Treat yourself with vendor Ian Duff’s ice and easy desserts

Bath Big Issue vendor and chef Ian Duff has become a welcome regular in our pages during lockdown.

After becoming a hit on Twitter with his quick-to-rustle-up recipes, he’s been offering delicious treats in the mag like lentil stew, hummus and courgettes au gratin which aren’t too taxing to follow for even the most inexperienced of chefs. Of course, he’s also offered us some handy tips, such as why you should have a tea strainer handy when you poach an egg, or why you should soak pasta before you cook it.

This week it’s time to share something sweet – and he’s responding to demand. He said: “After receiving a lot of tweets from previous articles several people wanted to see the treacle tart recipe. Also, if you are not sure on the pastry for this dish you can use a premade version.

“And as the weather is so good, how about an orange sorbet too?” As for this week’s tips, well, best stock up on disposable shower caps…

Orange sorbet

INGREDIENTS (serves 4)

• 6 large oranges
• 1 lemon
• 115g/4oz icing sugar

METHOD

Squeeze the oranges and lemon to make one pint of juice.

Stir in the icing sugar, whisking until it dissolves. Transfer to an ice cream maker and freeze, or pour into a freezer tray and freeze to slush.

Whisk well or whizz in a food processor so the sorbet becomes light and fine-grained.

Return to tray and freeze.

Transfer sorbet to fridge 30 mins before serving to let it soften.

Treacle Tart

INGREDIENTS

PASTRY

• 250g plain flour
• Half a tsp salt
• 140g cold butter, cubed
• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 2 medium egg yolks
• 2-3 tbsp cold water

FILLING

• 400g golden syrup
• 1 ball of stem ginger, finely chopped plus 50g of the syrup
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1 lime, zested
• 2 medium eggs
• 100g fresh white breadcrumbs

METHOD

Sieve the flour and salt into a large bowl.

Add the butter and rub together with your fingers to a fine breadcrumb-like texture (you can also do this in a food processor).

Stir in the icing sugar then add the egg yolks and 2 tbsp of water. Mix swiftly with a butter knife – to combine into a ball you may need to use a little bit more water.

Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll pastry out to the thickness of a pound coin and line a 22cm tart tin, leaving an overhang, and return to fridge for another 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 200C/gas mark 6 and put a baking sheet in the oven to heat up. Line the pastry case with parchment paper and load up with rice or dried beans (to stop the pastry from rising). Place in oven on the preheated baking sheet for 15 minutes, remove parchment paper and bake for a further 10 minutes.

Leave the pastry to cool and then trim the overhanging pastry with a serrated knife. Lower oven temperature

Combine the golden syrup, ginger, syrup, lemon and lime zest, eggs and breadcrumb mix.

Carefully pour into the pastry case, place on a low shelf in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes or until the filling is just set.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 20 mins. Serve with fresh cream or ice cream.

Hey @BigIssue – loving the recipes and tips from vendor Ian Duff. He should bring out a Big Issue cookbook. I’m sure it would be a hit.

— Chris Slegg (@ChrisSlegg) June 10, 2020

Ian’s quick kitchen tips

• When making your own bread, rather than covering with clingfilm use a disposable shower cap
• If you shake an egg before frying it, the yolk will go to the centre
• If you make your own stock try freezing in ice cube trays, creating your own stock cubes

Ian Duff is a Big Issue vendor in Bath. He was speaking to Alan Woodhouse