Quick desserts

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Salame de chocolateNo-bake chocolate biscuit log

Every Portuguese child seems to have helped make one: crushed Maria-style tea biscuits folded through rich chocolate, rolled into a log, chilled and dusted with icing sugar until each slice looks like salami. It turns up at birthday parties, in café display cases around Lisbon and on Christmas dessert tables. The traditional mix uses raw eggs; this version leaves them out and sets with melted chocolate and butter instead, so there is nothing raw in it. A splash of port is often added, which contains alcohol; leave it out or use milk. A common mistake is crushing the biscuits to crumbs; leave some larger pieces, or the slices lose their marbled look. Chef's tip: break the biscuits by hand into pieces the size of a fingernail; crumbs turn it into fudge and you lose the salami look.

25 min

Portuguese Desserts

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PaparajotesLemon leaf fritters with cinnamon sugar

Paparajotes are the sweet of the Murcian huerta's spring festivals, above all the Bando de la Huerta, when the city fills with people in traditional dress and stalls fry them by the hundred. A lemon tree leaf is dipped in a light batter, fried and dusted with cinnamon sugar; you hold it by the stalk, pull off the crisp coating with your teeth and leave the leaf, which flavours the batter but is not food. Newcomers who try to eat the whole thing are a long-standing local joke. Chef's tip: use only leaves from an unsprayed lemon tree, washed and dried.

30 min

Spanish Desserts

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Crémet d'AnjouLight cream dessert

Angers and the Anjou countryside have served crémets since the 1800s: a mixture of fresh cheese, whipped cream and whisked egg white, drained in muslin until it holds its shape, then unwrapped onto a plate with berries or a red fruit coulis. It is soft, cool and barely sweet, and Angevin cheese shops sell it by the pot in spring and summer. This version swaps raw egg white for a little extra whipped cream, so it is safe for everyone. You need muslin or a clean J-cloth and small sieves or ramekins with holes. Chef's tip: give it a full 12 hours in the fridge; it firms up and turns light and mousse-like as the whey drips away.

20 min

French Desserts

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PasteliSesame honey bars

Pasteli is one of the oldest sweets in Greece, and on islands like Sifnos and Andros it is still made in the home kitchen for weddings and feast days, sometimes cut into diamonds and served on lemon leaves. Toasted sesame seeds are bound in hot honey and set into a thin sheet that snaps cleanly but softens slightly as you chew, tasting of nuts and wild thyme. Common mistake: taking the honey off the heat too early, which leaves bars that stay sticky and bend instead of snapping. Chef's tip: test a drop of the honey in cold water; when it sets into a firm ball you can press without it flattening, it's ready.

30 min

Greek Desserts

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CuajadaSheep's milk junket with honey

In the green valleys of northern Navarre, Ultzama and Roncal above all, sheep's milk is set into cuajada, a wobbly, faintly tangy junket that is eaten as dessert in village restaurants and sold in little clay pots at Pamplona's markets. Shepherds once warmed the milk by dropping a red-hot stone into a wooden pot, which is why some cuajadas taste lightly smoky. It is always eaten cold, with honey and walnuts. Most rennet is made from calves' stomachs; for a vegetarian cuajada use a microbial or vegetable rennet. Chef's tip: once the rennet is in, don't move the pots at all until they have set, or they turn grainy and weep.

20 min

Spanish Desserts

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CholadoShaved ice with fruit

On a hot afternoon in Jamundí, just south of Cali, the stalls along the road to the river build cholados in tall plastic cups: a base of shaved ice drenched in bright fruit syrups, layers of chopped mango, papaya, pineapple, banana and strawberries, then a ribbon of condensed milk and a shower of coconut. It is half drink, half dessert, eaten with a long spoon as the ice melts into fruity, creamy slush. Children love it, and it is quick to build at home. The commonest mistake is shaving the ice too early; it melts into water before you finish assembling, so crush it at the last moment. Chef's tip: chill the fruit and glasses well beforehand and squeeze a little lime over the fruit so it stays bright.

