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Bread Pudding (Creole)

Stale French bread (a day-old baguette is perfect) tears into 3 cm chunks. Custard: whole milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon zest. Raisins steep in 4 tablespoons bourbon for plump. Bread soaks in custard 30 minutes; raisins fold in. Tips into a buttered 25 × 18 cm dish; dots with butter. Bakes for 45-50 minutes at 175°C till the top is bronzed and the centre is set but still custardy. Whiskey sauce: butter melts with sugar; cream and bourbon stir in; warmed but not boiled. Pours over the pudding at the table.

Desserts 1 hour 40 minutes Serves8

Coco Bread

An enriched yeast dough made with coconut milk, butter, sugar and a little salt. Risen once, divided, rolled into rounds, brushed with butter and folded in half so the baked roll opens like a clamshell. Baked at moderate heat until lightly golden and soft. The folded shape is purposeful: it tears cleanly into two leaves, ideal for stuffing with a beef patty or jerk pork.

Snacks 2 hours 15 minutes Serves8

Cornbread

A 25 cm cast-iron skillet is preheated in the hot oven with a generous knob of butter, the butter browns slightly while the pan heats. The batter is fast: cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, plus buttermilk, eggs and melted butter. The batter is poured into the hot pan; the cornmeal sears immediately on contact, giving the crisp golden crust. 25 minutes; tipped out and sliced.

Sides 35 minutes Serves8

Doro Wat

Ethiopia's national dish, the spiced chicken stew that turns up at every wedding, Easter feast and Christmas table, and the one dish a cook is judged on. The foundation is the onion - you cook it down slowly for nearly an hour into a deep dark base, and this is the step that decides whether the wat is great or merely acceptable. Berbere (the Ethiopian spice blend of chilli, fenugreek, ginger and a dozen others) and niter kibbeh (spiced clarified butter, the dish's defining fat) fold in. Chicken thighs and legs simmer in the deep red sauce, and hard-boiled eggs join late, scored with a knife so they take on the colour and the flavour. Eaten communally from a single platter, with injera flatbread torn into pieces to scoop the stew. No cutlery, no individual plates, hands clean before the meal.

Ethiopian 2 hours Serves4-6

Sweet Potato Pie

The sweet potatoes are roasted whole until the flesh collapses and the sugars caramelise around the seam - never boiled, which dilutes them. The flesh is whipped warm with butter, evaporated milk, eggs, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and a splash of bourbon (optional, but classical). Poured into a chilled all-butter shortcrust shell and baked low and slow until the centre sets with a faint wobble. Cooled to barely-warm and dusted with icing sugar, or topped with whipped cream.

Desserts 2 hours 45 minutes Serves8

Sweet Potato Pudding

Yellow sweet potatoes (boniato or the Caribbean white-fleshed variety if you can find them; otherwise ordinary orange sweet potatoes work) are peeled and finely grated. Combined with coconut milk, brown sugar, plain flour, raisins, mixed peel, vanilla, nutmeg, allspice and a glug of dark rum. Baked low and slow until set but still slightly wobbly in the middle. Cooled completely before slicing, this is essential, as a warm pudding falls apart.

Desserts 1 hour 55 minutes Serves10-12

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