There are thousands of great American cookies but none more loved than those of the chocolate chip variety. In the interests of sanity and my blood pressure, I've kept to the simplest version: no triple chocolate chunks or cranberry oatmeal here, just cookie and chocolate. And a big, non-Puritan amen to that.

You know you're getting old when you catch yourself tutting at the sight of hot cross buns on sale while most of Britain is still ploughing through Christmas cake. I can't blame people for buying them – spiced, fruited breads are delicious at any time of year – but equally, I do regret the spreading of their brief season. My style is to hold out until Good Friday, and then cram as many as possible into my diet until they disappear from the shelves (or, at least, from the promotional hotspots and back into the muffin and teabread aisle). This year, of course, I've had to climb down from my high horse and eat more than is strictly wise during Lent in pursuit of perfection; that's professionalism for you.

This foil parcel method is quick, easy and open to variation. You can change the flavourings to suit your taste – you could use lots of bay leaves, thyme and lemon instead of ginger and chilli, for instance, adding a splash of white wine and olive oil to keep the fish moist. Fillets of gurnard, lemon sole, bream, mullet and line-caught bass all respond well to this treatment, as do thick fillets of pollock.

Sugar-dusted, spicy and exotic, these tiny cookies will hit the spot when you need a seasonal bite-sized treat

Rarely have I enjoyed making anything quite so much: the bubbling stock, with its grotesque peeping trotters; the soft, warm dough to mould into shape like the potter I always wanted to be; the proud moment of prizing the huge, heavy, porky thing from its tin. Secretly I probably just fancied the challenge of making one to see if I could do it. What I hadn't expected was to end up with something so stonkingly good.

I learned an easier way to edge closer to the kind of airy, creamy, chewy, thin crust you find at pizzerias that have otherwise sane people waiting in line for an hour. And it has less to do with heat than good baking technique.<br />
I let the dough rise overnight.

In my family, this bread is enjoyed on Christmas morning with a cup of coffee amidst a flurry of wrapping paper. The tart cranberries and bright orange flavor cut the sweetness. This also makes a great dessert.

The simplest things are, infuriatingly, the most difficult to get right. A baked potato needs a crisp skin and a fluffy inside, but is all too often soft-skinned and hard within. This is how I get the perfect result every time.

The feeling of accomplishment you’ll get from pulling a deep-brown, crackly-crisp baguette out of your own oven is indescribable. Even the loaf itself celebrates your success: hold it up to your ear to hear its signature “song” as it cools. (What, you’ve never done that? Try it…)

Few cold weather puddings are as capable of warming us through to our marrow as a steamed treacle sponge. Just saying the name makes some of us feel better. The word treacle is really a misnomer, and traditional recipes use golden syrup rather than black treacle. At its simplest, the mixture is simply a steamed cake mix with syrup at the bottom, though some recipes include a few breadcrumbs in the base or ground almonds in the mixture.

I'm really starting to look forward to autumn, especially as those nights start to draw in. Now you may think I've gone a wee bit mad but just stop and think for a moment about all the fab opportunities it presents for indulging in a bit of comfort food!

A simple pound cake should be in every baker’s repertoire. Here, a boozy, nutty glaze adds a little flair to this basic comfort dessert.

Leeks and onions are interchangeable in so many ways, yet they require very different treatment in the kitchen. All the caramelised edges and amber sweetness we revere in a cooked onion are exactly the opposite of what we want in a leek. The crisp, occasional charring of the outer edges that brings a smoky sugariness to onion soup and onion tart don't work with the onion's long green-and-white sister. Even a hint of golden brown in a leek is unwelcome and can introduce a bitter note into our cooking.

Savoury muffins are a great way of using up the garden's bounty, too. If you have abundant courgettes, carrots, beetroot, spinach (or even a few handfuls wallowing in the salad drawer, about to expire from neglect), whip them into a batch of muffins. I'm not saying this because it's a good way of ensuring your five a day – though it is – but because grated or puréed vegetables are delicious and help to keep a savoury muffin moist, light and, well, savoury.

