Similar to a Bakewell tart but with custard instead of frangipane topping, a Manchester tart consists of an almond shortbread crust with raspberry jam and vanilla creme patissiere, coconut and cherries. This recipe makes anough pastry and custard for the equivalent of 3 x 20cm tarts, but I made two 15cm tarts and two 10cm tarts. You can also mix the recipe up by using half of the pastry to make banana custard tarts. This is where Dr Oetker’s Banoffee Sprinkles add a nice finishing touch.

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A traditional Polish Easter/Christmas cake with chocolate, raisins and peanuts on a shortcrust base. I wanted to make this at Easter but with so many other recipes I didn’t get chance.

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Somewhere between a pecan pie and a caramel tart, a Bündner Nusstorte has a pastry shell filled with walnuts and caramel. The original recipe didn’t use butter for the pastry, but mine wouldn’t hold together with just an egg, so I added 100g when mixing in the food processor so it was more like a regular pie crust. The pastry’s quite sweet, so if you have any scraps you can cut shapes with a cookie cutter and cover them in white chocolate to make white chocolate sugar cookies.

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Homemade poptarts are a great way to add fruit and another way to sneak Christmas spice in. These pop tarts are filled with apples, pecans and toffee sauce. You can vary the amount of wholegrain/plain flour (keep the total weight the same) and I prefer to use a mixture of apple varieties.

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Don’t give these to the reindeer if you expect them to see straight. The pastry has a subtle lemon flavour from the grated zest and is loaded with rum spiked mince pie filling and topped with a wholemeal streusel topping. You can serve these with custard or spiked rum sauce.

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Chocolate brains filled with Angel Delight and marshmallows.  This isn’t really ‘baking’, but these were fun to make and a quick Halloween dessert. I found some brain shaped moulds on Amazon, which I filled with Wilton candy melts. I made two flavours: marshmallow flavoured chocolate brains with marshmallows and strawberry Angel Delight and double chocolate – a chocolate brain with chocolate Angel Delight. You can also use regular white/milk chocolate instead of the candy melts to mould the brains.

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Marzipan is one of my favourite ingredients which only ever seems to be used at Easter and Christmas. This tart combines all the leftover marzipan you have leftover from Stollen or Simnel cake with apricots, which are in season at the moment. It’s best served with cream or vanilla ice cream.

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What’s the bonus you ask? Scroll to the bottom (after reading the recipe) to find out. Blackberries seem to be everywhere at this time of year. Given the extortionate price of them in shops, it seems wrong not to pick as many of them as you can to bake.

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Shoofly pie is an Amish treacle tart. The name comes from needing to ‘shoo’ away the flies due to all the sugar. I added walnuts to the filing because I happen to like nuts and it seemed a smidge healthier than just sugar. Hence, my version is actually closer to a pecan pie (but with walnuts) than a traditional shoofly pie. You’re free to stick with the traditional version and omit these if you prefer.

I also had enough pastry left over to make a raspberry tart (instructions at the bottom).
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With my new found obsession with pies on sticks, I wanted to try a peanut butter and banana version which would be just enough for one serving. These pie pops use an all butter whole what crust. I glazed half with chocolate and Dr Oetker banoffee sprinkles, and the other half with a honey glaze and chopped peanuts.

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