Birthday pancakes (with cherry and nectarine compote, greek yogurt and honey)

I challenge you to find a nicer way to start a summer birthday than lighter than air pancakes with a sweet, fruit topping. (Alright meat-eaters – bacon sarnies excepted!)

These pancakes are super easy to make, the lightest I’ve ever tasted and are really healthy, what with being partially wholemeal, full of goodness from the seeds and have hardly any fat.

Serves 4-6

For the pancakes:

4 eggs, separated

155g flour – use a mixture of wholemeal and plain if you prefer, or all wholemeal

1 ½ tsp baking powder

a handful or two of seeds – I used sunflower but poppy are also good

190ml milk

pinch of salt

Mix together the dry ingredients with the egg yolks and milk to form a thick batter. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold in to the batter. Now it’s ready, heat a good non-stick pan then add spoonfuls of batter. Turn them when you see little bubbles. They only need a couple of minutes on each side to be a nice golden brown.

You can keep them warm in a low oven while you cook the rest.

For the compote:

A punnet of cherries, stoned and chopped in half

A couple of nectarines or peaches, stoned and chopped into smallish pieces

To make the compote, put the fruit in a saucepan and heat for a few minutes until it’s all jammy and gooey.

Serve with greek yogurt and honey.

Roasted rhubarb and stem ginger tart

Roasting rhubarb is something I hadn't tried until today, but I'd wanted to for a while after reading and seeing various people do it. Don't overlook it for rhubarb - it turns into melty, caramelised loveliness when you roast it and allow the flavours to develop. Stem ginger is really good friends with rhubarb and it creates the most wonderful syrup when you roast it with some of the juice and light brown sugar. That'd be great as a dessert on its own, but what's better than a warm, rich and crumbly almond pastry tart served with ice cream?

Makes enough for a 8 inch tart tin, plus 6 jam tarts

Pear, honey and almond tart

I fell in love with Valentine Warner’s recipe for raspberry and peach tart that he made as part of his ‘what to eat now – more please’ series a little while ago the first time I made it. It’s the most tasty, sweet, happy-inducing tart ever I think, and I’ve made it loads of times.

The best thing about it is that it can be adjusted to whatever fruit you can get that’s in season, so while raspberries and peaches are great in summer, it was especially great with figs or plums, and you can experiment with different jams, too. This time, having a large number of pears to use up, I figured another version of this versatile delight should be on the cards, but this time with honey.

I have to say from the start that (sorry Valentine) I don’t use the pastry from the recipe – firstly because I think it’s rich enough without using a pastry with egg in, and secondly, because my mum is the queen of pastry. I have honestly never tasted such incredible, melt in the mouth, crumbly, light pastry as my mum’s, so naturally, I’ve got to make sure I can carry on this family tradition.

I make the quantities in the recipe but because I don’t have a 25cm flan tin, it usually makes enough for two smaller tarts. For the first time, I’ve tried freezing one to see how it behaves – I don’t see why it should do anything nasty but will update if it does.

It’s labour intensive but definitely worth it – despite being a long wait it’s very easy, impressive and can be adapted. It can be eaten hot or cold and keeps for a good few days, although it won’t last that long with hungry people around. What more could you want from seasonal food eh?!

Makes about enough for two tarts, 18-20cm

Fruity nutty carrot muffins

The other night, I really wanted to try out making some carrot and apple cake, but I’d run out of apples. Hmm. Instead, I decided to mix lots of things together that I like into some muffins, and the result was pretty good. They’re really moist (I added ground almonds in place of some of the flour), a beautiful orange colour and I think do the carrots justice. They’re not as dense as some carrot cakes that are around, either. I didn’t use any frosting but I’m sure they’d be great with some mascarpone with orange zest on top. I’ll also get around to trying the apple and carrot version one day!

Makes 8 muffins
125g butter at room temperature
125g light brown soft sugar
100g plain flour
30g ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp baking powder
50g dried fruits – I used a mixture of raisins and sultanas (really big ones)
A handful of almonds
A couple of handfuls of walnuts
Zest of one orange
A tablespoon or two of the juice from said orange
1 egg
About 150g carrot (or mixture of carrot and apple), grated

Preheat the oven to 170 (fan) and line a couple of tins with muffin cases.

Cream together the butter, sugar and zest until it’s light and there are no grainy sugar bits left. I like to add the zest in at this stage because I think the beating brings out the lovely orangey-ness. Add the egg and beat again.

Chop the nuts roughly (don’t leave any really big bits but I quite like mine to be relatively chunky) and add these and the fruits into the flour, cinnamon, ground almonds and baking powder. Mix these dry ingredients into the butter, sugar and eggs gradually. You don’t need to worry too much about being very careful as it’s quite a heavy cake mix.

Then add the grated carrot and mix well to ensure it’s all evenly distributed. Depending on how juicy your carrots are, you might want to add a bit of orange juice in at this point.

Divide the mixture between the cases – they will rise a bit, so don’t fill them too full – and bake for between 25-30 mins.

Note: depending on the juiceiness of your carrots, you might need to add a bit of milk to your cake batter. Just play it by ear and make sure it's thin enough that it falls off the wooden spoon!

Saturday soda bread

I have to say that it's pretty hard to make bread with an elbow that's been broken and in a sling for the last few weeks, but I was dying to make something crunchy and rustic to go with my jerusalem artichoke and carrot soup. Soda bread is pretty much the only option - but it's also quick, easy and really delicious, so not really a problem at all!

I used Hugh's recipe for a classic soda brea, but used a mixture of flours - white, spelt and rye. Gave it a great colour and lovely texture.