Golden fried boiled eggs in a salty-sour curry sauce with a crunchy toasted coconut topping, and Thai baked chicken in a coconut sambal sauce

Thai New Year, or Songkran , is celebrated next weekend. Traditionally, water symbolises happiness and purity across the kingdom, and the festivities culminate in a huge nationwide water fight. If there’s an end-of-festival tradition more delightfully fun than this, I’m not sure what it is. I’d love to be in Thailand myself one year, water pistol in tow, but for now, I’ll be in the kitchen having almost as much fun. I’ll also certainly be staying dry while paying homage to the end of one year and the start of the next.

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Brown bananas make a toffee-like curd to spread on toast or to eat straight from the jar

My research for this column leads to all sorts of tasty discoveries, some of which become firm family favourites. Today’s recipe is one of these: it takes just minutes to make a big jar full of curd and it tastes heavenly – like a gooey, rich, banana-flavoured dulce de leche . I often eat it straight from the jar, or as a yoghurt-topper, or warm and spread on toast, or drizzled over last week’s brown sugar pavlova , which is a great way to use up whole eggs in one dish, because the whites go into the pavlova and the yolks into the curd. The two are then reunited in an elaborate mess of meringue, curd, whipped cream, flambeed bananas, toasted coconut and date syrup (all of which are optional and/or to taste).

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A fresh take on seasonal favourites adds Middle Eastern spice and cleverly accommodates leftover hot cross buns for afters

The daffodils are out, parading their annual magnificence, and I can’t help but be enchanted by the beauty of spring. While I’m not religious, I also can’t help but revel in the festivities of Easter. Eggs, lamb and hot cross buns are all traditional, but these fuss-free recipes give them a new lease of life. Buy in some flatbreads and pickles to serve alongside the meat, so you aren’t stuck in the kitchen for the whole day. After all, there are more important things to do – such as hunting for chocolate eggs!

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An Easter brunch of eggs in creamed spinach with spiced butter seeds, and a Korean-inspired take on spicy fried eggs

Eggs are for life, not just for Easter. Of course I think that, as someone who has just written a book focused on eggs. But this long weekend provides a particularly ovoid prompt. The baked-egg dish does what it says on the tin: lightly spiced seeds add bite and verve to a luscious, creamed spinach base. And the piquant, Korean-inspired skillet eggs are a winning brunch or lunch for one, and equally easy to scale up to feed a group.

These recipes are edited extracts from Good Eggs: Over 100 Cracking Ways to Cook and Elevate Eggs, by Ed Smith, published by Quadrille at £22. To order a copy for £19.36, go to guardianbookshop.com

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A real blow-out, luxury Easter cake of joy – and no chocolate for a change!

Easter is a time for celebration, and this definitely counts as a proper celebration cake. Taking inspiration from bakewell tart, it has three layers of moist almond sponge broken up with cherry jam and a silky swiss meringue buttercream. I only ever use almond extract in bakewell – it’s one of those ingredients you either love or loathe, but I find that just a few drops bring the right amount of fragrant marzipan flavour to this Easter cake.

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Perfect for a light lunch, starter or snack: asparagus and artichoke fritters with herby yoghurt, and leek fritters with a lemony, green yoghurt sauce

Just three days to go, people! Three days until the equinox when, at 11.06pm, the sun sits directly over the Earth’s equator as it moves northwards. With both hemispheres sharing the sun’s rays equally, night and day are roughly the same length and the season officially, finally, changes. For those of us who look to our plates as much as we look to the sky, this change in season in the UK is marked, unofficially, by the arrival of one wonderful thing: asparagus! It’s here, and we can all boil it and char it and steam, grill or bake it as much as we can during its short season. I’m never one to miss out on the opportunity to make fritters, so frying is going to be first up in my kitchen, not least because it’s also at long last time to open the kitchen window.

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Only four ingredients are involved in this step-by-step guide to the custardy classic with the crusty top

From gelato to quiche, I’ve never met a custard I didn’t like – and you can’t get much more custardy than a crunchy, creamy creme brulee, which, despite its name, is probably as English as Bird’s custard powder and arguably even more delicious. Fancy enough to impress, yet surprisingly simple to execute in advance, it’s an excellent choice for a special occasion.

Prep 5 min
Cook 50 min
Makes 2

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Egg-drop soup with thick udon noodles and savoury Japanese sprinkles, and a thick and wholesome Iranian-style ‘minestrone’

Like everyone else currently eating their way through to spring, I’ve been thinking a lot about comfort food recently. What makes something tick the comfort food box will vary from person to person, but, for me, there are a few obvious wins. The first is eating from a big bowl – I just love cupping my hands around the base, warming them as I go. Noodles are another big yes. True, “slurp” is perhaps not the most gracious of words, but I’m going to own it fully, chopsticks in (my now warmed) hand. Eggs score highly, too, and broth is never not a brilliant idea. Bring all these together and I think I’ve found a dish that is very comfortably going to see me right through.

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