A couple of days after Halloween, I popped in to one of the bigger Supermarkets to find that they were giving away all their pumpkins. For FREE. This was both great, but also very sad. If people didn't take these pumpkins, they were going in the bin that evening. I placed a couple in my already heavily laden trolley and took them home with me.

After searching the internet for a good eggnog recipe — having never tried, let alone made proper eggnog before — I discovered Coquito! Described by most as "Puerto Rican eggnog" or "coconut eggnog", as a coconut lover I was sold. Eggnog could wait for another day. I wanted to try this Puerto Rican Christmas drink.

Coquito is egg-less, so may go down better with family and friends that are weirded out by drinking eggy booze. It's super rich, so you don't need a lot, but I must admit that everyone was back for a second (and third!) glass!

This recipe makes about 2 litres, so you may want to halve the quantities.

Ingredients

700ml evaporated milk
440ml cream of coconut
400ml coconut milk
140ml sweetened condensed milk
140ml white rum
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Cinnamon sticks and extra ground cinnamon for garnish (optional)

Method

1. Use a blender to blitz the evaporated milk, cream of coconut, coconut milk, condensed milk, rum, vanilla extract and ground cinnamon.

2. Decant in to glass bottles (or any pourable container that you like) and seal. Refrigerate until cold.

3. To serve, shake up the mixture to combine*, and pour over ice. Garnish with a cinnamon stick and an extra sprinkle of ground cinnamon.

*Note: the cocktail will thicken up when it gets cold due to the fat content in the coconut cream, which can clog a narrow bottle neck. A good shake or stir will remedy this.

As great lovers of the custard tart, in all its guises, it might surprise you that we only ate our first pastéis de nata back at the start of the summer, on Macau.

I'm sure there must be popular London cafés that offer up damn good, damn close-to-the-real-thing Portuguese custard tarts, but you can pretty much find anything you want to eat in London. I have yet to glimpse them in the Midlands however, so do let me know in the comments if you know where we can get some good ones up here.

We have solid intentions of visiting Lisbon soon, and eating an authentic Pastéis de Belém, but for now, we have had to make do with my homemade offering to get our fix. Worse still, I've been really bad (M tells me off all the time for altering recipes before I've even made the original!), and sort of cobbled this one together from multiple recipes from a google search. The result was delicious though, so I decided to share.

N.B. I've cheated by using shop-bought pastry here. I also finished them with a grating of nutmeg, which isn't traditional, but I like it, so there.

Ingredients

Yield: 24 tarts

Butter for greasing
500ml whole milk
Zest from 1 lemon, pared
1 cinnamon stick
70g plain flour
400g caster sugar
175ml water
6 large free-range egg yolks
2 x packs ready-rolled, all-butter puff pastry*
Nutmeg (Optional)
*I used 1 x roll of Sainsburys TTD all-butter puff pastry (375g) for 12 tarts. Basically, you're looking at approx. 30g of pastry per tart.

Special Equipment

Sugar Thermometer

Method

1. Begin by liberally buttering the cups of 2 12-hole muffin tins, and placing in the fridge to chill.

2. For the custard filling, start by forgetting what you know about the English egg custard tart or French flan pâtissier.

3. Infuse the milk with the lemon zest and cinnamon stick by heating in a small pan until just simmering. Take off the heat and leave to cool a little.

4. Remove the zest and cinnamon, and in a small bowl, whisk about 1/3 of the milk with the flour until you have a smooth paste.

5. Bring the remaining milk back to a simmer, and gradually incorporate the paste until the milk thickens, stirring constantly with a whisk. This should only take a few minutes.

6. Next we need to make a sugar syrup. Heat the sugar and water in a pan, starting on a low heat and stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once dissolved, using a sugar thermometer, bring the pan to the boil and continue boiling until the syrup reaches 110°C. Take off the heat.

7. Gradually whisk your sugar syrup in to your prepared milk mixture until fully incorporated. Strain the resulting mixture through a sieve to get rid of any lumps.

8. Place your egg yolks in a large bowl, and pour over your mixture, whisking constantly to combine. You now have your custard. Cover the surface with a piece of cling film to avoid a skin and set aside.

