For the pastry shy, this tart is salvation. It looks like jewels set in amber, with its candy bar mosaic of five kinds of nuts embedded in buttery caramel slicked over a tender crust, which is where salvation comes in. There is no rolling pin in sight. You pat the crust into the tart tin with your fingers.
You can make this dish with either sweet or sour cherries, adjusting the sugar upward for sour ones, and cooking down their abundant juices as necessary.
From Sheryl Crow: I love it when this is on the menu because it appeases any craving I might have for chocolate. And you would never have guessed that Chuck used avocado to thicken the mousse and that it would make it so delicious. Avocados are mild and sweet enough to blend seamlessly with the chocolate. This is super-healthful: no eggs, no cream, no white sugar in this mousse, and yet it's absolutely glorious.
Bread and Butter Pudding is classic British mommy food and one of the easiest puddings to make. It's a great way to use up left over bread — white, (the classic), brown, brioche, even stale croissant, the method is the same whichever you use. If you're feeling particularly decadent, smear the buttered bread with a little marmalade or jam before baking.
The trifle needs to be done a day ahead.
Ingredients
You could finish a supper of beans and burgers on a high note with this dessert, or bring it in to be the finale of a fancy dinner party.
Wine syrups are the answer to what you can easily have waiting in the fridge to tune up simple foods. A plate of fresh fruit, a scoop of ice cream or a store-bought brownie tastes a lot more interesting when drizzled with this syrup. It’s also pretty good on roasting chicken, lamb and especially pork. Brushed on grilling ribs, or yams—it’s really fine.
I adore the deceptive plainness of gingerbread. It is definitively unfancy, and yet the flavor is so rich, and its deep-toned tang so subtle. Here the tang is a little more emphatic, as sour cream and licorice-evocative Guinness give heady lift, but still this is — for all the treacly sugar and pungent spices — gentle and cozy-making, though almost alarmingly addictive.
Ingredients