15 min

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Mel i matóCurd cheese with honey and walnuts

On the road up to Montserrat, farm women once sat at stalls selling fresh mató, a soft, mild, unsalted curd cheese, and the dessert of mató drizzled with honey became a fixture of Catalan restaurants. It is as simple as dessert gets, and best with the freshest cheese. Shop-bought mató and some ricottas are set with animal rennet; this home version is set with lemon juice instead, so it is vegetarian. If you buy cheese, check the label for a vegetarian or microbial rennet. Chef's tip: heat the milk gently and stop at 90 °C; boiling makes the curds tough and grainy.

30 min

Spanish Desserts

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Sakızlı muhallebiMastic milk pudding

Çeşme looks across the water to Chios, the island where mastic trees weep their resin, and the town's pudding shops have long used it to perfume a simple, wobbly milk pudding. The flavour is hard to describe: piney, a little floral, very fresh against cold creamy milk. It is the dessert to order after a long fish lunch in Alaçatı. Chef's tip: grind the mastic with a teaspoon of sugar in a mortar; on its own it gums up into sticky lumps.

25 min

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Bici biciRosewater starch jelly with ice

When Adana's July heat pushes past 40 °C, handcarts on every corner serve bici bici: cubes of wobbly starch jelly piled with shaved ice, splashed with rose syrup and dusted with icing sugar. Children eat it in the shade of the clock tower; grown-ups claim it is the only thing that works in that heat. The jelly is just cornflour, water and a little sugar, set and cut into cubes. The usual mistake is undercooking it, which leaves a cloudy, floury jelly that won't hold a cut. Chef's tip: freeze water in a shallow tray and scrape it with a fork for snowy ice if you have no ice shaver.

25 min

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HöşmerimCheese and semolina halva

Höşmerim is a winter dessert of the Erzurum plateau and the Bolu highlands, made from unsalted fresh cheese melted with butter and semolina until it turns golden and gives off its own butter, then soaked with syrup. It's eaten warm in small bowls, chewy and rich, topped with crushed walnuts or pistachios, often after a long cold day. Common mistake: using salty or aged cheese, which turns oily and bitter; you need a soft, unsalted fresh cheese such as lor or ricotta. Chef's tip: keep cooking until the fat starts seeping out at the edges and the mixture is the colour of light toffee; that's where the flavour comes from.

30 min

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SupangleChocolate pudding on sponge

Supangle is the chocolate pudding of Turkish pudding shops and school canteens, a favourite of children from Istanbul to Ankara: a thick, dark cocoa custard set in a bowl, traditionally with a piece of sponge cake or biscuit hidden at the bottom to soak up the edges. Served cold with grated chocolate or pistachios on top, it is rich but not heavy. Use proper dark chocolate as well as cocoa for depth. Common mistake: adding the chocolate before the pudding has thickened; it can seize and turn grainy. Chef's tip: whisk the butter in at the very end, off the heat, for a glossy, almost shiny surface.

25 min

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Layali LubnanSemolina pudding with cream and pistachios

Layali Lubnan — 'Lebanese nights' — is the cool, wobbly pudding Beirut families make for Ramadan evenings and summer gatherings, because it is quick and feeds a crowd from one dish. A base of milk thickened with fine semolina and scented with orange blossom is topped with a thick layer of cream, then finished with pistachios, rose petals and a trickle of sugar syrup at the table. It is gentle and milky rather than very sweet; the syrup lets everyone choose. Common mistake: pouring the cream on while the semolina is still hot; it melts in and the layers blur. Chef's tip: whisk the semolina in slowly and keep whisking for the first minute — that is what keeps it perfectly smooth.

30 min

Lebanese Desserts

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Bananas Foster

Bananas Foster was invented in the 1950s at a family restaurant in the French Quarter, when New Orleans was the main port for bananas from Central America, and it is still flamed at the table there for birthday dinners. Bananas are cooked in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, then flambéed with dark rum and banana liqueur and spooned over vanilla ice cream. It contains alcohol; for an alcohol-free version replace the rum and liqueur with 4 tbsp orange juice and a few drops of rum flavouring and skip the flaming. Chef's tip: use bananas that are ripe but still firm, or they turn to mush.

