Great for a quick dessert or birthday cake. Fast, as it doesn’t require an icing. Sifted icing sugar over the top looks nice.

Ingredients
135g butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup milk
2 eggs
1 ½ cups SR flour
Grated rind of 1 lemon

Method
Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add softened butter and lemon rind. Add milk and SR flour. Pour into 20cm greased tin, bake 180°C for 25 minutes. Whilst still hot, prick cake with thin skewer all over and pour over ¼ cup sugar which has been fully dissolved in juice of 1 lemon.

Serve with bought double cream and strawberries.

Ingredients
butter
4 pears
⅔ cup castor sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and broken into pieces
2 tablespoons water
⅓ cup thick cream

Method
Preheat oven to 160°C. Choose an ovenproof dish in which the halved pears will fit well with no extra space. Butter dish well and peel, halve and core pears. Put pear halves into dish, hollow-side uppermost. Scatter with castor sugar (1 tablespoon per pear half), then dot with butter. Put vanilla bean pieces into dish, then pour in water. Cover dish tightly with foil and bake for at least 1½ hours. When pears are tender and smell superb, remove foil and spoon 1 teaspoon cream into each pear hollow. Increase oven temperature to 200°C. Return dish, uncovered, to oven for 15 minutes until cream has melted and mingled with buttery juices. Allow to cool a little before serving.

1 bunch Chinese Broccoli (Gai Lan)

OYSTER SAUCE MIXTURE
1 tsp corn flour/corn starch
6 tbsp water
1 tbsp oyster sauce
½ tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinese Cooking wine (substitute Mirin or Dry Sherry)
½ tsp sesame oil
½ tbsp vegetable oil (or canola or peanut)
½ tsp sugar
1 clove garlic, finely grated
1 tsp ginger, finely grated

INSTRUCTIONS
Trim ends of Chinese Broccoli. If any stems are super thick, cut them in half (you want all stems approximately the same width).

Steam Chinese Broccoli using whatever method you want - I microwave in a steamer on high for 4 minutes. The stem should be just cooked - not super soft and floppy.

Stack the Chinese broccoli together and cut into 4"/10cm lengths, then stack neatly on top of each other.

Oyster Sauce Mixture
Combine water and corn flour in small saucepan, mix to dissolve.

Then add remaining ingredients, turn stove onto medium and bring to boil. Boil for 30 seconds to allow to thicken, then remove from stove.

Drizzle over Chinese broccoli and serve. Best served warm.

Recipe Notes:
1. Chinese cooking wine can be substituted with Mirin, cooking sake or dry sherry. Non alcoholic sub - leave this out, then substitute chicken stock/broth for the water.

2. Nutrition per serving, assuming this serves 2.