Deserts. Love to eat them, loath to cook them

[jimjimjamming]

Love cooking starters & main courses for family & guests. Always too exhausted/broke to up rustle desert Usually end up with icre cream or fruit salad. Recipes & inspiration please! Prepare the day before ideas would be great 

Sahara is my favourite

Cake - or brownie - made the day before and warmed through briefly in the oven, icing sugar sifted over and served with cream and ice cream is easy on the day.

Fruit salad - or puréed fruit - with (shop bought) meringue and cream is easy - people can even assemble their own.

The Delia chocolate bread and butter pudding recipe. Very straightforward and importantly should be done a day or two in advance. Just pop in the oven as folks are finishing the main.

There is no baking involved just melting chocolate and pouring on bread you've arranged.

Rice pudding
Pavlova -make the meringue the day before then just add the cream and fruit the next day
Crumble
Stewed fruit and custard or ice cream
Cheesecake

Eton mess -- bought in meringues, crumbled with chopped strawberries or crushed raspberries and whipped cream.
Poached fresh or dried fruit (eg apricots) and custard. (Supermarket fresh chilled custard, eg Madagascan vanilla)
'Instant' trifle -- layer up in glasses or individual glass bowls

• Crumbled sponge fingers or amaretti biscuits
• Sprinkled with fruit juice and/ or a little alcohol, if appropriate
• Fresh or poached fruit

Top with squirty cream or fresh supermarket custard. (Or both)

Tequillamockingbird very dry of you

Apologies for the desert typo thanks for all of the tips. So helpful I have a shelf full of recipe books but rarely rustle up the final course because they seem too time consuming. I will pick my way through all of these ideas.

My go to is a baked cheesecake, easy and lends itself to being made in advance, I like this baked lemon cheesecake.

The closest to dessert you'll ever get from me is baked apples. With ice cream if you're lucky. Very, very occassionally I will make banana bread.

Puds are too time consuming to do after work and I calorie count so get upset by my tiny portion allowance.

If I make banana bread I want to eat the whole hot loaf dammit!

Crumble is nice and easy if you're cooking for others. You can serve it with shop bought custard...

I too prefer to cook savoury.

Peel, core and quarter pears and lay in one close fitting layer, sprinkle over a little soft brown sugar (half to one tsp per pear) and pour over double cream (160-200ml for 4 pears. Bake at 180c for about 25mins or until golden brown. Goes all caramelsed and custardy.

Whip double cream to soft peaks, mix with same volume of greek yoghurt, put in serving dish, cover with light topping of demerera and refridgerate for 24h. Has great thick, decadent yet tangy taste with liquidy almost toffee top. Lovely on its own or as accompaniment to fresh fruit.

Whizz ground almonds with half their weight in sugar and enough water to make a marzipan like mix then stuff in halved peaches and bake at 180 til peaches are tender - about 20 mins. You can sub some of the water with rosewater and top with flaked almonds to jazz up a little.

Lemon posset is the perfect dessert for these circumstance. Literally boil cream and sugar together, add lemon juice, it really is that simple. Takes all of five minutes. I use this recipe.

Panna cotta - make day before, serve with berries or lemon curd

Double chocolate warm cookie dough with coffee ice-cream.

Make up a packet of cookie dough mix. Divide into balls. Stick them into a muffin tin with a dip in the middle. Cook as per instructions - usually 10 mins. Allow to cool slightly. Serve with ice-cream in the middle.

Or...

1 tin of condensed milk, juice of one lemon, 100 ml of double cream. Mix and chill in ramekins. Serve with crumbled Lotus biscuits sprinkled on the top.

South African lemon meringue pie is nice and simple

tin of condensed milk, and 2 or 3 egg yolks, juice and rind of 2 or 3 lemons, as you stir it it will thicken

you can either pour this into a baked pastry case, or over a biscuit base ....crushed gingernuts are really nice.

make meringue with the egg whites..whisk with 2oz sugar per egg white ...pile it all on the top and it wants about 20 minutes in the oven

...have a google for the recipe...that's just from memory!