Simple butter cakes and tea cakes

Elegant, delectable and delicately spiced, these rhubarb, pear and pomegranate custard tea cakes make a wonderful dessert or afternoon tea treat. Serve warm with good quality cream.

A gorgeous rustic cake that brings the sights and smells of spring with delicious orange blossom water and edible blooms.

Topped and tailed with caramelised apple, these delightful tea cakes can be served up for morning or afternoon tea, and would be a different and welcome addition to the school lunchbox.

Don’t miss out on the goodness of chocolate cake just because you’re gluten free. This dark, rich and nutty cake cuts out the flour, but not the warm and gooey textures.

Layers of fluffy spiced tea cake and lashes of indulgent honey frosting create an utterly decadent dessert.

This spiced walnut cake with a brandy syrup is rich with the fragrance of cloves, cinnamon and orange.

Delightfully sweet and fragrant.

This one will delight the senses.

Rich buttery custard tea cake is perfectly contrasted with the tartness of its vibrant rhubarb topping.

The ideal afternoon tea treat.

Variation; for an orange blossom and mint tea syrup cake, omit the french earl grey tea in the cake and instead add 1 tablespoon orange blossom water with the lemon juice in step 3. Omit the earl grey syrup and instead make ‘orange blossom and mint tea syrup’. Serve the cake drizzled with syrup. Note

This moist and buttery tea cake, with pockets of vanilla custard, and adorned with raspberries and almond flakes is a wonderful afternoon or after-dinner treat.

A good basic, light cake that is perfect as a base for kids’ birthday cakes. It is also nice plain or with cream and berries.

This dense, moist almond carrot cake has a delicious lemon cream cheese frosting. If you prefer, you can use orange juice and zest in place of lemon in both the cake and frosting.

This simple apple tea cake is dense, moist and delicious. Glazed with apricot jam and studded with tender apple pieces, it makes a great afternoon tea treat.

This light and fluffy orange poppy seed cake with a delightfully sweet orange syrup will satisfy your sweet tooth and have you coming back for more!

Use small piping bags without a tube or strong plastic bags snip a tiny corner from the bag for easy piping. Prepared cake boards are available from cake decorating and craft stores; you will need one 30cm (12-inch) round board for this cake. Note

Don’t overbeat the frosting or the texture will be grainy. Note

You need about 7 overripe medium bananas for this recipe. Note