This is the most delicious summer dessert: crisp outside and fluffy inside waffles, slightly sweet whipped cream and summer berries dusted with icing sugar. You can use any summer fruits of your liking: strawberries, raspberries or blueberries. The recipe is easy and quick, and the payoff is enormous. How long you cook the waffles and how many you get depend on your waffle machine, but the portion of the batter makes about 16 delicious squares ready to be paired with sweet fruits and cream. Find the recipe here.

Traditional stolen often contains marzipan – a confection made mainly from ground almonds and sugar. I don’t use marzipan because the fruit blend and a thick coat of icing sugar that covers the bread are sweet enough, so extra sweetness is overwhelming for me. Stollen is a yeasted bread baked with dried fruits and spices that's originated in Dresden. It’s traditionally served at Christmas time in Germany, Austria and parts of France. Stollen symbolises the baby Jesus blanket, and the fruits in it represent gifts of the Three Wise Men (called the Three Kings or Three Magi as well). Find the recipe here…

Panettone, sweet enriched bread comes originally, according to many sources, from Milan and is a true symbol of Italian Christmas. It’s more bread than a cake, although brioche-like dough of slightly sweet flavour is studded with dried fruits, almonds and raisins. The most traditional panettone is made by wild-yeast fermentation, augmented by a small amount of commercial yeasts. Making of this Christams sweet bread is a lengthy procedure, but the result is well worth it: you will end up with a golden, aromatic, and delicious Christmas bake that melts in your mouth with every bite.  Find the recipe here…

There are plenty of recipes for this French classic. Some bakers use puff pastry, thinly sliced sweet apples but no caramel; others - rough puff pastry, firm, crispy fruits and a vanilla pod. This recipe for Tarte Tatin comes from the book “Le Cordon Bleu. Pastry School”. It calls for a slightly sweet shortcrust pastry, beautifully caramelised apple halves with a pinch of cinnamon baked in a Savarin form. Big, lightly brown apple pieces that create a ring on the crisp, buttery base are soft, juicy and sweet. This upside-down fruit tarte looks absolutely fantastic and tastes divine. Find the recipe here….

I could live on this beverage this summer. Watermelon Lemonade is delicious, naturally sweet, refreshing and has a beautiful vibrant pink colour. It’s better than anything you will find in the store! The lemonade is easy and quick to blend up. You need fresh and ripe watermelon, lemons, sugar or agave syrup for extra sweetness and sparkling water. Use sparkling wine instead of water, and you will get a fantastic watermelon cocktail.  Find the recipe here…

Keks is a sponge cake with a high content of unsalted butter, packed with dried fruits and almond flakes. It’s baked in a loaf tin and then served generously dusted with icing sugar. Dried fruits – apricots, black currants, sultanas and raisins are soaked in a warm mixture of orange liqueur and orange juice with the addition of orange zest. Keks is buttery, sweet and moist, taste amazing both freshly baked and after a few days. The cake can be prepared in advance and kept tightly wrapped in baking paper and aluminium foil. Find the recipe here…

Dried Fruits Beverage is one of 12 traditional dishes served on Christmas Eve in Poland. This is a naturally sweet drink, which distinctive flavour comes from dried apples, pears, apricot, prunes and fragrant spices: cinnamon, cloves and star anise. Dried fruits, prunes, in particular, give the kompot enough natural sweetness; however, if you need to have it sweeter, add honey to the cool mixture. My Dried Fruit Beverage also contains thick slices of fresh orange, making this traditional drink even more Christmasy and citrusy. Serve cold with cooked fruits on the side. Find the recipe here...

These buns are totally festive, perfect for a holiday table such as Thanksgiving or as a Christmas morning treat. Soft inside, light, reasonably sweet, full of dried cranberries and chopped walnuts, they taste delicious served warm, with chilled unsalted butter that melts on their tops. The yeasted dough is comprehensive and can be baked as a simple loaf or braided in Challah bread style. Cranberry-Walnut Buns are also great as festive burger buns served with turkey patties, vegetables and cranberry sauce. Find the recipe here…

Mincemeat needs at least two weeks to macerate before using in mince pies. Dried fruits, almonds, spices and orange zest have enough time to soak beautifully in sherry, and their flavours become rich and complex. Although I’m not entirely against store-bought mincemeat as you can buy a very good one, but when is homemade its taste is completely different. Homemade mince meat is easy and quick. Cooking takes only 10 minutes, dried fruits, almonds are available at grocery stores, and you can control the amount of sugar which may be important. The homemade mincemeat can be made up to six months in advance. Find the recipe here….

This recipe can be used for any summer berries which are currently in season. You can use fresh strawberries, blueberries, sour cherries or raspberries – anything you are fond of this summer. I’ve chosen Picota cherries as they are available in markets for only a few weeks a year so I want to enjoy them as long as I can this summer. Quick breakfast jam goes well with fresh bread, French baguette or bread roll but believe me, crumpets topped with this fresh jam and a dash of Crème Fresh taste divine. Find the recipe here…

We can’t imagine wintertime without homemade tomato passata. It forms the base of many delicious recipes, can be turned into comforting soups or pasta sauces. Tomatoes are in season now – sweet and fragrant, so this is the best time to capture them and close in bottles. The best passata is made from San Marzano tomatoes (obviously!) which come from the Campania region in Italy but they are quite expensive and difficult to spot. Ripe red Plum and Roma tomatoes are good as well as Polish tomatoes which are low in water content and rich in flavour. Making tomato passata at home takes a lot of effort and time but it’s definitely worth because its flavour can’t be compared to any store-bought puree. Find the recipe here…

My poppy seed filling is full of almonds, nuts, dried fruits, flavoured with orange juice and zest. All its sweetness becomes from honey, not sugar. I make it only once a year, just before Christmas, for a traditional polish cake – Poppy Seed Rolls. The filling is an amazing natural poppy seed paste which can’t be compared to any ready-to-eat canned store-bought stuff. Neither difficult nor time-consuming to master can be prepared a few days in advance. The poppy seed filling is also eaten with pasta as a traditional meal at Christmas Eve in some regions of Poland. Find the recipe here...

Banana bread recipe was featured for the first time in American cookbooks in the 1930s. In those days baking soda and baking powder without which making the banana bread was impossible, were introduced into domestic kitchens making baking easier and more accessible for housewives. The first recipe appeared in Balanced Recipes Cookbook in 1933 published by Pillsbury. But popularity was gained in 1950 when the United Fruit Company released Chiquita Banana’s Recipe Book containing this recipe to conquer the American food market and make bananas more palatable for American families. Find the recipe here...

Granola and Granula. Both names were used in the 19th century in the United States for foods which contained whole grain products crumbled and baked until crisp. Then this breakfast meal consisted of Graham flour and was formed into sheets, baked twice and broken up into smaller pieces. It was edible only when soaked in milk overnight. Fruits and nuts were added in the 1960s and the first mass-market granola was introduced in 1972. Today most of the store-bought granola is high in sugar, unhealthy oils, artificial flavourings, some unnecessary ingredients and it isn’t healthy anymore. But amazingly delicious and healthy cereals can be made at home from the ingredients we know and like. Home made granola is absurdly easy to make. Find the recipe here...