15 min

American Desserts

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New Orleans pralines

In New Orleans a praline (say 'praw-leen') is a flat, fudgy disc of pecans set in brown sugar and cream, sold in waxed paper from candy shops along Decatur Street and by street vendors since the 1800s. It melts on the tongue rather than snapping like brittle. Chef's tip: use a sugar thermometer and take the pan off at 114 °C; a few degrees more and they turn grainy and hard.

30 min

American Desserts

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HaneenehWarm dates with breadcrumbs and ghee

Haneeneh is desert comfort food from the Bedouin tents of the Jordanian Badia: soft dates mashed into hot samneh with crumbs of yesterday's flatbread, scented with cardamom and pressed into a rich, fudgy sweet. It is made for guests, for new mothers and for cold mornings before herding, eaten by hand with black tea or Arabic coffee. It takes ten minutes and uses only store-cupboard things. The mistake to avoid is cooking the dates too long once they meet the ghee; they turn stiff and chewy instead of jammy. Chef's tip: toast the crumbs in the ghee first until nutty, then add the dates off the heat so the mixture stays soft.

20 min

Jordanian Desserts

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Funnel cake

Funnel cake started in Pennsylvania Dutch kitchens and became the smell of every American county fair and boardwalk, from the Kutztown Folk Festival to the Jersey shore. A thin batter is poured through a funnel in loops into hot oil, so it fries into a crisp, lacy, golden nest that you tear apart with your fingers under a snowfall of icing sugar. Chef's tip: keep your finger over the funnel until it is right over the oil, then move in quick overlapping circles from the centre out.

30 min

American Desserts

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Hawaiian shave ice

Shave ice came to Hawaii with Japanese plantation workers, and on hot afternoons on Oahu's North Shore families still queue at roadside stands for a towering, soft cone of ice soaked in rainbow syrups. The ice is shaved so fine it is like fresh snow and soaks up the syrup instead of letting it run to the bottom. Without a shaver, freeze ice in a block and scrape it with a fork. Chef's tip: let the ice block sit out for 5 minutes before shaving; slightly tempered ice gives fluffier flakes.

30 minPacific Islander Desserts

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Eton mess

Eton mess is served at Eton College's cricket match against Harrow each June, and it has become the English summer pudding for picnics and garden parties when strawberries are at their best. Crushed meringue, whipped cream and macerated strawberries are folded together at the last moment, so you get crunch, cream and juice in every spoonful. Chef's tip: fold it together just before serving; if it sits, the meringue dissolves into the cream.

20 min

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Summer pudding

Summer pudding is the high-summer pudding of English country gardens, made when redcurrants, raspberries and blackcurrants ripen together in July. Slices of day-old white bread line a basin and soak up the juices of lightly cooked berries overnight, turning a deep crimson and setting into a dome. Serve with cream (or a plant cream for a vegan pudding). Chef's tip: keep back a few spoonfuls of juice to paint over any white patches after turning it out.

30 min

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CranachanOat, raspberry and whisky cream dessert

Cranachan began as a harvest-home dessert in the Highlands, made when the raspberries ripened in June and July, and it is now served on Burns Night and at Scottish weddings. Layers of whipped cream sweetened with heather honey, toasted pinhead or rolled oats and fresh raspberries make it crunchy, rich and sharp all at once. The traditional splash of Scotch whisky contains alcohol; for an alcohol-free version use a few drops of vanilla and a squeeze of orange juice instead. Chef's tip: toast the oats until they smell nutty and look golden; raw oats taste floury.

20 min

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Ballycastle yellowmanHoneycomb toffee

Yellowman is the bright yellow, brittle honeycomb toffee hacked from great slabs at the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle, County Antrim, at the end of every August, often eaten with dulse. Golden syrup, sugar and butter are boiled to the hard-crack stage and then foamed with bicarbonate of soda into a crunchy, airy toffee. Chef's tip: have the tin and the soda ready before you start; once it reaches temperature you have seconds.

20 min

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Rote GrützeRed berry pudding

Rote Grütze is the summer dessert of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, made when the gardens are full of redcurrants, raspberries and sour cherries. The fruit is cooked briefly, thickened with a little cornflour and chilled until it sets to a glossy, spoonable jelly, tart and deep red, with whole berries still in it. Northerners pour cold vanilla sauce or plain cream over it; with a plant-based vanilla sauce it is fully vegan. A common mistake is boiling all the berries: add the soft raspberries last, off the heat, so they keep their shape. Chef's tip: frozen mixed berries work beautifully out of season, and their juice gives an even deeper colour.

