We feel that here in the UK we do not do enough to protect and promote our own regional food treasures, and with Slow Food their intention is to do exactly that – to protect our regional foods and spread the word about them. If we look at our European cousins, particularly countries such as Italy, Spain and France, each one is incredibly proud of their own produce and would not even dream of using their neighbour’s ingredients, not to mention importing goods, which would simply not get a look in.

I was asked to create a seasonal recipe for Slow Food UK using an ingredient from the forgotten foods list, and so I have chosen sea lavender honey.

Even for me it was quite difficult to get hold of, but when you are next in East Anglia, especially Norfolk, then do make a point of picking up a jar or two. It’s delicious! If you cannot find sea lavender honey, then substitute local honey from your own region instead.

I love the wonderful blackcurrants we get delivered from High House Farm and it’s my mission to create as many wonderful recipes with them. I call this a sorbet and not an ice cream as it does not contain any eggs or cream. The brown sugar meringue recipe features in one of my other delicious recipes, so a bit of cross-referencing is needed.

I recommend full-fat yoghurt for this recipe as low-fat yoghurt can be fairly unstable. The liquid glucose helps the sorbet to stay scoop-able and prevents it from freezing too hard.

This sorbet is sophisticated and tasty enough to be served on its own and does not need any accompaniments.

For the real ale ice cream, you can use any local ale of your choice and preference. I have selected Woodforde’s Wherry real ale, an East Anglian ale from Norfolk, for its fruity character. It is slightly floral and less hopsy in taste and that tones the bitterness down.

In the summer, I substitute the real ale ice cream for cherry ice cream and serve cherries marinated in red wine syrup with it. It’s a classic but reliable and truly delicious combination.

Ice creams and sorbets was one of those, ‘to do’ items on the wishlist. Well Ross took the lead on the ice cream and sorbet front while I was writing my book and I happily popped along with my ideas and flavour combinations. This recipe is one of Ross’s combos and I think it’s a real treat!

Part of the mission was inspired by the large quantity of fresh seasonal produce that we received all of a sudden. I love the summer bounty as there is so much to pick and choose from that there is simply not enough time for me to write each and every recipe and dish that I do. Slowly but surely I shall build this a fantastic recipe collection of seasonal produce to be enjoyed for years to come.

Our beehives are doing well – fingers crossed we shall gain a few jars this season for our own pleasure and joy. John Buzz our bee man has warned me that with the cold and wet the bees are not particularly productive, well only time will tell and we still have a few more weeks of summer to go.

Here at British Larder HQ we make everything in bulk, I usually make a test batch large enough for tasting and selling, in this case I made 12 tarts for the restaurant and one for me. However the honest truth and I feel confession time coming on, drum roll…, I shared one with everyone and then had another whole one all to myself. Oops does that sound selfish? Hope not as they are really delicious; go on give it a try.

The pastry I used is my good and trustworthy sweet shortcrust pastry, we make up to five times the volume of the recipe, divide the mix into small blocks and freeze them, it comes in handy as it will defrost overnight in the fridge ready to be rolled and turned into these delicious little numbers.

The ice cream is equally delicious and in my opinion if you are going to bake and make a treat, do it well. This recipe is not for anyone on a diet that is for sure! I make the honey ice cream base and use an ice cream machine to churn the ice cream; when it’s ready I transfer the ice cream to a chilled tub and pour the honey crushed raspberries over then take a fork and give it a gentle mix, not too much as I like the ripple effect.

Make the tarts one day in advance and the ice cream can be made up to three days in advance, the longer you keep the ice cream the harder it will get to scoop so my advice is that it’s best to be used within a week. The tarts are delicious when they are slightly warmed through in a mild oven before serving.

This recipe is dedicated to two of our regular customers; Gloria and Denis Lee. When I first served arctic roll for Gloria the look and smile on her face is imprinted in my mind. I shall never forget that moment because of the sheer joy and happy memories this dish brought back to Gloria was a picture in itself. She did not have to say anything, her face painted the most wonderful picture and her smile spoke a million words.

I love strawberries, they’re perhaps one of the most fragrant fruits for me, and when I close my eyes and smell a sun ripened strawberry it brings back memories of my childhood and visits to the PYO farm with my family. Dad used to love eating strawberries with a sprinkling of sugar and lots of whipped Chantilly cream.

As I’m now writing this post I can smell the strawberry jam being cooked in the kitchen. We are jamming and bottling it to be sold from the bar. I hope the smell of the cooking jam will remain as a happy memory of summer at the British Larder.

The beauty of this recipe is that everything can be made in advance, at least three days when needed for a special event, and if you have a fantastic old fashioned dish it springs to life and sparks good conversation around the dinner table.

Elderflower cordial has so many wonderful uses and is not only good for a refreshing elderflower drink on a hot summers day but is also perfect for delicious jellies and works a treat in sorbets and ice-creams. The flowers  could be dipped in a light tempura batter and fried until crisp to serve as a garnish for added texture.

I used the elderflower cordial to flavour this delicious crème fraîche tart and paired it up with a lovely array of strawberry treats. Its great fun, you might not have all the tools to make all the garnishing bits, but if you can give the tart a go as it’s simply wonderful.

The recipe for this tart has been in Mr.P’s little black recipe book since he began cooking in 1996. This recipe did cause us a bit of drama and distress as we had filed it’ in a safe place’. We must have  tipped the house upside down looking for it, you can imagine as I do not quite know what it looks like, all I know it’s written in pen on a small piece of paper belonging to this little black book that had lost its cover. We were searching high and low for about a week, Mr.P hardly spoke to me as I obviously got the blame for it’s disappearance. He was walking around like a bear with a sore head who had just lost his best friend. Finally we found the piece of paper and  we could actually get on with making this dish.

