Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday. What’s important to say is that it isn’t about the expectation of gifts necessarily, but rather sitting around a table with the important people in your life and breaking bread.

I always make a dessert buffet table: it’s joyful and filled with colour which I love. To create visual interest, it’s important for everything to not look too symmetrical. So, I have cake stands and objects of different heights and materials… there has to be a flow and I want my buffet to resonate with abundance.

A fruit bowl is always impactful and ABASK has great ones – this bold-coloured Gather bowl is particularly perfect. I always use three types of fruit; there are so many interesting varieties of grapes at this time of year: figs that I slice open to make them look fleshier and prettier, as well as quince which smells very fragrant. Smaller bowls such as Lobmeyr’s candy dishes or NasonMoretti’s coupes are great for filling with fruit jellies because guests will be picking all day!

I love thinking of different textures in the cakes I make. There’s always a Victoria sponge and a fruit cake – usually persimmon – and then there has to be a pumpkin pie, but mine comes with a twist.

You can’t beat adding a good tequila to a pumpkin pie which gives it a bit of a kick. I like to use Añejo Tequila which is barrel-aged, so it has this really caramel-y flavour like a brandy or whiskey which goes so well with baking. Steer clear of a silver, light tequila which can be more acidic. I roast the pumpkins and then add the alcohol – it brings a bitterness to balance the sweetness. 

I’ve made smaller ones – as they’re easier to eat – which I’ve served on a Astier de Villatte cake stand. Ever since I saw an Astier de Villatte dish in my twenties (in a River Cafe cookbook, also partially responsible for my love of London), I fell in love with the milky white glaze and the feather-light weight of the pieces. It's the nostalgia of that time that drew me to them again. 

I’m a big forager and believer in there always being something in your garden you can snip and put on your table. A big fig leave on your dessert plate adds greenery and looks festive – it’ s like nature’s doily and doesn’t cost a thing.

My approach to flowers is similar to that of ingredients and the way I want them to be grown – natural and without chemicals. My flowers come from Treea Cracknell of London Flower Farmer, which is local to me. I love using beautiful, elegant linen, here from Volga Linen and porcelain from Pinto, but then I don’t want the flowers to be too stiff or look precious. I want everyone to feel relaxed and tuck in.

As the way I cook is seasonal, the colour palette is also dictated by that – lots of pink and red hues currently. We don’t use food colouring, so all the purées come from fruit; once mixed with buttercream, the shades become even more muted. It really is incredible the colours you get from nature. A wonderful book is Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series which is great inspiration colour-wise for me. The cakes complement cake stands which have a pattern, here I have used Raynaud ones with their ornate, almost textile like print.