Paul Hollywood's Lemon Meringue Pie

I asked Kay who I live with if she had any requests from Paul Hollywood's "How to Bake" recipe book. Instantly she said Lemon Meringue Pie. So this one was for you Kay.

This was my first attempt at a Lemon Meringue Pie and I found it a very easy to follow recipe. I did cheat again with the pastry and had ready to roll. But the pastry could have been made the day before and kept in the fridge.

This recipe uses a lot of fresh lemons to make the lemon curd, which you could reduce if you didn't want it to be as tangy. For me I think the lemon flavour could have been reduced slightly, but not too much, I didn't think it was extremely tangy. However, Kay who requested the pie loved the flavour as it was.

There was spare lemon curd which I put in to a tupperware tub and stored in the fridge. This could be used on toast, a rivita cracker with cream cheese, mixed with vanilla ice-cream for lemon curd ice-cream. Anything you want really.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Recipe sourced from the Nigella Lawson website.

Everyone who knows me, knows I love desserts, particularly if fruit is involved. I've been wanting to make a pineapple upside down cake for a while, so I set out to find a recipe that looked good.

The recipe I found on Nigella's website had some good reviews and it didn't disappoint. Nigella suggests you can make a warm sauce from the pineapple juice to serve with the cake, however I made custard to go with mine.

This is such an easy and quick cake to make with very little effort. Its a lovely nice treat for Sunday dessert or afternoon tea.

If using tinned pineapple, try using the one in its own juice rather than in syrup. I added some of the juice to the sponge, too.