From chicken wings to cherry jam pie, gloriously gooey grub is a great way to feed troops of hungry children (and adults).
Sticky often also means sweet and caramelised, or intensely savoury - slow-roasted meats and syrupy steamed puddings. But it doesn't have to be wintery fare: there's an idea below summer fruit, a steamed rice pudding from the south Pacific and a couple of finger-licking meat dishes you'll need a napkin for.
Spiced spare ribs
The crucial detail is adding hot water to the pan halfway through cooking, keeping the meat juicy while the glaze reduces to sticky heaven.
Bronwyn Wolfe, London
Serves 2-4
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
½ tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp light soy sauce
About 1kg individual pork spare ribs
115ml hot water
1 Whisk the garlic, salt, spices, honey, oil and soy sauce in a small bowl.
2 Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Put the ribs in a single layer in a roasting tin and rub with the marinade.
3 Bake for 30 minutes undisturbed, then turn the ribs over, pour in 120ml hot water, and return to the oven.
4 After 30 minutes, turn the ribs, pour the hot water into the pan, and return to the oven.
5 Continue roasting the ribs, basting them every 10 minutes for another half an hour or so, until they are golden and sticky.
Baklava
Perfect on a hot day, a very wet day, or in fact on any day with a cup of strong black coffee. Rachel Kelly, London, marmadukescarlet.blogspot.co.uk
Makes 1 tray
120g butter, melted (plus extra for greasing)
75g fine semolina
200g walnuts, chopped
200g hazelnuts, chopped
150g almonds, chopped
3 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
2 tbsp caster sugar
400-500g filo pastry
100g caster sugar
4 tbsp runny honey (preferably thyme honey or add fresh thyme to the pan)
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g pistachio nuts, chopped, to decorate
1 Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Combine 50g of the melted butter with the semolina, chopped nuts, sesame seeds, cinnamon, cloves and sugar.
2 Grease a 23cm shallow baking tin with melted butter. Layer the dish with 4 filo pastry sheets, brushing each one with butter.
3 Tip half the nut mixture over the filo and spread out. Repeat the pastry layers and add the rest of the nuts, followed by another 4 layers of buttered filo.
4 Using scissors, trim some of the inner leaves away before bringing the rest of the filo into the centre from both sides. Brush with butter then top with 2 more buttered filo sheets. Trim these too, tucking in the sides down the side of the baking tin.
5 Use a very sharp knife to score diamond or square shapes in the top of the pastry.
6 Cover loosely with foil and bake for about 50 minutes until a light golden colour - remove the foil about 5 minutes before the end if it's too pale.
7 Dissolve the sugar and honey in 5 tbsp water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice and vanilla.
7 Allow the baklava to cool a little before deepening the scores in the baklava and then pouring over the warm syrup. Sprinkle over the chopped pistachios. Allow to cool fully before cutting into portions.
South Pacific rice pudding parcels
These are traditionally wrapped in a lightly blanched banana leaf and either steamed above slow-cooking root vegetables in a large stock pot over a wood fire, or taken on gardening and fishing trips and charred over coals until they bubble. Here, baking parchment stands in for banana leaves and they could be cooked on a cooling barbecue as a dessert, but the grandmother of my host family made them from leftover rice as a 4 o'clock snack, served with strong coffee, ripe mangos or bananas and crackers.
Antonia Knifton, Canterbury
Serves 8-10
500g round grain or pudding rice, cooked and cooled
400g tin of condensed milk
200g block of coconut cream, grated
Salt, to taste
1 Mix the coconut cream into the rice, then leave to chill.
2 Cut the baking parchment into squares. Stir the condensed milk into the chilled coconut rice; it should be as sticky as sushi rice. Salt to taste (the parcels originally have a distinct salted caramel flavour, especially if charred).
3 Use your hands to scoop about 3 tbsp worth of rice into the centre of each square and fold up, taking care to seal the edges, and tie with kitchen string or strong cotton thread.
4 Steam or barbecue: how long depends on patience and greed, but 30 minutes should do it.
Baked figs in muscat wine
This recipe takes me back to those hot summer lunches in the south of Portugal, where figs are abundant.
Miguel de Almeida, London, westcoastcooking.wordpress.com
Serves 3
6 fresh, ripe black figs
4 tbsp muscat dessert wine, eg moscatel de Setúbal
100g demerara sugar
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp honey
Walnuts, crushed, to serve
1 Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Slice the figs into quarters and place upright in an ovenproof dish.
2 Put the wine, sugar, lemon zest, vanilla and honey in a small pan and gently simmer for 15 minutes until syrupy. Drizzle over the figs.
3 Bake for about 15-20 minutes until soft and caramelised, and serve sprinkled with walnuts and with a little yogurt or crème fraîche, if desired.
Homemade cherry jam pie
A traditional summer recipe at my place: cherries at their best are impossible to resist. redchilipepper, via theguardian.com/witness
Serves 6
½ kg cherries, de-stoned (1kg)
600g granulated sugar
Juice and zest of 2 lemons
For the pastry
250g butter, softened
150g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
500g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 Put the pitted cherries, sugar and lemon juice and zest in a pan over a low heat and wait to it come to the right sticky texture (dripping slowly from a vertical plate): this should take around 30 minutes.
2 Quickly work the pastry ingredients into a ball of dough and put in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
3 Roll the pastry out sandwiched between 2 sheets of baking paper. Use it to line a deep tart tin (about 25cm), fill it with the jam then make stripes or whatever shape to decorate it. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden.
Sticky chicken wings
A great way to feed troops of children at little expense. Virginia Winters, via theguardian.com/witness
Makes 12
For the marinade
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp dark sweet soy sauce (or 1 tsp molasses mixed with 1 tbsp ordinary soy sauce)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
A pinch of salt
1-2 garlic cloves, mashed to a paste
12 chicken wings
Sesame seeds, to sprinkle
1 In the morning, or a couple of hours before eating, mix the marinade ingredients together.
2 Add the chicken wings and turn into the marinade. Wrap with clingfilm and chill until you're ready to cook.
3 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Brush a deep baking tray with oil and spread the chicken wings out in a single layer to lose their chill.
4 Bake for about 30-35 minutes until golden, turning frequently. Sprinkle with sesame seeds 5 minutes before the baking ends, if they won't put children off eating them.
Spiced spare ribs ... the glaze reduces to sticky heaven. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian