The smell of baking still lingers. Toasty and warm. On the table, a tray of choux buns, small, crisp and walnut brown. I have already eaten three and I really shouldn’t, because guests are coming to tea. The buns are more crisp than usual, baked at a high heat to give them a shell that contrasts with the softly whipped clouds of lemon curd cream inside. There’s passion fruit in the filling, too, because it is gorgeous with anything citrus.

You could make neat little buns if you have a piping bag in the kitchen. I prefer them to be less uniform. I made my first batch of choux buns at cookery school in Paris and was given the absurdly difficult task of piping them full of strawberry sorbet. Glorious to eat if you were quick – and we were – but imagine the mess. So now I stick to cream and the occasional flavouring.

This was the week I also found the finest apricots of late summer. The size of a blackbird’s egg, warm with glowing flesh that was the very essence of the fruit, a world away from the usual. Most were eaten from the bag on the walk home, but there were enough left to flatter a panful of lamb steaks, their juices mingling with those of the meat. I deglazed the pan with a few splashes of Marsala, a heaven-sent gift to the apricots and to me.

Lemon and passion fruit choux

I wouldn’t normally weigh liquid measures, such as milk and eggs, but I have been encouraged to do so for choux pastry by Nicola Lamb’s baking bible, Sift. The resulting light, crisp shell of choux pastry is better than those I have made previously. Hers is now my go-to recipe for super-crisp eclairs and cream buns. Makes 18. Ready in 90 minutes

For the choux pastry:
milk 60g
water 90g
butter 80g
sugar 3 tsp
strong bread flour 110g
egg 170g (about 3), beaten

For the filling:
double cream 300ml
lemon curd 200g
passion fruits 3

You will also need a baking sheet lined with a piece of baking parchment.

In a medium-sized saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter and sugar to the boil, then add a generous pinch of salt. Stir in the flour and, using a wooden spoon, mix to a paste. Using a rubber spatula, transfer the mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a flat paddle beater and leave to cool for 10-15 minutes.

Set the oven at 220C/gas mark 8. Break the eggs into a jug or bowl and beat lightly to mix whites and yolks. Turn the beater on to a slow to moderate speed and pour in the egg, a little at a time, then keep beating until the mixture is sticky and quite glossy – about 5 minutes. Check the consistency. The batter should be thick enough to slide slowly from a spoon.

Take a generously heaped teaspoon of the batter, about 10-12g in weight, and place it on to the lined baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the mixture, leaving space around each one to puff up, to make 18 lumps of batter. (I usually do this in two batches of 9, as I only have one suitable baking sheet. The mixture will come to no harm while the first batch bakes.)

After 15 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 190C/gas mark 4-5 and continue cooking for 10-12 minutes, checking carefully, until deep nutty brown and crisp to the touch. Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack. (Don’t forget to turn the oven back up to 220C/gas mark 8 if you are baking them in batches.)

Whisk the cream in a chilled bowl until thick enough to (just) stand in soft peaks. Stir in the lemon curd, lightly, and only briefly – it is best when there are still streaks of lemon curd visible in the cream. Slice the passion fruit in half and remove the juice and seeds with a teaspoon, then stir into the cream, again lightly.

Slice the buns open and fill with the lemon and passion fruit cream, dust with icing sugar and pile on to a serving plate.

Lamb steaks, marsala, apricots

Serves 2. Ready in 30 minutes

juniper berries 6
thyme 6 large sprigs
lamb steaks 4, roughly 180g each
olive oil 2 tbsp
apricots 250g
marsala 150ml
stock (chicken or lamb) 150ml
open textured bread such as sourdough, 4 slices

Crush the juniper berries to a coarse powder using a pestle and mortar. Remove the leaves from the thyme – there should be a couple of teaspoons – finely chop, then add to the juniper berries, with a half tsp of salt flakes and several grinds of black pepper.

Rub the lamb steaks with the juniper, thyme and seasonings. Pour the olive oil into a shallow pan over a moderate heat. Cook the lamb in the oil for 3-4 minutes until appetisingly brown on the underside, then turn and cook the other side for 3 minutes taking care that the aromatic rub doesn’t burn. Halve the apricots, removing their stones as you go.

Lift the lamb from the pan and keep warm, then add the apricots to the pan. Let them cook for a few minutes, then turn up the heat, pour in the marsala and bubble furiously for 2 minutes or until it has reduced to almost nothing. Pour in the stock and scrape at the sticky lamb bits left on the pan with a wooden spatula or spoon, dissolving them into the juices, and let them reduce.

Toast the bread and put 2 pieces on each of 2 plates, Spoon some of the lamb juices over the bread. Place a steak on each and spoon the apricots and the rest of the sauce over them.

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