9. Pre-heat your oven to 250°C/230°C fan. Remove the paper from the back of your pastry sheet and re-roll back into a cylinder. Cut the roll into 12 equal rounds.

10. Place one round of pastry in each of the buttered muffin tin cups, flat side down, and starting from the middle, push your thumbs into the pastry and start to flatten it against the bottom and up the sides of the cup until there is a small lip above the pan. Try to make the sides quite thin.

11. 3/4 fill each cup with your custard mixture, then bake for approx. 15 minutes, or until the pastry has browned. The filling will probably rise significantly, but don't worry, it will deflate when you remove them from the oven.

12. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. Grate nutmeg liberally over the tops (optional), and gobble them as soon as you dare without scalding your mouth.

They keep for a day or two afterwards, and refresh well in the oven if you want to eat them warm.

This recipe is not mine, it's a James Martin, from his book 'Sweet', but it went down so well that I thought it deserved some air time on the blog.

Those of you who follow us over on Instagram might have noticed the beautiful, bright yellow KitchenAid that I gifted to myself around my birthday. I absolutely love the thing, aethetically and functionally (maybe that's a blog post in itself), but moreover, it has inspired me to push my baking further. I haven't had much experience with dough, and so I chose this recipe to put the KitchenAid to work and practice an enriched, sweet dough.

Ingredients

For the dough:
300ml milk
500g strong flour, plus extra for dusting
75g caster sugar
5g table salt
7g fast-action dried yeast (or 14g fresh yeast)
1 egg, beaten
50g softened butter

For the cake:
1 quantity enriched yeast dough (above)
15g cocoa powder
150g nutella, (chocolate hazelnut spread)
2 bananas, peeled and cut into 1cm slices
100ml stock syrup glaze (In a saucepan, heat 200g caster sugar in 100ml water, stirring to dissolve, then bring to the boil and set aside to cool slightly)

Method

Warm the milk gently in a saucepan. Combine the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a mixer or large bowl until combined, then add the milk and egg and mix until you have a sticky dough. Knead the dough for 5 minutes.

Gradually add the softened butter to your dough, a bit at a time, kneading well in between each addition. It will take about 10 minutes to incorporate the butter and the dough will be sticky.

If you’re using a mixer, flour the work surface well and turn the dough out. Continue to knead lightly until the dough is smooth and no longer as sticky.

Divide the dough in half and place one half in a bowl for proving. Mix the cocoa powder with 1–2 tsp water and add this to the other half of the dough. Knead until completely combined, and place in a separate bowl. Cover both bowls of dough loosely with clingfilm.

You can now leave them to prove at room temperature for around 4 hours, but I proved mine in the fridge overnight, which I always prefer to do with dough if I can.

Grease and line a 23cm tin. A springform or loose-bottomed tin is best.
Knock the chocolate dough back and roll it out to a rectangle about 15cm x 50cm (use a pulling-by-hand and rolling technique to get the shape). Spread the Nutella all over your dough rectangle, then make a layer of banana slices on top.

Roll out the plain dough to a rectangle the same size, and lay this over the top of the banana-topped dough. Press down lightly, then cut in half lengthways. Holding either end of one piece, twist in opposite directions and lay carefully into the cake tin, starting at the outside. Twist the other half in the same way and lay inside the first piece.

Leave to prove for 2 hours, covered, in a warm place until doubled in size. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Bake for 35–40 minutes, but as always, keep an eye on it. It should be golden brown and risen, and the base should sound hollow when tapped. Brush with the stock syrup glaze then leave to cool on a wire rack, before you cut your first slice and your friends and family devour the lot.

My tips Chuck half a cup of water into the oven/spray the loaf with water just before putting it in to bake. Enriched doughs tend to form a softer crust anyway because of the fat content, but I like to create steam in the oven whenever I bake bread to be sure the crust doesn't form too quickly. Spray again half way through baking. Another (gratuitous? naughty?) thing I did when I baked this cake, was to brush butter all over the top. This was after it was baked, and 5/10 minutes before the sugar syrup glaze. (hey, I never said this would be good for you..) I read somewhere that a butter glaze promotes a soft crust and gives a good shine and colour. Of course, I can't be sure of what the result would have been without me spraying water and glazing with butter, but it was a damn lovely crumb and a pillowy, buttery loaf in general, so I'd stick with this method if I make another.

