My (Raymond's) Plum Clafoutis

French clafoutis is the lightest pudding around -the perfect end to a heavy Sunday Roast- with arguably the prettiest name. The focus of this pudding should be its fruit, as ripe and flavoursome as possible, with the surrounding batter as no more than a delicately sweet cushion holding everything together. The recipe below has its roots in a Raymond Blanc classic which, out of circumstance and necessity, I changed around so much so that it no longer ressembles the original; I thus feel half-justified to call this recipe my own!

10-12 ripe plums

1 tbsp. caster sugar

1/2 tbsp. rum

20cm round baking/oven-proof dish, greased

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180C/350F

Destone and quarter the plums and place them in the baking dish. Scatter the sugar over the fruit as evenly as possible; likewise with the rum. Place the plums in the oven to warm through, soaking up the sugar and the alcohol, whilst you make the batter.

45g caster sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla/almond extract

40g plain flour, sifted

125ml whole milk

25g unsalted butter

Place the sugar, eggs and extract into a medium-sized bowl before whipping them together for a while until pale, thick and fluffy (girls may want to use an electric whisk, or their boyfriends). Add the flour and mix well. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a gentle heat to make a buerre noisette- sounds scary 'cause it's French but is easy to do: when brown flecks appear and the melted butter starts to smell nutty, take it off the heat and add to the egg mixture. Give the batter a good stir before removing the plums from the oven and pouring the batter over the fruit. Bake the clafoutis for 30-35 mins, until the centre is nice and springy but the top not too brown. Serve warm with custard or cream.

Valentine's Velvet Cake

Sometimes, as a singleton, it can be difficult to enter into the spirit of Valentine's Day. I am engaged with what borders on a love affair with my food, however, and see that there is hope still for me to feel included without the need to go boy-hunting.

Red Velvet Cake looks as though it were made for 14th February by St. Valentine himself. Ok, so the cocoa flavour of the sponge is not in keeping with its red crumbs and thus a strange feature for anyone who doesn't know it's in there; and yes, cream cheese in a butter-cream icing is to an acquired taste, BUT people...look at the colour of it! I assure you that the novelty of eating bright red cake, particularly on this upcoming Day of Love, will not wear off before you've finished eating a slice, although by the end of a second portion you may well wonder what the effect of all that food colouring could be on your delicate, love-struck mind.

I had my first attempt at making the cake with my friend Lucy, gleefully getting into the spirit of things by adding double the quantity of food colouring to the cake batter (well, if you're gonna bother to colour a cake...) and strewing crystalized rose petals all over its surface, as though decorating the bed of some romantic boudoir. We even held the knife together to cut the first slice (see above for a photo of 'the happy couple'). Everyone in our biology class loved it, and we loved them for loving it, and they loved us for loving them and...well, you get the picture. Either the spirit of St. Valentine fell upon us, or the mutual attraction was a nasty side-effect of too much food colouring.

Singletons and couples alike: Happy Valentine's Day- treat yourselves to a slice of Red Velvet Cake!

http://hummingbirdbakery.com/includes/pdf/Baking_Tips.pdf (see page 5 for recipe)

Caramelised-Apple Croissant

This recipe (which doesn't actually involve much cooking i.e. a teenage boy could make it) comes from Nigel Slater, who possesses the wonderful talent of knowing which foodstuffs go perfectly together. It's a dessert-sandwich/midnight snack which is both flaky and tender; sugary hot and creamy cold. It is also inevitably messy, and I would advise tackling the consumption of this dish with your fingers only in the company of good friends, who won't judge.

You begin by melting a large knob of butter (around 50g) in a frying pan whilst thickly slicing a couple of apples (cooking- or eating-). Fry the apple slices in the butter for 5-10 minutes until nicely golden before adding to the pan 50g soft brown sugar. Turn the heat up to let the sugar bubble (thus begin the caramelising process) and heat two croissants in the oven/under the grill. Get a tub of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer to soften. Continue cooking the apples for 5-10 minutes until soft (not mushy) and in a nice, sticky caramel. Slice each warm croissant in half and place on a plate. Spoon the apples into the middle along with a scoop of ice cream in each; finish by dribbling the remaining caramel over it all.