Dan Lepard
Columnist
Dan Lepard is a columnist.
Plum pudding trifle
Blood plums are cooked with red wine and spices to create a jelly with a deep, rich mulled wine flavour. The trifle is especially good if you make your own swiss roll. If you do, keep back 150 grams of the cooked plums and boil it with 50 grams of sugar to make a quick jam to spread on the sponge.
- 1-2 hrs
- Dan Lepard
Tapenade flatbreads with white bean puree and fried capers
Amp up the classic 'bread and dip'. These flatbreads have a spiral of black tapenade through them, and are excellent with more subtly flavoured dips like this bean puree. To cook the flatbreads, you'll need a solid iron or steel griddle, or an uncoated old-fashioned frying pan, as the non-stick finishes aren't to be used over very high heats.
- 1-2 hrs
- Dan Lepard
Dan Lepard's spinach rosemary macaroni cheese recipe
Loaded with cheese, spinach and creamy white sauce, this is the perfect side dish for slow-cooked meats.
- 30 mins - 1 hr
- Dan Lepard
Thin, crisp choc-chip biscuits recipe
The dough spreads wildly during baking and turns a deep golden colour. The final crispiness of these bikkies is mostly down to how long you bake them and how long before you eat them: made and eaten straight away they are at their crunchiest.
- < 30 mins
- Dan Lepard
Vanilla butter birthday cake
A flat sheet cake that's perfect for when you want an even texture that cuts easily into shapes to assemble into a complex birthday cake. Like the koala-face cake that childhood dreams are made of.
- 1-2 hrs
- Dan Lepard
Vanilla steamed pudding
There's a reassuring comfort to a wedge of soft cake-like steamed pudding. Cooked in a bowl sat in a pot of simmering water, the temperature stays below boiling and lets the crumb set gently, giving it a delicate texture. This is the perfect base to tweak with any extras you fancy, such as dried fruits, chopped crystallised ginger or a few tablespoons of coconut.
- 2 hrs +
- Dan Lepard
Dan Lepard's focaccia
When you make a quick yeast dough, the flavour can be a bit basic and flat. Artisan bakers might add sourdough starter to improve the taste. But if you don't have a starter, a slosh of white wine, kefir, or any liquid that has a slightly astringent and perky flavour will help the overall munchability of the crust and crumb.
- 2 hrs +
- Dan Lepard
Garlic, sweet potato and chickpea soup
A super comforting, ward-away-the-blues autumn soup with a rich sweet flavour that's offset by a squeeze of lemon and a few twists of ground black pepper added straight onto each person's soup bowl at the table.
- < 30 mins
- Dan Lepard
Sun-blushed Christmas crackers
Authentic turmeric powder turns a golden red when baked, a beautiful colour for these simple wheat crackers. Seeded and gently salty, they're a perfect gift to give with a jar of tapenade, muhammara, or ajvar, and a bottle of red wine. If they lose their crispness in the bag, they can be reheated gently until crisp again, though the best way to avoid this is by wrapping them as soon as they're cold and sealing the bag with as little air as possible.
- 1-2 hrs
- Dan Lepard
Date and ginger chocolate chip biscuits
The method for these biscuits is like a ginger snap but these are more like a regular chewy American-style cookie.
- < 30 mins
- Dan Lepard
Original URL: https://www.watoday.com.au/goodfood/by/dan-lepard-hvf94