20 min

German Desserts

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Manjar de cocoCoconut blancmange with prune syrup

Sunday lunch at a grandmother's in Rio, Minas or Pernambuco often ends with a manjar, a snowy ring of coconut blancmange turned out of its mould and drowned in glossy, nearly black prune syrup. It is smooth and cool, with a soft wobble, the mild sweet coconut cream set off by the deep, winey taste of the prunes. The dessert is set with cornflour alone, so it is gluten free, and it has to be made at least 4 hours ahead. Under-cooking the cornflour is what usually goes wrong: the manjar tastes chalky and breaks when turned out. Chef's tip: wet the mould with cold water instead of greasing it, then shake out the drops; the manjar slides out cleanly with a coconut taste unspoilt by oil.

30 min

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PoulakiThin saffron sugar candy

Poulaki are the paper-thin golden sugar coins sold by weight in Isfahan's sweet shops, meant to be held between the teeth while you sip strong black tea. The name comes from 'poul', the old word for coin, and Isfahanis serve them with tea to guests at any hour, flavoured with saffron, cardamom or sesame. Only sugar, a little vinegar and spice are needed, but timing matters. A common mistake is pouring the drops too big: they should spread no wider than 4 cm or they stay chewy in the middle. Chef's tip: work on a cold, lightly oiled marble or steel tray, which sets the coins in seconds and keeps them glassy.

30 min

Persian Desserts

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Mousse de cupuaçu

Cupuaçu, a cousin of cacao with a velvety white pulp, smells of pineapple, banana and chocolate at once and is one of the great flavours of Pará. Belém's ice-cream parlours and lunch restaurants turn it into this light, sharp-sweet mousse, and home cooks make it the night before a birthday or Sunday lunch because it is just whipped and chilled. Condensed milk and cream soften the fruit's sourness; a spoon of cupuaçu syrup on top adds colour and bite. Outside Brazil, buy frozen unsweetened cupuaçu pulp from Brazilian or Latin shops. Many cooks blend the cream with everything else, which leaves the mousse runny; whip it separately and fold it in. Chef's tip: thaw the pulp in the fridge rather than in hot water, so it keeps its perfume, and chill the mousse for at least 4 hours.

20 min

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Mousse de maracujáPassion fruit mousse

Three ingredients, a blender and a fridge: Brazilian home cooks from Recife to Curitiba lean on mousse de maracujá for Sunday lunch dessert because it takes ten minutes and nobody ever refuses it. The acid in passion-fruit juice thickens condensed milk and cream almost instantly, so it sets into a light, tangy, pale yellow mousse without gelatin, topped with the glossy black seeds and pulp. Sharp and sweet at once, it is perfect after a feijoada or a barbecue. Buy wrinkly, heavy passion fruit, which are the ripest and juiciest; frozen unsweetened pulp works too. The trap is diluting the juice: any added water stops the mousse setting, so use pure strained juice. Chef's tip: keep back the pulp of one fruit, warm it for a minute with a spoonful of sugar, and pour it over the mousse just before serving for shine.

17 min

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Cuscuz de tapiocaTapioca and coconut cake

Breakfast stalls in Salvador and the street markets of Recife and Fortaleza sell cuscuz de tapioca by the slice from a big round tray, often with a drizzle of condensed milk on top. It needs no cooking at all: granulated tapioca (tapioca granulada) soaks up hot sweetened milk and coconut milk and swells into a firm, white, bouncy cake with a chewy, pearly texture and a gentle coconut taste. It is eaten cold, at breakfast or as an afternoon sweet with coffee. Granulated tapioca is a Brazilian product made of small irregular crumbs, not pearls; Brazilian shops sell it in bags. Cutting it too early is the usual mistake, and the slices crumble because the granules are still dry at the centre. Chef's tip: pour the liquid in while it is steaming hot and cover the dish straight away; the trapped steam swells the granules evenly.

