to set and chill overnight.

These small individual lemon meringue pies not only look great but we have the advantage of being able to serve them in the restaurant. We prepare them to the pastry and lemon filling stage and then on the day, when needed we then top them up with the meringue topping and bake them before each service. It keeps them fresh and easy to manage, as well as reducing wastage.

They are also perfect for our bar counter; they look great on a glass stand with a big glass dome lid perfect for that Sunday afternoon cup of tea and the taste of something sweet.

Lemon meringue pies does not have a season and makes them a wonderful treat all year round.

Mulberries are fragile, perishable fruits and they start to deteriorate as soon as they are picked. I too have a tree in our garden at home here in the UK and as soon as the fruits ripen, I pick and freeze them immediately to make sure they don’t get wasted in any way. Our generous customers at the pub often bring us some wonderful fresh produce and mulberries are one of those. Our bartering or exchange system is definitely working and it’s heart-warming to get the whole community involved.

I have glazed this tart with a gin glaze using Adnams gin. This is following a visit to their distillery in Suffolk. I like this gin, you can distinctly taste the botanicals used to distill the gin, the taste works particularly well with mulberries and that is why I have chosen to use it in my glaze. This is purely optional , if you do not want to use gin then simply replace it with more lemon juice instead.