200g soft butter
50g plain flour
200g icing sugar
5 whole eggs
250g ground almonds
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

2 sticks rhubarb cut in to 2cm chunks
100g caster sugar
200ml water

30g chopped pistachios
Apricot jam to glaze

Method

First, make your pastry. Line a 28cm tart tin with it, and blind bake. I used this method by Hobbs House Bakery and you can read my tips on blind baking here. This makes a very soft dough that can be hard to handle in a warm kitchen, but which gives very tasty results.

Next, bring the caster sugar and water to the boil in a pan to make a syrup, then simmer the rhubarb in it for a minute until just poached. Take it off the heat and let it cool.

To make the frangipane, firstly combine the flour, icing sugar, ground almonds and ginger in a bowl.

In another bowl, whip up the butter until smooth, then stir in a spoonful of the dry ingredients, followed by an egg. Continue alternately adding the eggs and spoonfuls of the dry ingredients, whipping to avoid the mixture splitting, until all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour the mixture into the pastry case and smooth. Arrange the poached rhubarb in the mixture, and finish by scattering the chopped pistachios on top. Bake for 20/25 minutes at 180°, or until the filling is set.

Finish with an apricot jam glaze. You may need to warm your jam to make it liquid enough to brush.

 If you're going to perfect one steak sauce, in our opinion it's got to be a Béarnaise. It's a classic French sauce, and is great with both meat and fish. The same technique is used to make a number of other delicious sauces with a Hollandaise base, so is well worth learning.

Recipe for Béarnaise

1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp shallot, finely chopped
2 1/2 tbsp tarragon, chopped
3 peppercorns cracked
2 egg yolks
1 block of butter (250g), freshly clarified and luke warm.

Combine the vinegar, shallot, 2/3 of the tarragon and the peppercorns with 2 tbsp cold water, in a small saucepan. Reduce by half.
Let this cool, then add the egg yolks. Add 2 tbsp cold water, then place on a low heat.
Whisking constantly, pour in the butter slowly and bit by bit.
When the sauce has thickened, sieve out the shallot, peppercorns and tarragon, and season. A little lemon juice will make it more tart, if you prefer it that way.
Add the remaining tarragon and serve.

There are many names for an open-top pastry case and its filling. In our house, if the filling is a savoury custard, we tend to call it quiche. If it's a sweet filling, it's a tart, and on occasion, if the filling is suitably American (like pumpkin), I can have my arm twisted in to calling it a pie. (But I'm telling you, a pie has a lid - be it pastry or mashed potato)

The weather has been pretty pants in England this week. It's been very close, grey and muggy. Headache weather. The only thing to do was to eat carbs and cheese and feel sorry for ourselves. One of my favourite things to make is shortcrust pastry. It's always the beginning of something really delicious, and I find the repetitive flicking of the cold butter in flour very therapeutic. Granted, it's a bit of an arse to do when the weather is warm, but having made a few batches in my time and reading up on the subject, my go-to method taken mainly from Richard Bertinet hasn't failed me yet, even with my accursed warm hands.

Just a heads-up, this is a pretty in-depth pastry method, but I hope you'll find it useful.

Savoury Pastry

250g plain flour
Pinch of salt
125g slightly salted butter
1 egg
35ml cold water

N.B. This should make enough for 1 deep 20cm quiche or approx. 8 small ones, but I generally double my recipe and freeze the leftover pastry for another time.

Method

Firstly, measure out all your ingredients and put the flour and salt into a large, cold mixing bowl.

Take 2 pieces of baking paper or butter wrappers, put your cold butter between them, and go to town on it with a rolling pin until it's a centimetre or so thick. This softens the butter without warming it, and makes it easier to work into the flour.

