As a pastry chef, Dav­id Pearce from Straw­berry Fare often gets asked to “bring the desserts”, but at this time of year tra­di­tion takes over: on Christ­mas Day, it is always about his mother-in-law’s cake and her sister’s trifle, so he is off the hook.

If you are asked to make the desserts this Christ­mas, here are two of Pearce’s deli­cious sweets for the fest­ive sea­son. He has selec­ted a warm and a cold option, so there is some­thing for every­one. His tip for impress­ive res­ults is simple – stock up on the highest-qual­ity free-range eggs and dairy products. Although the fest­ive sea­son is incred­ibly busy at the res­taur­ant, Pearce is look­ing for­ward to fam­ily fun, laughter, wine and loads of sun­shine on his couple of days off this Christmas.

Sticky date pudding

Ingredients

 Date mix

• 150g unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 80g brown sugar
• 250ml water
• 500g dates

Pud­ding

• 2 large free-range eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 20ml rum
• ½ cup plain flour, sifted
• 1 cup self-rais­ing flour, sifted
• 1 tsp bak­ing soda, sifted
• 1 tsp mixed spice, sifted

But­ter­scotch sauce

• 1 cup cream
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 5 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tbsp treacle
• 100g but­ter, cut in small cubes

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Method

Date mix

1. Bring the but­ter, vin­eg­ar and water to the boil, then add the sug­ar and stir until dissolved.
2. Add the dates and sim­mer for 10 minutes. Leave to cool.

Pud­ding

1. Pre­heat oven to 150˚C.
2. Pre­pare your chosen moulds (a Tex­an muffin tin works per­fectly for this recipe) with a quick spray of veget­able oil or grease with but­ter and dust with flour.
3. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl, and then add the milk and con­tin­ue whisk­ing. Add the rum and the date mix.
4. Swap to a wooden spoon or spat­ula and fold in all your sifted ingredi­ents until fully incorporated.
5. Spoon the pud­ding mix into the moulds and bake for 25 minutes, before check­ing with a skew­er or sharp knife. Stab the thick­est part of your pud­ding: if it comes out clean, it is cooked.
6. Turn the pud­dings onto a wired rack as soon as you can and serve with the but­ter­scotch sauce and vanilla ice cream.

But­ter­scotch sauce

1. Bring the cream to the boil, then add the brown sug­ar and stir until dis­solved. Add the golden syr­up and treacle, and con­tin­ue to heat and stir.
2. Whisk in the but­ter, and once incor­por­ated, take off the heat. Serve imme­di­ately and avoid refrigeration.

 Serves 4–6

 

Mixed berry pavlova

Ingredients

Pavlova

• 1 cup free-range egg whites (about 6 large eggs)
• 2 cups caster sugar
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp cornflour

Berry com­pote

• 500g of fresh sea­son­al berries
• ½ cup caster sugar
• ½ cup water

Whipped cream to serve

Method

Pavlova

1. Pre­heat oven to 100˚C.
2. Line a bak­ing tray with greaseproof paper or a sil­ic­on mat.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form (and don’t col­lapse when you remove the whisk). Next, very slowly and stead­ily, add the sug­ar while still beat­ing until it has dissolved.
4. Gradu­ally add the vin­eg­ar, vanilla and corn­flour while con­tinu­ously beating.
5. Spoon this mix­ture onto your lined bak­ing tray and shape into 4 or 6 tall, round shapes with a spatula.
6. Bake for 1 hour, and then turn the oven off, leav­ing the pavlovas inside for a least anoth­er hour or, prefer­ably, overnight.

Berry com­pote

1. Sort through your ber­ries, divid­ing them into large and small ones.
2. Put the sug­ar and water in a pan and bring to the boil. Next, place the biggest ber­ries in the syr­up and stir gently.
3. Wait 1 minute before adding the small ber­ries, and then take the pan off the heat imme­di­ately and allow to cool.

To serve, top each pavlova with the berry com­pote and whipped cream.

Serves 4–6