20 min

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Salzburger NockerlSweet soufflé peaks

Salzburger Nockerl is the dessert Salzburg serves to visitors after a concert or a walk through the old town: three golden, sugar-dusted peaks said to stand for the hills around the city. Under the airy egg-white soufflé is a layer of tart lingonberries or redcurrants, warmed with vanilla milk in the baking dish. It is meant to be shared from the dish and eaten the moment it leaves the oven, before it sinks. This version uses cornflour instead of wheat flour, so it is gluten free. A common mistake is over-folding the yolks into the whites; streaks are fine, and too much stirring makes it collapse. Chef's tip: keep the oven door shut until the end; the peaks are ready when they are golden outside but still creamy inside.

28 min

Austrian Desserts

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CartolaFried banana with cheese and cinnamon

Sweet, salty and hot all at once, cartola ('top hat') is a Pernambuco dessert that sounds odd and tastes like it was always meant to be. Bananas are fried in butter until caramel-edged, covered with slices of coalho or queijo manteiga that melt into a blanket, then showered with cinnamon sugar. It turns up on Recife lunch menus, in hotel buffets and in home kitchens after Sunday lunch, and needs nothing else, though a scoop of vanilla ice cream is welcome. Bananas-prata or ripe plantains are used locally; firm, just-ripe bananas are the nearest swap. Coalho is often made with animal rennet, so choose a vegetarian version or a vegetarian halloumi. Avoid overripe fruit; it collapses in the pan and the cheese slides off. Chef's tip: finish under a hot grill for a minute so the cinnamon sugar bubbles into a thin, crackly crust.

20 min

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SchokofrüchteChocolate-dipped fruit skewers

Schokofrüchte stalls glow under strings of lights at almost every German Christmas market, from Stuttgart to Hamburg, with rows of strawberries, grapes and banana chunks on wooden skewers dipped in dark, milk and white chocolate. Children choose with their noses pressed to the glass, and at home they are a fun job for small hands. The usual mistake is dipping wet fruit: even a drop of water makes chocolate seize into a grainy lump and stops it sticking. Chef's tip: melt the chocolate gently and let it cool to just warm before dipping; it then clings in a neat, thin shell and sets glossy. Many chocolates contain milk, so check the label if you need it dairy free.

20 min

German Desserts

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Romeu e JulietaGuava paste with fresh cheese

Two ingredients, no cooking, and a name every Brazilian knows: Romeo is the dark red goiabada, Juliet the mild white queijo Minas frescal, and they are always eaten together. Mineiros serve it after lunch on a saucer, at the end of a feast in a roadside restaurant, or as a mid-afternoon snack with coffee; the sweet, dense guava and the cool, milky, lightly salty cheese balance each other perfectly. Variations melt the guava into a warm sauce over the cheese, or bake both inside a pastry. Queijo Minas frescal is often made with animal rennet, so pick one labelled vegetarian, or use a young vegetarian farmer's cheese or paneer-style fresh cheese. The usual fault is cutting the guava thicker than the cheese, which buries Juliet; keep both slices the same size. Chef's tip: take the cheese out of the fridge 15 minutes ahead so it tastes of fresh milk rather than cold rubber.

5 min

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Pé de molequePeanut brittle

Lumpy, glossy slabs of peanut set in dark sugar are sold in every rodoviária snack bar and handed round at festa junina, wrapped in cellophane or set in little paper cups. The name, 'street-kid's foot', probably comes from the cobbled look of the top. Piracicaba in São Paulo state is famous for it, and in the Northeast the same name can mean a cassava cake, so expect confusion. This is the crunchy southeastern style: roasted peanuts cooked into rapadura (unrefined cane sugar) until it caramelises and clings. Rapadura or panela is sold in Latin shops; dark muscovado is a fine substitute. People burn it by walking away; once the peanuts go in, the sugar darkens in seconds. Chef's tip: have the oiled tray ready before you start, because the mixture sets almost as soon as it leaves the heat.

25 min

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PaçocaPeanut and cassava flour sweet

Kids across Brazil grow up on paçoca, the pale peanut sweet that melts into sandy crumbs the moment it is bitten, and no festa junina bag of treats is complete without a few. It started in the countryside of São Paulo and Minas as a way to use the peanut harvest, pounded in a wooden pestle with sugar and cassava flour, and today it is mostly pressed into little discs called rolhas. The flavour is pure toasted peanut, salty-sweet, with a texture between shortbread and fudge. Fine cassava flour (farinha de mandioca fina) is sold in Brazilian shops; you can leave it out for a richer, softer paçoca. Under-roasting the peanuts is the usual pitfall: pale peanuts give a raw, beany taste. Chef's tip: grind the mixture only until it just starts to clump; if it turns to butter, it will not hold a crumbly shape.