Put the flattened butter into the flour, coating it thoroughly, and tearing it into large pieces. Flake the butter and flour together using a light flicking motion. Keep turning the mixture with your hands, coating the butter, and flicking until the largest flakes are about the size of a small finger nail. Try not to press or squeeze the butter - we're trying to keep it from getting sticky!

Add the egg and water, and mix it all together to create a rough dough. Press into the dough with your thumbs and turn a few times in the bowl to bring it together, before turning out on to a clean work surface. Continue pressing and turning four or five more times.

Fold the pastry over itself and press it down with your fingers. If it's a bit sticky, lightly flour the work surface. Repeat the folding and pressing until your pastry looks like plasticine, and finally pick it up and tap each side on the work surface to square it off for chilling. I sometimes roll it out a little to make the block thinner. This way it chills faster and is easier to roll.

Wrap the block in greaseproof paper (clingfilm makes it sweaty) and rest in the fridge for at least an hour, or preferably overnight if you're really prepared.

When rested, roll out your pastry on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm thick (2-3mm for small cases), making sure not to press down too hard or stretch the pastry. Keep lifting and turning so it doesn't stick to the worktop.

Line a lightly greased or buttered case with your rolled out pastry, being careful not to stretch it or tear it. I usually leave the overhang in place and trim later. Give the tin a tap on the work surface to settle the pastry.

To blind bake the case, start by pricking the base to stop it bubbling up. Next, take a large sheet of baking paper or tin foil, line your case with it, and pack it out with flour. You could use baking beans, but I've started using flour because I find it keeps the shape a lot neater. Rest in the fridge again for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190°C and bake the case for around 20 minutes. Keep an eye on it, however, because no two ovens are the same. As scientific as baking can be, there is also an art to knowing when your bakes are ready. We're looking for the case to be dry and lightly coloured.

At this point, remove your flour/baking beans and give the case an egg wash to seal it and add some colour. Pop it back in the oven for 10 minutes or so, and there you have your pastry case ready to fill. At this point, I carefully trim the overhang with a sharp knife.

Filling

200ml double cream
100ml milk
5 eggs
100g bacon, cooked (we used both back and streaky, smoked)
130g cheddar
100g spinach
50g goats cheese, sliced (we used leftover Pouligny St Pierre)
Salt & pepper

Method

Turn the oven down to 160°C.

Combine the eggs, milk and cream in a large jug, and season well.

Sprinkle the cheddar into the bottom of the case, followed by the crispy bacon, and then the spinach to create layers. (This also ensures every slice has a bit of everything!)

When you're ready to bake, pull out an oven shelf part way and sit your quiche on it, ready to pour your cream and egg mixture in. Fill the case as close to the brim as you dare, top the quiche with sliced goats cheese, and carefully push the shelf back into the oven to bake for 30-40 minutes, or until set.

Pizza is a treat we look forward to at home. It usually makes it on to the menu at the weekend when we've got some tasty leftovers to use, such as pulled pork or spicy lamb. This week it made it on to the menu by its own merit; we just really really fancied a quattro formaggi.

We've tried a few pizza dough methods, but the one below is our go-to recipe, courtesy of James Martin. We gave the dough 24 hours' proving in the fridge, which develops a great flavour, and in the traditional style, we skipped a tomato base and just loaded it with cheese.

Pizza dough

800g/1lb12oz Italian ‘00’ white flour
200g/7oz semolina flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
14g/½oz dried yeast
640ml luke warm water

Toppings

Whatever you feel like! For a classic quattro formaggi, go for Mozzarella, Gorgonzola, Parmesan and a soft white cheese of your choice.

This recipe makes quite a lot. Enough for four good sized pizzas, so we usually make half measurements.

Method

The water and yeast mixture can then be added, and the whole mixture brought together into a dough, which requires a good knead. I like to knead mine by hand. I find it more satisfying for some reason, plus it always gives good results.

The dough needs to be proved for a few hours, or for a really authentic flavour, make it the day before and prove it in the fridge overnight.

Finally, roll it out, on a floured surface, and top it with anything that takes your fancy.

We roll them quite thin and pop them in a preheated oven at full whack, preferably on a pizza stone, until the crusts are starting to colour.

- M