Rhubarb and almond tart

Yes, yet another rhubarb recipe! But I just love the stuff, and this one pairs rhubarb with almonds and also orange, which is a great combination. This recipe came on a flyer from Sainsbury's. It's very easy to make.

Ingredients

• Puff pastry (either ready rolled or a block - either way you won't use it all, so plan some other pastry dish at the same time)
• 100g of unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
• 100g of caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150g of ground almonds
• 1 orange
• A quarter of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 225g of rhubarb
• 1 tablespoonful of flaked almonds

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
2. Use the extra butter to lightly grease the inside of a cake tin that's 18cm across, and has a loose bottom.
3. Roll out the pastry (if it's not already rolled) to about half a centimetre thick. Put a dinner plate topside down on it and cut around it.
4. Press the circle of pastry into the bottom of the cake tin, lining the base and part-way up the sides.
5. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
6. In a little bowl, beat the eggs together with a fork.
7. Add the eggs to the sugary butter, along with two tablespoonsful of the ground almonds. Mix all this together.
8. Grate the zest from the orange and add this to the mixture, along with the cinnamon and the rest of the ground almonds. Fold it all together into a smooth batter.
9. Spoon the batter into the pastry-lined cake tin.
10. Trim the ends of the rhubarb and chop it into chunks. Arrange these artfully on top of your tart.
11. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over the top.
12. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes, until golden. I must say mine wasn't done in that time, and it stayed in the oven for a further quarter of an hour without going golden, but it tasted good all the same.

Pear, almond and cardamom tart

Dessert should always be served with fairy lights

I ripped this recipe out of a magazine, intrigued by the combination of cardamom and pears. It didn't say whether to use black or green cardamom, but I assume the citrussy green ones are more suitable. I cheated by using ready-made pastry, but I was pleased with the result.

Ingredients

• 1 pack of ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
• Plain flour, for rolling out
• 15 green cardamom pods
• 100g of slightly salted butter, plus a little extra for greasing
• 100g of caster sugar
• 1 lemon
• 100g of ground almonds
• 3 eggs
• 5 small pears
• Creme fraiche, to serve
   

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Use the extra butter to grease a pie dish (mine's about 23cm across).
3. Use the plain flour to dust the inside of the greased dish.
4. Unroll the ready-rolled pastry and roll it to twice its size. The crust of the tart should be really thin. Wrap the leftover pastry in cling film and put it in the fridge to use on another recipe.
5. Line the pie dish with the pastry, and prick the base with a fork. Cover with baking parchment and fill with baking beans.
6. Blind bake the pastry shell for 15 minutes, then remove the beans and paper and return to the oven for a further five minutes. This will give you a really crispy, browned pastry.
7. Crush the cardamom pods with a pestle and mortar until the shells split, then discard the shells and grind the seeds a bit more.
8. Grate the zest of the lemon.
9. Put the butter, sugar, cardamom and lemon zest into a bowl, and beat together until light and fluffy.
10. Crack the eggs into another bowl and beat together with a fork. Then gradually beat the eggs into the butter/sugar mixture.
11. Stir the almonds into the mixture to create a thick paste. Pour it into the pastry case.
12. Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl.
13. Peel three pears, keeping the stalks intact. Take out the cores with a corer but leave the tops with the stalks intact. Then cut the pears in half around the middle (not lengthways). Make cuts around each piece of pear and then roll in the lemon juice.
14. Peel and slice the remaining pears and roll them in the lemon juice. Really you could just slice all of the pears to give yourself an easy life.
15. Arrange the pears on the almond mixture.
16. Bake for 30 minutes. Mine came out looking very pale, so I gave it an extra 10 minutes at a very high heat just to brown it off a bit.
17. Serve with the creme fraiche.

Almond cake

Oh how I suffered for this cake! I have a couple of friends who can't eat gluten, so I pounce on any tasty gluten-free cakes whenever I find them. This one from Majorca via Hugh Stanley-Fearnley-Whittingstall seemed ideal, but boy how I struggled. It didn't help that Thames Water had cut off my water supply the night I made it. I found I have no talent for separating eggs, or whisking whites, and eventually I had to just give up and hope for the best. The result wasn't too bad - the cake rose, against all the odds - and my guests enjoyed it. I'm not keen on the flavour, and would probably leave out the cinnamon next time. This is my warped version of Hugh's recipe.

Ingredients

• 8 eggs
• 250g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla pod
• The zest of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 300g of ground almonds
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tablespoons of icing sugar
• Butter for greasing
• Creme fraiche, to serve
   

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Use the butter to grease and line a round cake tin that's 20-ish cm across (or 8 inches), with a loose bottom.
3. Separate the eggs. Take all night. Mess it up. Fail hopelessly. Start again.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until they're light and creamy. Use an electric whisk, for the love of God.
5. Slit open the vanilla pod and scrape in the innards.
6. Beat in the lemon zest and cinnamon.
7. Fold in the ground almonds a little at a time. I ended up with a dense, sticky yellow lump. On purpose, naturally.
8. In another bowl, add the salt to the egg whites, and beat until they form soft peaks (if you're Hugh). If you're me, spend three quarters of an hour trying to conjure peaks out of your whites. Drink heavily. Wonder what a peak actually looks like. Imagine there's some kind of mistake in the recipe. Interpret a light, transient froth on your egg white slop as 'soft peaks'.
9. Add the bicarbonate of soda to the egg white slop, beat again and offer up a prayer to your deity of choice that the cake will rise.
10. Fold the egg white slop into the rest of the mixture. You'll find 'folding' impossible, so just try to integrate it as thoroughly as possible into a loose vanilla slop.
11. Put the batter into the cake tin and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.
12. Open the oven after this time to discover that the cake has, against all the laws of baking and nature, actually risen. A skewer comes out miraculously clean.
13. Let this miracle cake cool, dredge with the icing sugar, and then serve with the creme fraiche.