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Basic butter icing

A light butter icing for all basic sponge cakes, flavoured with the essence of your choice. Add a little milk for a softer icing for piping, or use cocoa instead of the cornflour to make chocolate butter icing.

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Kid-friendly dinners537 recipes · a new collection every Monday

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Latest recipes

Tacos de canastaSteamed basket tacos

From about nine in the morning, bicycles with a wicker basket strapped behind the seat roll into Mexico City offices and street corners, and the cry of 'tacos de canasta' goes up. Inside the basket, wrapped in cloth and plastic, a hundred small tacos have steamed in their own heat for hours, so the tortillas turn soft, glossy and slightly sticky with chilli-red oil. They are cheap, sold by the handful, and eaten with green salsa from a jar on the bike. The usual fillings are potato, refried beans, adobo and chicharrón prensado (pressed pork rind); this recipe makes the two vegetarian ones and leaves out the pork. Chef's tip: an insulated cool box lined with a tea towel does the same job as the basket and keeps them hot for two hours.

75 min

Mexican Snacks & Starters

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Pirpirim çorbasıPurslane, bean and bulgur soup

Purslane grows wild between the tea rows and maize fields of Giresun and Ordu, and in high summer it ends up in pirpirim çorbası, a lemony, slightly tangy soup thickened with cracked wheat and soft white beans. Families make it in big pots on hot days because it is just as good served lukewarm as piping hot. The fleshy leaves turn silky, the bulgur gives a gentle chew and a spoon of yoghurt on top makes it a full lunch. Common mistake: adding the purslane too early so it turns slimy and grey; it needs only 10 minutes. Chef's tip: keep a few raw sprigs back and stir them in at the end for crunch and a fresh green colour.

50 min

Turkish Soups

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PişiFried dough puffs

When a Turkish family has time for a long Sunday breakfast, someone stands at the stove frying pişi while the rest of the table fills with white cheese, olives, tomatoes, honey and endless tea. The yeasted dough is stretched thin with oiled fingers and fried until it balloons, golden and crisp outside and chewy inside. In villages across Anatolia it is also the treat made on bread-baking day from the last of the dough. Common mistake: oil that isn't hot enough; the pişi soaks it up and turns greasy. Chef's tip: poke a hole in the middle of each round before frying so it puffs evenly and cooks through.

35 min

Turkish Breakfast & Brunch

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TafelspitzSimmered beef with apple horseradish

Tafelspitz is Vienna's grand Sunday lunch, the dish the old Beisl taverns and the city's famous beef restaurants built their names on. A whole piece of beef top rump is barely simmered with root vegetables for hours, then served in three acts: first the clear golden broth, then the sliced beef with crisp roast potatoes, sharp Apfelkren (grated apple and horseradish) and a cool chive sauce. Keep any leftover broth for Grießnockerlsuppe or Frittatensuppe. Chef's tip: never let the pot bubble; a slow tremble keeps the meat juicy and the broth clear.

210 min

Austrian Meat

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TootAlmond rosewater marzipan

Little white toot sit on silver dishes at Nowruz and at weddings in Tehran and Isfahan, shaped and named after the pale mulberries that grow all over Iran. They are a soft, fragrant almond paste bound with rosewater, rolled in sugar and finished with a sliver of pistachio for the stalk. No cooking is needed, so children can help shape them. Chef's tip: add the rosewater a spoonful at a time; the paste should just hold when squeezed, and a wet paste won't keep its mulberry bumps.

40 min

Persian Desserts

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Tah-chinSaffron rice cake with chicken

Tah-chin is the showpiece of a Tehran dinner party: a round cake of saffron rice set with yogurt and egg, turned out of its dish so the thick golden crust sits on top like a lid, with a layer of tender chicken hidden inside. Families make it for birthdays, Nowruz visits and any day guests are coming, and the barberries scattered over the top add tart red jewels. The crust should crack like a crisp biscuit while the rice inside stays soft. A common mistake is skimping on the resting time after baking; turned out too early, the cake slumps and the crust sticks. Chef's tip: marinate the cooked chicken in a spoon of the yogurt mixture while the rice boils, so the filling is as well seasoned as the rice.

