Five on Friday - From my kitchen

Five on Friday? More like Five every fortnight! I had all good intentions of a post last Friday, then before I knew it, it was the weekend... Six on Saturday anyone? But one thing led to another and a whole week passed. My teaching has started again this week so there has been sewing of samples and preparation done, my Italian classes have started again and I'm painfully aware of how much I have forgotten over the summer despite a holiday in Italy,  plus I'm in the thick of rehearsals for a play to take place next month... So as you can see lots going on, some of which I may tell you about in due course. But all the time I continue to bake and cook with a passion, no matter how busy I am. So today a taste of a few of the things to come out of my kitchen recently.

1. A fig and pear frangipane tart

Inspired by the frangipane tarts on the Great British Bake Off and by some good figs from the market, I made this tart, combining various recipes and tweaking here and there. It was good... But with only two of us here it meant dessert all week which was not so good. Well, it was but you get my drift!

2. Chocolate and salted caramel torte

Gill, who doesn't really enjoy cooking, often sends me recipes. And of course, I can't resist trying them. Do you think she has an ulterior motive as one of my chief testers?  This was meant to be one big torte but I made twelve little ones. Again, they were good, but to be fair, I did manage to give half of these away although it still meant several more days of dessert. At least we had finished the frangipane tart!

3. Biscotti

More apricot and fig biscotti, most of which were given away as gifts. There is a limit to how much cake or biscuits I can eat. Recipe here if you missed it.

4. An Ottolenghi inspired lunch

After our visit to Ottolenghi's in Spitlefields last week, I was inspired to get out my copy of Plenty and cook a broccoli and Gorgonzola pie plus various salads when my eldest came for lunch. See I can do savoury too! Fortunately it is the type of food that tastes just as good the next day... and the next... and even the next. Delicious though it all was, it was good to have macaroni cheese yesterday!

5. Bouquet cookies.

Yesterday, a piece of fiddly baking, recipe from The Pink Whisk... Cookies for the village show tomorrow. I decided to up my game for my entries for the home crafts section in the show. So if you will excuse me I'm off to perfect my Victoria sponge, bake a batch of six rolls and see if I can improve on my scones! I'll let you know how I get on!

Linking up with Amy for Five on Friday