Crumpets are made from a thickish, yeasty batter and poured into rings. If you don't have rings, make thinner pancakes, or pikelets. Whether they are thick or thin, crumpets or pikelets, toast on the flattened bottom first and then on the holey side, so that maximum butter will melt into the crisp toasted holes. Now all you need is a big pot of tea, a fire and, possibly, a clean shirt standing by.

For some time now I have been trying to make a decent muesli style biscuit. Something crunchy with nuts and oats but with the same stickiness as a flapjack. Previously I have only managed recipes that crumble into thousands of pieces like a dish of granola or taste like a hamster's cage. At last, this week I got it just right, a biscuit that is tender enough to crumble a little, but well-behaved enough to put in a lunch box. Basically an oat bar studded with everything from sour cherries to pumpkin seeds, scented with treacly maple syrup.

I honestly don't make cheesecake often because a full-size cheesecake is uber rich and so large it really needs to be shared with a lot of people.  Plus, between the potential for cracking and for water to seep into the crust of those baked in water baths, I find them a bit high maintenance.  That's why I think these cupcakes are the perfect solution!  Easy to make and even easier to share, you couldn't ask for more.  You start by placing whole Oreos in the bottom of lined cupcake tins to act as the crust for your mini cheesecakes.  The cheesecake mixture consists of cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, salt and sour cream - pretty standard cheesecake ingredients.  Before the batter is poured into the cupcake tins, additional chopped Oreos are added to the mix.  The cheesecakes are baked at a fairly low temperature (275 F) for just over 20 minutes until the filling is set.  

Look, I'm delighted that rosemary flourishes in my garden. I use it so frequently, tucking it in and under game birds, lamb joints and whole fish when I roast them, chopping it into marinades, adding it to stews and scattering it over foccacia (see today's recipe). Picking a branch and rubbing my fingers along its tough, glossy leaves to release their bracing, pine-y scent is sometimes all it takes to perk me up in the middle of a busy day. So I care nothing for the old saying that where rosemary flourishes, the woman of the household rules.

The smoky peat flavour of malt whisky is here given a kick by the sharpness of the ginger. No longer the Methodist tea-time cake of yore, so hopefully a slice won't send anyone to hell just yet.

Autumn's just the time to learn a few new skills and brush up a few old ones. Of course, it's the season for bottling and preserving, to lay down a body- and soul-feeding store of sparkling, enticing jars to see us through until spring. But it's a chance for other culinary adventures, too.

Oven-fresh bread is one of life’s simple joys. Ciabatta, a crisp-crusted Italian bread with hints of sourdough and loads of crannies longing for butter, is one of the easiest breads to make at home.

It has a strong claim to the title of greatest British biscuit. What's the best commercial shortbread, and what's your favourite recipe?

So is it as good as a real Neapolitan pizza fired in a wood burning oven? No way. Would I be happy, impressed, and completely satisfied if I went to my friends place and he served me this pie? Absolutely. And on top of that, it doesn't require you to preheat an oven, and the whole thing is cooked within a matter of minutes—a really big deal for me in an apartment that gets absurdly hot in the summer.

Making bread takes time, but it’s not difficult. Try Paul Hollywood’s recipe for a delicious crusty loaf.

Peach ice cream is perfectly fine on it’s own. But it’s even better when scooped on top of warm cardamom cookies. I’d been thinking about this pair for a week before I served it. It was fantastic – a spicy and sweet match made in heaven. And these cookies could not be more fail proof!

Something very weird happened to Kevin Costner back in 1989. As he stood in his cute, all-American white tee in an Iowan cornfield, the very crop seem to have a message for him: "If you build it … they* will come" it whispered, somewhat unhelpfully. Putting aside the issue of whether Field of Dreams was single-handedly responsible for the Millennium Dome for a moment, I'd like to suggest the same is true of the chocolate brownie. Put brownies on the menu, and people will come, and they will order dessert. They simply cannot help themselves; confronted by the prospect of this all-American delight, the human soul crumbles into fudgey defeat, and a million eyes widen into heart-shaped pools of chocolate goo.

Robyn Eckhardt from eatingasia.typepad.com told me about a tahini bun she'd had in Istanbul and asked, "Why not peanut butter?" I started thinking about peanuts, salt and chilli, and by the end of the day was eating this with slices of chorizo.