Since it is Christmas, there has been a lot of unhealthy (but very tasty) foods being eaten. We made (and ate) 3 different desserts, which I will describe here, and not a single Christmas Pudding in sight.

For breakfast on Christmas Day, we had waffles with fresh cream and ganache. This was accompanied by the traditional bucks fizz, only we made a red bucks fizz using sparkling rose and an orange and raspberry juice.

The next two desserts were larger which we shared when we went to visit friends and family.

Pear Syllabub. The pears were peeled and sliced and poached in a sweet dessert wine. The cake was a simple microwave sponge cake. The syllabub itself was creme fraiche, double cream, icing sugar, the wine from the poached pears, and the juice and zest of 1 lemon, all beaten together. We layered the sponge, pears and cream mixture in a bowl and put it in the fridge overnight.

The roulade recipe was from the Daily Mail 'Weekend' magazine but was similar to a recipe on Delia's website.

This recipe was based on another from Channel 4 which contained turkish delight. As usual we adjusted the recipe according to what we had in our kitchen.

Yesterday I roasted 500g of sweet potatoes for around 1 hour at gas mark 5, until the insides had gone soft and the skins had gone crispy. I scraped the insides out of the skins and put them in a tub in the fridge until we were ready to start the recipe.

The new ingredients were as follows:

• 500g sweet potato

• 15 quail eggs (equivalent to 3 medium eggs)

• 140g light brown sugar

• 60g dark muscavado sugar

• 175g dark chocolate

• 25g ground almonds and 75g ground peanuts

• 2 tablespoons millet flour

• 70g fat reduced cocoa powder

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

• no turkish delight

The method was the same as the channel 4 version but we stirred the mixture instead of folding in the ingredients because the mixture was a bit too dry to start with.

We have a monthly cake day in work, on the last friday of each month. My contribution was this chocolate and beetroot cake:

The recipe came from the Channel 4 website. A couple of months ago I mentioned to a colleague that I had some beetroot in the garden. He sent me the recipe and said it was better than you'd expect.

The beetroot from the garden was smaller than I expected. When I weighed it, it was closer to 75g than the 250g required so I had to go out and buy some more. The supermarket didn't have raw beetroot so I got cooked instead and I don't think it had any adverse effect.

The cake was quite good, with a nice gooey texture. I don't actually like beetroot so I was glad you couldn't really taste it in the cake. I peeled all the beetroot to reduce the chance of the cake having that 'earthy' taste which beetroot often has.

We have made cookies in the past but this was a new recipe so it counts here.

The recipe came from allrecipes.co.uk but we used smarties instead of chocolate chips.

I have reproduced the recipe here for convenience:

Ingredients

• 250g plain flour

• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 170g unsalted butter, melted

• 200g dark brown soft sugar

• 100g caster sugar

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• 1 egg

• 1 egg yolk

• 325g chocolate chips (or smarties etc.)

Method

(tweaked slightly from the original)

1. Preheat the oven to 170 C / Gas mark 3. Grease baking trays or line with parchment.

2. Sift together the flour, bicarb and salt; set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon.

4. Drop cookie dough onto the prepared baking trays, with each cookie around 1-2 tablespoons of dough (for smaller cookies, reduce baking time slightly). Do not flatten the dough. Cookies should be about 8cm apart.

5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Based on a recipe in the Mail on Sunday 'You' magazine.
To make the base:

• 170g/6oz butter
• 75g/2½oz sugar
• 100g/3½oz ground almonds
• 150g/5oz plain flour

Use a food processor to mix everything together until it all sticks together into one lump. Put into a well buttered baking tray (approx 6x6 inches) and press flat. Put into the fridge to chill for around 1 hour. Prick the base all over with a fork and bake for ¾ hour on gas mark 3 (around 150°C). Leave to cool while you prepare the topping.

To make the topping:

• 200g bar of plain chocolate
• 200ml double cream
• 100g macadamia nuts

Break the chocolate into chunks and slowly melt over a pan of boiling water. Beat in the cream until well mixed. Pour the topping over the base and generously scatter the macadamia nuts, pressing them gently into the chocolate (you don't want them to fall off when you eat it). Cover and put in the fridge for a couple of hours before cutting into very small fingers (at least 12-15 servings). Warning: this is loaded with calories. Depending on the cream and chocolate, up to 300 calories per serving!