I don't know about you, but for me it's that time of year when I like to start baking ... baking the nice winter comfort food to keep me warm as the nights draw in and the cold begins to set in. And, of course, as much as possible I like to use the ingredients from my wonderful organic garden that I have flourishing right outside my back door.

This recipe takes about 40 minutes to prepare, 50 minutes to cook and serves approximately 10 to 12 people. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees C/gas mark 4.

Ingredients:

For the filling

50g raisins

tumble of rum

50g unsalted butter

100g fresh white breadcrumbs

1kg organic cooking apples, grated

1 lemon, zest and juice

80g fructose sugar (you can use any kind of sugar)

1tsp cinnamon, ground

1tsp nutmeg, ground

1tsp freshly ground cloves

50g freshly ground toasted almonds, unpeeled

For the dough

I cheat because I possibly have the smallest kitchen in the world - and I use pre-made fresh fillo pastry. Obviously you can make your own.

Method:

Soak the raisins in a rum first, so that the rum penetrates the raisin as much as possible. I like to be generous with the rum so I measure the raisins, put them in a container and then pour the rum into the raisin filled container so that they are just covered.

De-core the apples and coarsely grate into a bowl. Make sure you add the lemon zest and juice quickly to stop the apples from going brown. Then add the sugar, ground spices (ground them yourself where possible as this releases the full flavour into your cooking) and finally add the raisins/rum mixture.

Put your fresh bread in the liquidiser and turn into breadcrumbs. Heat the butter in a pan and add the breadcrumbs. Fry until lightly browned.

Take out your Fresh Fillo Pastry and lay down four layers onto a baking tray. Brush the pasty with butter.

Sprinkle the fried breadcrumbs on half of the pastry, and then pile the apple mixture on top.

Fold the free half of the pastry over the top and seal the edges of the fillo dough. Baste the top with butter ... You can put on new layers of fillo at this point if you like (I did!), laying with butter as you go. You can make this as thick as you like. Sprinkle icing sugar over the top when you have finished your layering.

Bake the strudel for 45 minutes. After 30 minutes check it out - this is a good point the brush the seeping juices over the top. Cover with tin foil if you feel the pastry is browning too quickly.

This is a good time to make the custard. This recipe takes less than 30 minutes to make and makes about 1 pint of custard - plenty for this amount of strudel.

Ingredients:

For the Vanilla Custard

1 pint milk

2 fl oz single cream or yoghurt

1 vanilla pod

4 egg yolks

1oz fructose sugar (you can use caster sugar here if you prefer)

2 tsp cornflour

Method:

Bring the milk, cream or yoghurt and vanilla pod to a simmering point on a slow low heat.

Remove the vanilla pod from the custard. You will see that the small vanilla seeds have infused into the custard and the smell is divine - yummy!

Wash the vanilla pod and leave it to dry. Afterwards you can add this to your sugar bowl to make vanilla sugar.

Whisk up the egg yolks and add the sugar. Put the cornflour into a small container adding enough water to water it down. Make sure you get all the lumps out.

Add the egg and sugar mix to the hot mixture and whisk with a balloon whisk, all the time until it is thickened.

Pour the custard into a jug and serve at once with the strudel that you will at this point take out of the oven and sprinkle with more icing sugar for decoration.

Top Tip: If you finish making the custard too early, stand the jug of hot custard in a pan of hot water and cover the top with cling film to prevent a skin forming. You must be careful not to let this get too hot, especially if using yoghurt, because it is at risk of curdling.

ENJOY and let me know how you get on!