Jamie Olivers Baked Fruit Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425*F Using a food processor, combine vanilla pod and sugar.
• Wash fruit.
• Halve and remove pits from plums, nectarines, peaches and apricots, if using, and peel bananas and cut into chunks.
• Place fruit in a single layer on baking sheet (s).
• Sprinkle with about 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar.
• (Store leftover vanilla sugar in an airtight container.) Bake fruit 10-15 minutes, or until fruit is soft but still holds its shape.
• Serves 8-10.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C/gas 5). Put the fruit into a pan with the sugar and the balsamic vinegar. Put the pan over the heat, and cook gently, until the juices begin to run from the berries. Pour into an ovenproof dish.
• Meanwhile make the topping. Rub the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Add the sugar and salt, stir well, and then add the buttermilk to form a loose, scone-type mixture. Roll balls of the dough and place randomly over the hot fruit. Sprinkle with a little sugar, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Steps:

• Simply mix the sugar into the mascarpone.
• This cream has a lighter texture than mascarpone cream. It goes well with almost any dessert.
• Whip the cream and sugar until the mixture stays in soft peaks. Don't over-whip.
• Don't buy vanilla essence and don't buy ready-made vanilla sugar. It's so expensive, you don't get much and you can so easily make a much better version yourself. You should use vanilla pods. Although the pods are quite expensive, the recipe works out much cheaper in the long run because of the amount you can make.
• VANILLA SUGAR: Don't buy vanilla pods that are dry and hard -- buy them fat, sticky and squashy. What we want to do is infuse the natural vanilla flavor of the vanilla pods into the sugar. It is perfectly fine, and obviously quicker, just to pop the pods in an airtight container with the sugar; you will achieve a more subtle flavor. I really like this recipe, though, because you get the maximum flavor from the pods.
• You need a food processor for this one. Put your vanilla pods in the mixer, blitz, scrape the sides and blitz again. Add all the sugar and blitz for about 2 minutes. Sieve the mixture into a bowl, return any lumps to the food processor and blitz again. (You may want to repeat this process if you want it really fine). The result will be a slightly ashy-colored mixture -- now that's real vanilla sugar!
• Store it in an airtight container. It should last you for ages.

Steps:

• Boil the onions in plenty of water for 15 minutes or until slightly tender.
• Remove the onions from the pan and allow to cool.
• With a sharp knife, remove the top inch of each onion, finely chop and place to one side.
• Slightly trim the stalk end of the onions so that the onions will sit flat on a roasting tray.
• Taking care to keep the outside of each onion intact, cut about a heaped tablespoon of onion out from the inside of each onion.
• Finely chop these removed sections of the onion and add to the rest of the chopped onion.
• Preheat the oven to 400°F.
• Heat a saute pan and add a little olive oil, the garlic, the chopped onions, and just a little of the chopped rosemary.
• Saute for a couple of minutes until the garlic and onion have softened, then turn the heat down, add the cream and remove the onions and garlic from the heat.
• Stir in the Parmesan and season.
• Wrap a slice of pancetta around the middle of each onion and spike it in place with a sharpened twig of rosemary or a wooden toothpick.
• Place the onions on a roasting tray and spoon some of the chopped onion mixture inside each one.
• Bake in the preheated oven for around 25 minutes until the onions are soft and tender.
• How long this takes is, of course, dependent on the size of the onions. "It's cool to experiment with different cheeses, so give it a bash," says Jamie.
• I presume he is suggesting topping the baked onions with cheese.
• When the onions are cooked right through, remove and serve.