Store Cupboard desserts and puds – uber-useful extras

Vanilla ice cream.

These days you don't need an ice cream maker and there are many “no churn” recipes out there. This option came, I think, from Sainsbury's Magazine and it is excellent. I've tweaked along the way as you would expect.

My first tip here is rather than freeze in one container, use 500g pots with lids. This ice cream needs to be removed from the freezer 20 minutes or so before you want to serve so it's more practical to have frozen in smaller amounts. This recipe gives you 1.6 litres of ice cream - equal

to 18 scoops.

You'll need 1 x 397g tin sweetened condensed milk, 1 x 600ml double cream and 2tsp vanilla bean paste.

1. Put the condensed milk, cream and vanilla into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until the mixture is quite thick and stiff. **

2. Spoon the mixture into a lidded freezer-proof container and free for at least 6-8 hours or until firm.

Here's my tweak. You can buy jars of salted caramel sauce – easily available at most large supermarkets – usually 260g. Fold the sauce into the ice cream, at ** above. Hey presto salted caramel ice cream. What I have found though is that it may be a little too sweet – it's the personal taste thing again.

What does work very well is to make your own sticky toffee sauce. One batch of the recipe given below produces approximately 539g of the sauce, or, just over two batches to fold through the ice cream. It can be frozen for convenience – don't forget to halve the sauce and freeze in two separate containers. I think you'll find that making your own sauce it is less sweet and really enhances the vanilla ice cream.

I can hear your waistline expanding as I type.

Praline

Praline is largely used for adding to and flavouring cream, ice cream, butter cream or whatever takes your fancy.

Place 3oz caster sugar into a frying pan and 3oz unblanched almonds on top. Heat the sugar and almonds on as low a heat as possible. Resist the urge to prod/stir/mess with and don't walk away. The sugar begins to melt and when it is a pale golden colour and the almonds make a popping sound, turn it out onto a non-stick sheet.

Leave the praline to cool and set. You can then break up and blitz in a food processor to a consistency of your choice. If you're feeling cheffy you can use it in large pieces, as a decorative upright shard or blitz into a coarse powder. It keeps well so long as you transfer it into an air-tight jar. Should the mood take you you can even blitz it into a paste. Whatever your choice you'll have toffee shards/crunch or crumb that smells and tastes wonderful.

Sticky Toffee Sauce

Again there are many recipes available for sticky toffee sauce with lots of variations - this is the one I use all the time, 4oz unsalted butter, 8oz soft dark brown sugar and 10 fl oz double cream. Heat together the butter and sugar. When dissolved add the cream. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring. The best 15 minutes ever.

All three recipes are perfect additions to your store cupboard, to mix, match, sprinkle and drizzle to your heart's content.