Daffodil Soup London

I may have said this before but I am not a lover of sweet desserts. This is probably a good thing in a pastry chef – I wholeheartedly agree with the tutor who warned us, during a chocolate demonstration, to “lick and be sick”. Surrounded by chocolate, cake mix, icing, cookie dough and all things sugary most days, I would most certainly be the size of a house and have serious blood-sugar issues by now. The fact that I am addicted to cheese is another issue altogether. I made these little tartlets for a client whose husband is a big fan of pears. Because it was a buffet-style function I served nibbles instead of a starter, and wanted a nibble-style dessert that would be easy to eat standing up. They turned out so well – the pastry was crisp with a hint of cinnamon coming through, the pear was tender and juicy and the frangipane filling added a not-too-sweet hit of nutty almond. It may have been that my energy levels were low at the end of the day, but to me they were exactly what a pudd...

I made these this morning out of dough left over from a catering job, for which I made cinnamon whorl Danish pastries  (sustenance for the adults attending a children's birthday party). Most people, even pastry chefs, will look at you funny when you admit to making your own breakfast pastries. And I don't mean the Pillsbury ones you buy in a cardboard tube, or construct from ready-rolled puff pastry (not the same thing at all).  This is the real deal: sweet yeasted dough, rolled and folded to incorporate the (don't look now) tons of butter, rested, rolled and folded and then left to rest yet again. I won't lie to you, it's not a quick short-order meal ... but if you're in the kitchen anyway (I usually am) doing other things, then you won't notice the workload and the result is definitely worth the effort. It's really not difficult, or labour-intensive. With sweet yeasted pastry dough the options are endless: basic straightforward croissants or the posher...