20 min

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Maçã do amorToffee apples

A shiny red apple on a stick is the picture of a Brazilian festa junina stall, lined up in rows beside the quentão and pipoca. The 'love apple' is a small, tart apple dipped in hot sugar syrup that hardens into a thin, crackling, ruby-red shell; you bite through glass and hit crisp fruit. It is a good one to make at home for a June party because the syrup takes 15 minutes and the apples are ready as soon as the shell cools. Choose a plant-based red colouring to keep it vegan. Where it tends to fail: any water or wax on the apple skin stops the syrup sticking, so it slides off in a puddle. Chef's tip: dip the apples in boiling water for 10 seconds and dry them thoroughly to remove the wax before you start.

30 min

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Helado de lúcumaLúcuma ice cream

Ask anyone in Lima, Cusco or Trujillo for the national ice-cream flavour and they will say lúcuma, the green-skinned Andean fruit with dry, golden-orange flesh that tastes of butterscotch, maple and sweet potato. Every ice-cream parlour, supermarket freezer and street cart sells it, and it's also folded into cakes and milkshakes. This no-churn version needs no machine: frozen lúcuma pulp (or lúcuma powder, both in Latin shops and health-food stores) is whisked into condensed milk, then folded into whipped cream and frozen. It comes out smooth, rich and naturally caramel-coloured. The mistake is over-whipping the cream to stiff peaks, which makes the ice cream grainy and buttery; stop at soft peaks. It needs at least 6 hours in the freezer, so make it the day before. Serve with a slice of chocolate cake or on its own. Chef's tip: a pinch of salt and a few drops of lime sharpen lúcuma's mellow flavour so it doesn't taste flat when frozen.

20 min

Peruvian Desserts

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AnchiCorn semolina pudding with peaches

Sold in plastic cups from coolers at Salta's Mercado San Miguel and on village plazas at the end of a hot afternoon, anchi is a thin, sweet pudding of fine maize semolina cooked with water, sugar and plenty of lemon. It sets only softly, so it is half eaten and half drunk, cold and refreshing, often with slices of poached peach or a few rehydrated orejones (dried peaches) on top, and sometimes a dusting of cinnamon. There's no milk or egg in it, which is what keeps it light. Too much semolina is the easy error: anchi should pour slowly from the spoon when cold, not slice like polenta, so stick to the ratio and remember it thickens as it cools. Fine maize semolina is the Salta choice; fine wheat semolina works too. Chef's tip: add the lemon juice off the heat at the end; boiled lemon loses its fresh sharpness.

25 min

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Quesillo con miel de cañaFresh cheese with cane syrup

In the Tafí del Valle hills above San Miguel de Tucumán, quesillo is made by stretching hot curd into long, thin, elastic sheets and folding them into flat rounds; along the road up from the city, stalls sell it beside jars of miel de caña, the dark syrup boiled from the juice of Tucumán's sugarcane. Put the two together and you have the province's simplest dessert: mild, milky, slightly squeaky cheese with a pour of syrup that tastes of molasses and caramel, plus walnuts for crunch. It is eaten after lunch or as a merienda with mate. Drowning the cheese is the usual misstep; the syrup is intense, so pour a ribbon, not a puddle. Real quesillo is hard to find abroad: fresh mozzarella, Oaxaca cheese or another fresh stretched-curd cheese is closest, and light cane syrup or a 2:1 mix of golden syrup and black treacle stands in for miel de caña. Most of these cheeses use animal rennet; choose a vegetarian one if needed. Chef's tip: warm the syrup slightly so it runs into the folds of the cheese.

