Coconut and pandan might as well be soulmates. They belong together. It’s a partnership revered across Southeast Asia and one I re-create again and again throughout this book…

“This is the kind of pie that gets me. The kind I fall head over peel in love with. The buckwheat crust is the ‘edible bowl’ I love and the earthy, toffee sesame crunch is the pie accessory you never knew you needed…

A popular dish from the cookbook Bao Family by Céline Chung. Granny Smith apples are a great choice, as they’re firm and slightly tart, which balances out the sweet sugar coating…

Calm your farm if you’re up in arms over the thought of syrupy, sweet tomatoes. They’re a fruit, doh! If rhubarb can be a vegetable that masquerades as a fruit, then tomatoes can reclaim their fruitiness and appear in dessert situations. So there…

Apricots. We wait all darned year for the things yet, despite their cheery appearance and promise of juicy, sun-shiny flavour, they’re often incredibly disappointing. And it’s not their fault. Unless you live in a stone-fruit orchard, or have access to one…

As a child, and being one of the eldest grandchildren, I was lucky enough to enjoy leisurely breakfasts with my late nani (maternal grandmother) whenever I visited my grandparents’ home. For me, this was my time with my grandmother, sitting at the kitchen table and being served a portion of doi chira in an enamel bowl…

We don’t much go for those multi-layered, super-rich, cake extravaganzas. They have their place but we prefer more wholesome, humble cakes; the sort that may not look like much, but have that delicious, straightforward, home-baked flavour that knocks you off your perch…

A very pretty and slightly more sophisticated play on a classic. Make ahead, which I love to do when entertaining, because it’s one less thing to do on the day. TIP - can be made up to 2 days in advance…

We have no idea of the genesis of this pie-type arrangement, with its buttery crushed Weet-Bix base, blubbery custard filling, jam, whipped cream and coconut topping, but we thought it was the height of yumness when we were kids…

This might be divisive, but we make rice pudding simmered on the stove and not baked in the oven. We know the skin on baked rice pudding is a thing and some households fully go to war claiming the biggest bit of that thin, caramelised layer, but we don’t go for it…

This is the pudding to end all puddings; a version of bread and butter pudding that even avowed haters will love. Baked with banana and slathered in a buttery, rich, toffee-flavoured sauce, it’s easy to make and totally delish to eat…

We dig the name ‘roly poly’ because it sounds as much a weight-gain alert as it does the description of a lovely rolled-up baked pudding. This old fashioned fave really is bloody delicious, straight-forward to conjure and is something everyone totally loves…

It’s a mystery to us how this favourite pudding even works; you make a batter, scatter the top with sugar and cocoa, pour boiling water over, bake, then the oozy stuff somehow ends up on the bottom, creating a gooey, thick sauce for the springy, cakey top…

Here’s an old fashioned dessert that’s totally worth resurrecting. It’s the kind of thing popular in a previous epoch, when food options were more limited, everyone had a lemon tree, and people didn’t respond to the concept of sago with a screwed-up unhappy face…

There’s a piece floating around the interwebs where someone cooks, then rates the puddings from Edmond's cookbook and the puddings don’t come off so well. There is snark and derision. Plenty of it. While we’re not suggesting that some of the original Edmonds puddings…

The shortcake base here is like the LIttle Black Dress for dessert making; it’s no-brainer easy, is deliciously indestructible and is perfect for people who might be challenged in the pastry department (patisserie is a black art, weswear). There’s not much you can do to mess it up and because it’s more cakey than a classic pastry…

Nab the last of the peaches now (sob); we mean, how much of a bugger is it when they march out of season? Not. Particularly. Peachy. As a parting shot to stone fruit lusciousness, whaddabout making this super-simple peach number, where the fruit is cooked in rosé and thyme syrup, then served with creme fraiche…