5 Ingredients or Fewer

Season: May to July. Made with the reddish green stalks of main-crop or field rhubarb, this relish is quick and easy, involving much less cooking than a chutney would require. It is light, very fruity, and not too sweet. Delicious with curries, oily fish, chicken, and cheese and in sandwiches, it’s a versatile addition to the larder. Rhubarb, by the way, is very easy to prepare, but do take care to always remove the leaves, as they are poisonous.

Season: September to November. Autumn is the season for apples. For centuries, the apple crop has been important, and the apple tree cherished and celebrated for its fruit. Wassailing is an English West Country tradition when, on Twelfth Night of old (January 17), country folk toast and drink to the health of the largest and most prolific apple tree in the orchard for a healthy, fruitful crop the coming season. The sharp and bittersweet qualities of cider give this old-fashioned apple butter a special flavor. It’s a sensational fruity spread to daub over hot buttered toast or crumpets.

Season: September. You’ve got to be quick to beat the squirrels to the hazelnuts each autumn. Once you have found some, it’s important to store them carefully. Even with their shells on, they have a tendency to dry out and shrivel up, but preserving them in hone will keep them fresh and fragrant for ages. Use wild hazels that you have gathered yourself, or filberts, which are simply a cultivated form of hazelnut. Spoon your honeyed hazels over plain yogurt, chocolate ice cream, porridge, or muesli.

Season: Late August to January. When I made preserves for a living, I tried all kinds of curds, from orange to passion fruit, but none of them was ever quite as popular as the good old-fashioned lemon variety. I didn’t think I could improve on it until recently, when I came across an old recipe for an apple-y lemon curd. I tried it out, and I now prefer it even to a classic straight lemon curd – it’s like eating apples and custard: softly sweet, tangy, and quite, quite delicious.

Season: Late August to September. Fruit leathers are thin, pliable sheets of dried, sweetened fruit purée with a flexible consistency like leather. To be truthful, I had always avoided making them, thinking they sounded complicated. But in a spirit of experimentation, I decided to try some out. They were a revelation. I discovered how easy it is to create these strong, semitransparent sheets, and how versatile they are. They are fun to use and eat–you can cut them, roll them, fold them, and pack them away. Light and easy to carry, they’re full of fruity energy, so they’re great for lunch boxes or long walks. Snip off pieces to dissolve gently into fruit salads, or save them for the festive season when their translucent, jewel-like colors will look gorgeous on the Christmas tree.

Season: Late summer to autumn. The aromatic essences of fresh herbs and flowers can be captured beautifully in a jelly. These preserves are great to have in the kitchen, as they add a sweet piquancy to all kinds of food, simple and rich. Cooking apples and crab apples are both ideal choices for the basic jelly. Excellent sources of pectin and acid, they nevertheless have gentle flavors that will not overwhelm the herbs. Serve mint jelly with lamb, sage with fish, basil with poultry or game, parsley with ham, and rose-petal jelly (see below) with wafer-thin, buttered bread. Any herb jelly will also be delicious with soft cheeses, pâtés, and terrines.

Season: August to September. Plums make a lovely jam and are rich in pectin and easy to prepare, so this is a great recipe for beginners. Just make sure the plums are tender and their skins well softened before adding the sugar. If not, the sugar hardens the skins and they’ll be tough in the finished jam; they will also float to the top of the jar.

Season: June to October. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose recipe this is, thinks the secret of success is to pick the raspberries on a hot, dry day, aiming for a good mixture of ripe and almost-ripe fruit, then to make the jam immediately to capture the full flavor of the berries. The light boiling and lower-than-normal quantity of sugar produce a loose, soft-set jam with a fresh, tangy flavor. Low-sugar jams of this type are often called fridge jams (see p. 36). In fact, as long as it is capped when still above 195°F, this preserve will keep well in the pantry. However, once it is opened, you must keep it in the fridge. It won’t last long after opening – maybe 2 or 3 weeks – but as it tastes so very, very good, this is unlikely to be a problem. It’s one of those things you’ll find yourself eating straight from the jar, maybe in the middle of the night! This light, soft jam is fantastic in cakes or sherry trifles or stirred into creamy rice puddings. Best of all, layer it with toasted rolled oats, cream, Drambuie, and honey for a take on Cranachan, the traditional Scottish dessert.

Season: June to August. In my jam company days, when we would produce nearly fifteen thousand jars of preserves each week, my mum would still bring me jars of her homemade black currant jam. Sometimes I wondered if I needed another jar in the house, but I always enjoyed it immensely – black currant jam is an all-time favorite, with a flavor that is rarely rivaled. It’s also very easy to make. The key is to ensure that the black currants are softened sufficiently before the sugar is added, or the skins will toughen and be unpleasantly chewy. Use this in all the usual jammy ways with bread, toast, pancakes, yogurt, rice pudding, cakes, tarts, and, of course, scones and clotted cream.

Baking this shortbread in a round cake pan and then cutting it while it’s warm make it quite easy to prepare. The only trick is to make sure you don’t overbake the shortbread, so keep an eye on it as the suggested baking time draws near.

This simple shortbread is first baked in a square pan and then cut into heart shapes. For variation, other dried fruits or mini chocolate chips can be substituted for the cranberries.

Shortbread is the ultimate expression of four building blocks of baking: butter, sugar, flour, and salt. In this variation, the dough is pressed into a fluted tart pan to form petticoat tails, which got their name either from their likeness to frilly underskirts or a mispronunciation of the French petites gatelles (little cakes).

The six ingredients called for here come together in a delightful cookie. Pistachios and lemon juice make a great flavor combination, and the egg white gives a soft texture.

The dough for these cookies develops into two distinct textures as it bakes—a soft, chewy center surrounded by a wafer-like shell.

Made from a batter rich in golden syrup, these cookies rarely contain brandy anymore, although some cooks fill them with freshly whipped cream flavored with a splash of brandy. Lyle’s Golden Syrup, popular in England, is a liquid sweetener made from evaporated cane sugar. Look for it in specialty food shops and large supermarkets.

To make these buttery treats, we fashioned 6-inch lengths of dough into twisted rope shapes. You could also form the lengths into pretzel shapes and sprinkle them with coarse sanding sugar before baking.

Children love these two-bite treats. When you prepare them, have a bowl of ice water ready. If reshaping the thumbprint is necessary during baking, dip your finger in the water for several seconds and allow to dry before reshaping. This will keep your finger cool.

While they’re warm, these tuiles are draped over a cannoli mold or a narrow rolling pin to give them their shape. To make edible bowls for serving scoops of ice cream or sorbet, shape the warm cookie rounds over inverted muffin tins or ramekins instead.

Tuile (pronounced “tweel”) means “tile” in French. Once the cookies cool, their shape takes on the appearance of a curved roof tile.

To achieve the most volume, whisk egg whites in a metal bowl set over a pot of simmering water until just warm to the touch. Toast the almond slices by placing them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and baking at 325°F, stirring occasionally until fragrant, about 10 minutes.