10 min

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ChocotortaNo-bake chocolate biscuit cake

Born in 1980s Buenos Aires as an advertising idea and adopted by the whole country, chocotorta is the cake children ask for at every birthday and the easiest dessert in the Argentine repertoire. Chocolate biscuits are dipped briefly in milk (adults often use coffee), layered with a cream of dulce de leche beaten with cream cheese, and left overnight until the biscuits turn soft and cake-like. It is rich, sweet and a little tangy, and slices cleanly straight from the fridge. Any plain crisp chocolate biscuit works; rectangular ones make the neatest layers. The mistake to avoid is soaking the biscuits too long: a one-second dip is plenty, or they collapse into mush before you can lay them down. Chef's tip: assemble it a day ahead in a loaf tin lined with cling film; overnight chilling is what turns it from biscuits and cream into cake.

20 min

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Postre vigilanteCheese with quince paste

Ask for dessert in an old Buenos Aires bodegón and the waiter will rattle off flan, budín and, inevitably, vigilante: a thick slab of soft, mild cheese laid beside an equal slab of dulce de membrillo or dulce de batata. The name, "policeman", is said to come from the beat officers who ordered it as a cheap sweet in early twentieth-century cafés; Uruguayans call the same plate Martín Fierro. It is salty against sweet, creamy against firm, and takes five minutes. The traditional cheese is fresh queso cremoso or cuartirolo, or a firmer port salut; a young Havarti or mild Gouda is the best stand-in abroad. Like many soft cheeses, these are often made with animal rennet, so check the label for a vegetarian (microbial-rennet) cheese. The usual error is cutting the slabs thin like a cheese board; vigilante is about generous, equal bricks. Chef's tip: take the cheese out of the fridge 20 minutes ahead; cold cheese tastes of nothing next to the paste.

5 min

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Cuajada con melaoCurd cheese with panela syrup

Simplicity is the charm of this Andean dessert: a slab of fresh, milky cuajada, barely salted, with a dark syrup of panela poured over it, still warm. Highland fondas between Bogotá and Boyacá serve it after a lunch of ajiaco or sancocho, and the contrast of cool, squeaky curd with molasses-deep, spiced syrup is the point. Cuajada is set with rennet, traditionally animal; buy a vegetarian curd or fresh ricotta-style cheese, or make cuajada at home with microbial rennet. Panela is unrefined cane sugar; dark muscovado is the closest swap. The mistake is boiling the syrup too long: it turns to toffee as soon as it meets the cold cheese. Take it off when it coats a spoon thinly. Chef's tip: a strip of lime zest in the syrup cuts the sweetness beautifully.

20 min

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Postre de guanábanaSoursop cream dessert

Soursop has a perfume all its own, somewhere between pineapple, banana and citrus, with a creamy white flesh, and Colombians turn it into this no-bake fridge dessert for birthdays, Sunday lunches and Christmas tables. Soursop pulp is blended with condensed milk and lime, then folded through whipped cream and chilled until it sets into a light, mousse-like cream that is sweet, tangy and fragrant. It is served in glasses or one big dish, sometimes with crumbled biscuits on top; leave them out to keep it gluten free. Frozen soursop pulp is sold in Latin American shops and is easier than fresh fruit. If you start from a whole fruit, the error people make is blending the seeds, which are inedible and add bitterness; pick every one out by hand. Plan for at least 4 hours of chilling. Chef's tip: keep back a few spoonfuls of pulp and swirl them over the top just before serving for a sharper finish.

20 min

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Esponjado de curubaBanana passionfruit mousse

Grandmothers' kitchens and old cafés of Bogotá and Boyacá have kept the esponjado alive: a pale, airy, sweet-sour mousse made with curuba, the long, soft-skinned banana passionfruit of the cold Andes, set with gelatin and sweetened with condensed milk. It is served chilled in glasses after Sunday lunch, light and tangy, perfumed like passionfruit but softer. Because it contains gelatin, it is not vegetarian; for a vegetarian version, set it with 2 tsp agar powder boiled for 2 minutes in the curuba juice. Older recipes fold in raw whipped egg whites; this one uses whipped cream instead, so there is no raw egg. The common problem is folding cream into gelatin that's too warm or too set: it should be cool and just thickening, like unbeaten egg white. Chef's tip: frozen curuba pulp is sold in Latin shops; if you can't find it, use passionfruit pulp with a squeeze of lime. Allow at least 4 hours for it to set.

30 min