To top it all off, the ingredients that we had purchased to make this dish had gone off by the time we found the recipe, so back to the beginning and we started the journey again from scratch. It was definitely worth the effort as it’s delicious and well worth the time, tears, tantrums and effort. I think the lesson learned was not to store things’ in safe places’ or do not purchase your ingredients until you have located the recipe. We are now giggling over the chaos that we caused ourselves; at the time it was quite a traumatic event. Boy’s and their….not really toy’s…but …..well recipes!

Talking about food is my cheap fix and when I get a great idea like this one popping into my head, I’m on a high for a few days. I received a kilo of leafy clementines this week and was wondering what could I possibly cook with them apart from the stollen that I flavoured with dates and clementine rind. I wanted to make something refreshing but spectacularly fun at the same time. After a dig through my kitchen larder, which by the way is very tidy for a change… thanks  to Mr.P, I discovered the tiny jar of leftover citric acid that I used for making elderflower cordial in the summer. Then it came….. drum roll…. the idea of making a clementine sherbet.

Like it??? I love it!! Grrrr… the idea of trying to use the whole clementine was magic! I dried the clementine skins in a cool oven for about 30 minutes until they were very crispy but still bright orange. I was fairly bemused on how quickly they dried, if you leave them for too long in the oven they will discolour and not look very attractive. I ground the very crispy clementine skins, added the critic acid, bicarbonate of soda and icing sugar, child hood memories here they come!!!!

Amazing I love the citrus fizzy feeling and taste, truly magical!

I wrapped the left over crispy clementine skins in muslin along with a couple of cloves and hung it inside the kitchen larder, it smells very Christmasy indeed. I’m pleased I found a use for the skins, as I am not entirely sure if the worms in the wormery would have appreciated them at all.

To finish off my clementine sherbet verrines  in the tiny shot glasses, I added a clementine mint salad, a spoonful of granita, topped with a natural yoghurt espuma  and a dusting of clemetine sherbert.

These little gems are the perfect refreshing replacement for the old classic trifle, they are not fatty nor heavy; just perfect!

I have had the privilege to use the previous models of the Thermomix in the superb professional kitchens that I have worked in the past. The rediscovery of the Thermomix (TM)  and the sublime TM31 model was a true revelation, so much so, that I acquired one for home use. As a matter of fact we have two in our household. My TM31 travels everywhere with me, it provides that extra pair of hands.

The TM31 is the best machine for the job when making purees. The smooth and ultra fine results deliver a puree with quadruple the impact in flavour. The incredibly fast rotation of the blades which  work at  four different angles means that the job gets done in a fraction of the time  and prevents bruising and oxidisation of the produce, hence the extension and expansion of flavour. Cooking directly in the TM bowl not only saves time at all different levels but also saves in resources and your yield is greater as you do not need to transfer the same ingredients twice or three times over. When I think in Thermomix terms I think in seconds not minutes, this reflects the speed that it operates at.

The discovery that I do not need to cut and stone the damsons was a serious time saving find. The trick to prevent the  puree from being bitter is to make sure you use the reverse blade setting at a very low speed. The blades will only be used to stir the damsons whilst cooking the puree, you are left with a puree packed with pectin. All you need to do is pass the puree through a fine sieve and then discard  the stones. Easy!

Making parfaits has and will always be a lengthy and complicated process. I have made this whole dish using the TM31  in half the time  it would have taken without  the machine and used only a third of the amount of dishes. The sabayon is perfect, better than using a double boiler as you can control the cooking time and temperature to perfection.

The consistency that the Thermomix offers is invaluable to any kitchen.

With the crisp autumn mornings comes the fantastic seasonal gifts. I think it’s almost mother natures way of apologising  for the change in temperature. The arrival of the ripe Victoria plum is a treasure and I associate this with the central focus point of a traditional English country garden. Roy has a Victoria plum tree in his beautiful well kept garden and I’m ever so grateful every year when I get a basket full of these beautiful and fragrant plums.

As you have most probably guessed I try and preserve the season for as long as I can and for that reason I divide my gift from Roy in three. One third is for immediate eating, one third for cooking and one third goes in the freezer for enjoyment at a later stage.

Last season I made cinnamon baked plums with  one third ,which was a delicious compote used for a cupcake filling and it made a yummy breakfast topping for porridge. I also made a mulled plum sorbet with the plums that I had in the freezer. This year is no exception as I have already planned to make the sorbet again for a special dinner party that’s coming up soon.

We are still enjoying some warm and sunny days which are perfectly suited for barbecues, gardening and enjoying lunch on the patio.So I thought that this delicious and indulging Victoria plum and blackberry frozen ice cream slices was the perfect treat to say farewell to the summer and welcome autumn with a smile. This dish is better known as a parfait in France and would be served during their long lazy lunches under the veranda during the summer. We still see parfaits in the posh restaurants but as I am using a true seasonal British ingredient I’ll only borrow the techniques and give it a slightly more appropriate name.

If you like the sound of this desert but do not have Victoria plums, I can recommend that any fruits,which can be pureed, would be a perfect substitute.

I wrote the thermomix method in the green colour so that it’s easy to follow but , as shown, you can still make this dessert the conventional way. Either way it’s delicious and perfect to be made in advance. As it’s a frozen pudding I recommend that you slice and serve it immediately or slice and place it back in the freezer until every one is ready to be served. Remember they are ice cream slices which will melt  fairly quickly, especially when it’s hot .