Delicious, easy recipes by Jay Wadams

Welcome to
Days of Jay

I'm Jay, cookbook author and food photographer.

Days of Jay is my website, where I share easy, delicious recipes for home cooking.

My recipes are packed with photos and useful tips and tricks to help you as you cook. They are all inspired by healthy, seasonal ingredients and my travels across the globe, especially in Germany, Italy, Cyprus, and Australasia.

Welcome to
Days of Jay

I'm Jay, cookbook author and food photographer. Days of Jay is my website, where I share easy, delicious recipes for home cooking.

My recipes are packed with photos and useful tips and tricks to help you as you cook. They are all inspired by healthy, seasonal ingredients and my travels across the globe, especially in Germany, Italy, Cyprus, and Australasia.

I am so excited to have you here, so let’s dive in and get cooking!


It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!


Well, the countdown is until the year’s end, and Christmas is just around the corner. Check out some of my most popular Christmas and festive recipes below!

German style Gingerbread hearts

My easy recipe for making traditional Oktoberfest Lebkuchenherzen or Gingerbread Hearts at home. Hang these brightly decorated hearts around the neck of your sweetheart (or eat and enjoy!)

GET THE RECIPE

Title card for Spitzbuben, showing cut out unbaked spitzbuben cookies on a tray and completed spitzbuben.

Spitzbuben are one of the most beautiful traditional German Christmas cookies. Also known as Linzer Augen or Linzer Cookies, the delicious combination of buttery short pastry and tangy redcurrant jelly is a Christmas classic.

GET THE RECIPE

With beautifully bright colours Cranberry Orange Cured Salmon is a wonderful dish to serve as a starter at your festive table. It’s so simple to make and home and delicious with a creamy horseradish sauce.

With beautifully bright colours Cranberry Cranberry Orange Cured Salmon is a wonderful dish to serve as a starter at your festive table. It’s so simple to make at home and so delicious with a creamy horseradish sauce.

GET THE RECIPE

Beetroot Cured Salmon Gravadlax

We’ve landed back in beautiful Munich to the clear and crisp skies and very chilly nights of late winter. It’s not quite spring yet, but the promise of it hangs in the air, brightening the mood and sending the locals outside to soak up every last bit of available sun. I’m rather enjoying the opportunity…

GET THE RECIPE

Speculaas Dutch Spice Cookies

Speculaas or Dutch Spice Cookies are a wonderfully old fashioned Christmas treat and so delicious! These light and crisp cookies are full of fragrant and exotic spices, perfect for the festive season.

GET THE RECIPE

Almond and Cranberry Nougat recipe title card.

Sweet and delicious, it is easier than you think to make homemade nougat. This recipe has no glucose or corn syrup and can be made with ordinary household ingredients. Perfect for Christmas gifts!

GET THE RECIPE

My Mulled Wine Cheesecake is full of Christmas’s rich spices and flavours. A deep-red, almost black mulled wine jelly on top of a creamy citrussy filling with a deliciously spicy base. This fabulous no-bake cheesecake is Christmas heaven!

GET THE RECIPE

Homemade Irish Cream couldn’t be easier to make, tastes streets ahead of the commercial stuff, can be adjusted precisely to suit your sweet tooth and makes an excellent gift for friends – if you are prepared to share it!

GET THE RECIPE

Chewy, creamy, perfect caramels with a delicate hint of honey, my recipe for Soft Honey Vanilla Caramels is super easy and dangerously addictive.

Lusciously soft, chewy and gently flavoured with a hint of honey, Honey Vanilla Caramels are pure pleasure. Homemade candy is easier to make than you might think!

GET THE RECIPE

Christmas Pavlova Slice

My Christmas Pavlova slice is a delicious combination of ight and airy meringue, piled high with juicy berries. The perfect Christmas dessert!

GET THE RECIPE

The Latest Recipes From My Kitchen

Discover my latest and greatest recipes below, or use the search function to find exactly what you’re looking for.


Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake

Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake

Chocolate lovers rejoice! Today I am sharing the recipe for my ultimate Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake! This is a fabulous recipe if you are having people round for dinner. It’s a real crowd-pleaser and everyone always seems to find room…

Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake

The sun is shining, the sky is brilliantly blue and the fields are full of waving green grass that has sprung up seemingly overnight. The bowl of strawberries on the kitchen table is filling the kitchen with the sweet smell…

Turkish Chicken Shish Kebabs

Turkish Chicken Shish Kebabs

I am declaring barbecue season officially open! To get the ball rolling I have a truly delicious recipe for you, one that I have on rotation all summer long. Turkish chicken shish kebabs (Tavuk Siş) are tender, tangy, and so…

Beef and Lentil Cottage Pies

Beef and Lentil Cottage Pies

It’s a sunny Sunday, still and quiet here. The clouds and blustery winds of the last few days have finally departed, leaving a bright blue, cloudless sky in their wake. It’s the ideal day to get some work done on…

Braised Chicken and Beans

Braised Chicken and Beans

It’s been a real spring day today, with bursts of brilliant sunshine interrupted by squalls of rain. The mountain opposite the house has been disappearing periodically behind a veil of clouds, then suddenly appearing again, green and lush with all…

Homemade Chicken Pad Thai

Homemade Chicken Pad Thai

It’s Friday! The arrival of the weekend in these unusual times is somehow not quite as exciting as it used to be. When we’re all working from home the eagerly awaited 5 pm escape from the office has lost its…

Summer Berry Chocolate Tarts

Summer Berry Chocolate Tarts

I can think of Easter weekends here in Munich where there has been a thick blanket of snow, gale-force winds and a sullen, steel grey sky. These were the times when we were all happy to be inside, hiding away…

Spiced Carrot Cake Loaf

Spiced Carrot Cake Loaf

With the barrage of news bulletins and onslaught of social media health advice over the last month, it’s been easy to forget that we are in the lead up to Easter! Normally we’d be gleefully snacking on chocolate eggs and…

Recipes By Meal Type


light-bites
Main Event
Sweet Things
cocktail hour

Marillenknödel – Austrian Apricot Dumplings
Wurstsalat (German Sausage Salad)
Easy Cherry Tomato Tart
Zwetschgendatschi (Bavarian Plum Tart)
Homemade Chocolate Popsicles

Looking for Dinner Inspiration?


Below are some of my most popular dinner recipes. Quick and easy with simple ingredients and big flavours.

Herby Tomato Salsa Chicken Title Card.
Roast Sausages and Fennel
Oven Roasted Chicken Marbella
Chicken and Chickpea Pilaf
Chilli Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Turkey Stroganoff Title Card.

My FAvourite German Cake Recipes

While people often associate Germany with pretzels and beer, it’s really all about coffee and cake!

Get the recipes!

Easy German Cake Recipes