150 min

Persian Chicken

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Tahin pekmezTahini and grape molasses

Tahin pekmez is the simplest thing on a Turkish breakfast table and one of the most loved: tahini and dark grape molasses (pekmez) swirled together on a plate and mopped up with bread. In Central Anatolia and the Aegean, where grapes are boiled down each autumn, grandparents swear by it as a warming winter food. Stirred thoroughly, it becomes a thick, glossy spread that tastes of caramel and sesame. Common mistake: using tahini straight from the bottom of the jar; stir it well first or it is stiff and bitter. Chef's tip: add a few drops of lemon juice and keep stirring; the mixture suddenly thickens and lightens like a nut butter.

5 min

Turkish Breakfast & Brunch

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PithiviersAlmond cream puff pastry

The small town of Pithiviers, between Orléans and Paris, gave its name to this domed puff-pastry pie filled with almond cream, its top scored in curved lines like the petals of a flower. It is close to the galette des rois that French families share at Epiphany in January, but in Pithiviers it is eaten all year as a Sunday dessert. The almond cream is traditionally flavoured with a spoonful of rum; leave it out and add orange zest or vanilla for an alcohol-free version. All-butter shop puff pastry works well. Chef's tip: chill the assembled pie for 30 minutes before scoring and baking; cold pastry rises tall and the pattern stays crisp.

70 min

French Baking

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Lapas grelhadasGrilled limpets with garlic butter

Along the rocky shores of Madeira and the Azores, limpets are prised off the rocks at low tide and grilled within hours, arriving at the table in a hot cast-iron dish, still bubbling with garlic butter. Beach bars in Porto Moniz and on Pico serve them as a starter, with bread for dipping and a squeeze of lemon. They are best when only just cooked, tender with a slight chew. Chef's tip: buy them from a fishmonger who sells them live, still clamped tightly to their shells.

20 min

Portuguese Fish

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Pitta 'mpigliataHoney and walnut pastry spiral

High in the Sila mountains, the town of San Giovanni in Fiore bakes pitta 'mpigliata for Christmas and for weddings: ribbons of thin pastry rolled up with walnuts, raisins, cinnamon and cloves into little rosettes, packed side by side in a round tin and soaked in warm honey once baked. The name means something like 'wrapped-up cake', and it looks like a dish of flowers. It keeps for days, growing stickier and more fragrant. The dough is traditionally made with white wine and a splash of anise liqueur; this version uses orange juice and ground anise, with no alcohol. Chef's tip: roll the pastry as thin as you can; thick ribbons bake doughy in the middle.

90 min

Italian Baking

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TopfenknödelQuark dumplings in buttery crumbs

Topfenknödel belong to the long Austrian tradition of sweet main courses: in Viennese homes and Lower Austrian inns they are often served as a light Friday lunch, or as dessert after soup. Fresh quark, butter, egg and semolina make a dough that cooks into soft, tangy, almost cheesecake-like dumplings, which are rolled in breadcrumbs toasted in butter with cinnamon sugar and served with a warm fruit compote. A common mistake is boiling them hard; they puff, crack and fall apart, so keep the water just shivering. Most quark is made without animal rennet, but check the label and choose one marked vegetarian. Chef's tip: rest the dough for at least 30 minutes so the semolina can swell; it makes the dumplings hold together.

40 min

Austrian Desserts

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Langosta estilo Puerto NuevoFried split lobster with tortillas

In the fishing village of Puerto Nuevo, south of Rosarito on the Baja coast, dozens of family restaurants serve lobster the same way: split in half, fried in hot pork lard until the shell blisters and the flesh is sweet and just firm, then brought to the table with refried beans, red rice, salsa, melted butter, lime and stacks of soft flour tortillas for making lobster tacos. The local lobster is the clawless spiny kind, but any lobster or raw lobster tails work; frozen raw tails are an easy route. Live lobsters should be bought from a reputable fishmonger, kept cold in the fridge under a damp cloth and cooked the same day. Chef's tip: fry the halves flesh-side down first and don't move them, so the meat gets a light golden crust.

