An elegant and slightly flamboyant Japanese-Peruvian fusion with delicate, floral notes and a fruity finish

Inspired by our restaurant’s Japanese-Peruvian roots, and to mark the 1-2 November Day of the Dead celebrations, this drink combines white rum and sake with a dash of bitters and a red-wine float: the result is a light, layered cocktail with delicate, floral notes, juicy berry fruit and just enough theatre to impress without being hard to make.

Shak Nematulloev, bar manager, Ayllu, London W2

Across nations and classes, there is one thing we can all agree on – that putting delicious things inside dough is a good idea

On a recent Saturday morning in Paris, I made a life-changing discovery. It came in the frozen aisle of an Asian supermarket: you can buy premade dumpling wrappers. Take a moment to think about the implications of this. Chinese shrimp wontons? Ukrainian potato varenyky? Italian veal ravioli? You’re halfway there before you’ve even chopped an onion (as long as you’re not precious about using exactly the right dough for each recipe).

Since then, I’ve fallen into a full-blown dumpling rabbit hole, my nights spent on YouTube, watching grandmothers sitting in circles, pinching dough. So many shapes. So many techniques. Team inward pleats or outward?

Joseph de Weck is an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations and writes for Guardian Europe from Zürich and Paris

Warm your hands on these sweet little envelopes of gently spiced, toffee-glossed apples wrapped in puff pastry. Perfect Bonfire Night fodder

These plump and rustic little parcels are perfect for Bonfire Night: warming, portable and, wrapped in a napkin and held in one hand, easy to eat outdoors. Filled with gently spiced, toffee-glossed apples, they are deliberately more homely hand pies than anything overly neat or patisserie-like. The small amount of miso in the filling deepens the toffee flavour and rounds out the sweetness, without making it taste too savoury or funky.

One of the UK budget’s big surprises? A discount on gherkins. And while they’ll always be good on a burger, there are many more unusual ways to indulge, from fried cheese treats to savoury ice-cream

In John Healey’s first budget as chancellor this week, he announced that he will remove import tariffs on more than 100 products – including, crucially, gherkins. Baked beans and boiled sweets, too, but gherkins stole the limelight, perhaps due to gen Z’s long-held obsession with all things pickled, including cucumbers.

But for those who think of a gherkin as either something to be chomped straight from the jar or swiftly removed from a Big Mac, do not worry: there are, in fact, plenty of ways to get more bang for your newly discounted gherkin buck.