The Vicar’s Wife’s Cook Book

5 slices of panettone, cut about 1.5 cm thick

6 tablespoons Cointreau

2 large tablespoons good-quality marmalade (I bought breakfast marmalade from my butcher but thick-cut, quality marmalade is fine – something like Frank Cooper’s)

3 oranges

5 fresh apricots

1 tablespoon apricot jam

1 tablespoon water

75g caster sugar, plus 1 tablespoon

250ml full-fat milk

500ml double cream

6 egg yolks

seeds from 1 vanilla pod, or a few drops of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cornflour

1 tablespoon flaked almonds, lightly toasted

First, break up the slices of panettone and put them into a 1.5-litre serving bowl. Slosh on the booze, then put the marmalade in a small pan, warm gently and pour that over the panettone, too. Finely grate the zest of 1 of the oranges and put it in a bowl. Shave off the zest from the remaining 2 oranges with a potato peeler, cover, and set aside for decoration. Now take a thin slice off the top and bottom of each orange, sit them one at a time on a chopping board and carefully slice away all the skin and white pith – which is one of those jobs that everybody hates.

Then slice away the segments from between the pieces of membrane and cut each one in half. Put the apricots into a small pan with the jam, water and the 1 tablespoon of sugar and poach gently for 10 minutes or until just tender, then mix into the finely grated zest with the orange pieces. Pour the whole lot over the Cointreau-sloshed panettone base.

Now for the custard. As a child I hated two things: custard and boys. The first, because it was too sloppy; the second, because they weren’t sloppy enough (that is, for all non-Welsh readers, they weren’t much into kissing and the like). Anyway, I love both now, so custard here we come. In a large pan, heat up the milk and 300ml of the cream. Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks, vanilla seeds or extract, the sugar and cornflour in a big bowl. Once the milky cream is hot, add it gradually to the egg mixture, whisking all the time. Pour it back into the pan, the heat turned to low, and stir constantly until it has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Pour it through a sieve on top of the fruity stuff already in your serving bowl. Cover and let it cool for a few hours or overnight in the fridge.

When you are ready to serve, whip up the rest of the double cream and smear it over the top of the custard. Once you have sprinkled over the almonds and pieces of reserved orange zest, it’s at last time to dig in.

A different sort of Sunday

I have to confess that I do like a big slab of meat on my plate on a Sunday, but there is no reason not to play the wild card now and then. Here, I offer a showcase for crab; in this recipe its delicate freshness is offset by the rich fruitiness of the tomato and the indulgent creamy sauces.

The pudding is equally a picture of elegance: passion fruit may look ugly when uncut, but once opened it releases a mound of tiny, glinting, flavour-packed jewels, with a heady fragrance.

FRESH CRAB CANNELLONI (#ulink_0695453b-230e-55c1-ab30-d47e9a86d998)

PAVLOVAS WITH PASSION FRUIT CURD AND CREAM (#ulink_f21a3afe-1a0e-53bf-89f7-91bf188190f7)

Fresh Crab Cannelloni (#ulink_d70dd82e-0736-5552-97fb-3eb4af5e9d34)

A cheap and cheerful version of this, which is more suitable for a simple midweek supper, could be to replace the crabmeat with tinned tuna or salmon. A dish the children will love …

200g fresh white crabmeat

juice of ½ lemon

3 teaspoons lemon-infused olive oil

a pinch of cayenne pepper

salt and pepper

a handful of fresh basil leaves, shredded

250g fresh egg lasagne sheets

For the tomato sauce:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1 × 400g tin chopped tomatoes

2 teaspoons caster or granulated sugar

juice of ½ lemon

salt and pepper

For the cheese sauce:

1 onion, peeled and halved

6 cloves

900ml full-fat milk

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

60g butter

60g plain flour

4 tablespoons double cream

120g finely grated Parmesan or Cheddar cheese, plus 30g Parmesan to sprinkle on the top