70 min

Mexican Fish

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Pizza al moldeThick pan pizza

Order "una grande de muzza" at a Corrientes Avenue pizzería and this is what lands on the metal stand: a tall, airy base baked in a round black tin, a thin layer of tomato sauce and so much mozzarella it spills over the edge and fries against the metal. Porteños eat it standing at the counter or at a Formica table, often with a wedge of fainá on top and a cold soda beside it, and at home it is Friday-night food the whole family agrees on. The crumb should be soft and bready like focaccia, the base crisp from the oiled tin. Most home cooks go wrong by loading the cheese on raw dough: by the time the base has baked the mozzarella has split into grease. Here the base is part-baked with its sauce first, the way pizzerías keep pre-pizzas ready, and the cheese only goes in for the last minutes. The mozzarella is usually made with animal rennet, so pick a vegetarian one if that matters to you. Chef's tip: let the dough rise a second time inside the oiled tin; that last proof is what gives the high, open edge.

145 min

Argentinian Pizza

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Pizza cancheraCheeseless thick tomato pizza

No cheese at all: that is the whole point of pizza canchera. Vendors walk the terraces at Buenos Aires football grounds with a wicker basket of these thick rectangles wrapped in paper, and the name comes from la cancha, the pitch. Because it is eaten at room temperature, the topping is a heavy, garlicky tomato paste, almost jammy, with dried oregano, a pinch of ají molido (crushed red chilli) and a good slick of olive oil; the base underneath is soft, a little oily and chewy, more focaccia than Neapolitan. Today it also turns up at kids' parties and on Sunday tables as a snack before the asado. Where people slip up is the sauce: a thin, watery sauce soaks the dough and turns it soggy by the time it has cooled, so the tomato has to be cooked down until a spoon leaves a trail. Chef's tip: cut it into squares only once it has cooled for 15 minutes; it will hold its shape like the slices sold in the stands.

145 min

Argentinian Pizza

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KatmerClotted cream and pistachio pastry

In Gaziantep the morning starts at a katmer counter: a baker slaps a ball of dough into a sheet so thin you can read through it, scatters it with pistachios, sugar and kaymak, folds it into a parcel and bakes it on a hot iron plate. Eaten straight away, it shatters at the edges and stays creamy in the middle, and locals drink strong tea with it. At home a heavy frying pan stands in for the iron plate. The usual mistake is stretching the dough before it has rested; it tears instead of going translucent, so give it the full hour under oiled cling film. Chef's tip: grind the pistachios only to coarse sand, not powder, so they stay bright green and give each bite some crunch.

45 min

Turkish Desserts

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TruffadeFried potatoes with Cantal cheese

Truffade is cattle-herders' food from the volcanic mountains of the Cantal, cooked in a big pan over the fire in the stone burons where Salers cows spend the summer. Potato slices are fried until tender and lightly golden, then folded with thin slices of young tomme fraîche du Cantal until the cheese melts into strings, and the whole thing is eaten with a green salad, nothing else. Herders used lard; this version uses butter and oil, so it is vegetarian. Tomme du Cantal is made with animal rennet; a young vegetarian cheese that melts well, such as a mild Lancashire-style or vegetarian mozzarella, also works. Chef's tip: slice the potatoes as thin as a coin so they cook through before they burn.

45 min

French Sides

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Torshe tarehSour herb and bean stew

Torshe tareh is one of the dishes that marks Gilan's cooking as different from the rest of Iran: a dark, sour, garlicky stew of finely chopped greens, cooked down with rice flour and soured with bitter orange juice or dried sour plums, then finished with eggs. It is made in the Rasht area all year round and eaten with kateh rice, often alongside salted fish for those who eat it; this version is vegetarian with black-eyed beans for body. The common mistake is undercooking the herbs, which leaves the stew grassy instead of deep and savoury. Chef's tip: fry the chopped herbs until they turn almost black-green and stop smelling raw before any liquid goes in.

65 min

Persian Curries

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PlastosWild greens and feta cornmeal pie

Plastos comes from the hill villages of Thesprotia and Ioannina, where women patted (plastó, 'shaped') a pie together from what the garden and hillside gave: wild greens, leeks, herbs and cheese, held between layers of coarse cornmeal instead of filo. It bakes into a crusty, rustic slab, green and savoury inside, eaten warm with yoghurt or as a lunch to carry to the fields. Feta is usually made with animal rennet; a vegetarian feta-style cheese works. Common mistake: leaving the greens wet — squeeze them hard after salting, or the cornmeal turns to paste. Chef's tip: a mix of spinach and chard with plenty of dill and fennel tops comes close to the wild greens of Epirus.

80 min

Greek Vegetarian

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