Laura's Cook Book

Salt. Caramel. Chocolate. We all know it's a match made in heaven. I adapted the original recipe to use less chocolate and sugar, as I reckon the caramel more than makes up for it. The result was quite a light, delicious brownie with bites of squidgy salty caramel. You may find the caramel sort of sinks towards the bottom of the brownie in the oven, as the caramel is heavier than the brownie mix. It doesn't matter - the taste is still there! The only thing that could make this better is to serve it heated with a spoon of Connoisseur Salted Caramel with Macadamia ice-cream. Which I did.

Friday night is Pizza Night in our house. In the past, it was sometimes homemade pizza, sometimes store-bought, but I don't think we've visited a pizza shop since I discovered Chris Badenoch's Beer Pizza Dough recipe.

The beer replaces water in the dough, and gives it a lovely flavour. Over time, I've adapted the recipe to my own taste, by adding herbs and chilli/garlic oil, and changing the cooking method to suit my oven. It's a pizza dough with a difference and has received rave reviews from anyone who's tried it.

Like anyone living in the Masterchef age, I've long been enchanted by perfect little macarons - their delicate shells, pretty pastel colours and delightful flavour combinations. But after hearing so many horror stories about how hard they were to bake (even from a packet!), I've steered clear of them. Until recently, that is, when I volunteered to make a sweet treat for a friend's afternoon tea and was told: 'I've told all my friends how great your sweets are, so the pressure's on!'

There was only one thing for it - if I could pull off the tricky little macaron, I'd survive with my reputation intact. If not, well, I could always buy some and pass them off as my own!.

After a bit of research, I tracked down a recipe I was happy with, invested in a non-stick macaron tray and went for it. I made three batches that night and, as you can tell from the photo, none were perfect, each had a tiny little flaw but, overall, I was pretty impressed with myself and my little macarons.

My top tips: make sure you grease your tray/baking paper; the smaller the shells, the better; and make sure your filling isn't too thin/runny, so it can hold the shells up.