COOKBOOKS GALORE

 Thought I’d try and make up for not posting for a few months and post another recipe. These are one of my favourite things to eat. My Mum was a great baker and made them regularly. You can buy ready made short crust pastry or make your own. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 You need a 12 hole bun tin. Grease the holes in the tin. Pastry : 225g plain flour, 110g butter, 1 egg beaten, 50g caster sugar Rub the fat into the flour till breadcrumbs. Add the egg to the sugar and add to the bowl and mix together. Add the flour then mix into a dough. Wrap in film and put in the fridge for 30 mins. Custard: 40g caster sugar, 4 medium egg yolks, 1/2 tspn vanilla extract, 300 ml warm milk and 1/2 tspn grated nutmeg.  Mi the caster sugar, egg yolks and vanilla extract together then stir in the warm milk. Keep stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Take pastry out of the fridge and roll out on lightly floured surface to 2mm. Use a cutter slightly bigger than the holes in the bun tin and cut out 12 ro...

Coconut seems to be one of the 'in' things as you see coconut oil, creamed coconut  etc. My late husband hated coconut, so not wanting to eat a whole cake on my own, I rarely made one. This is a recipe given to me by my neighbour, so I promised to make it. I suppose it's called a Caribbean cake because of the coconut and pineapple jam in it? Preheat oven 180C/gas4           Grease 2x20cm sandwich tins and base line. Cake : In a large bowl put 175g butter, 175g caster sugar and 3 eggs. In another bowl, sift together 175g sr flour, 11/2 tspn baking powder and 1/2 tspn freshly grated nutmeg. Beat the butter, eggs and sugar then fold in the flour mixture plus 55g desiccated coconut and 2 tbpsn creamed coconut. Mix well. Divide the batter between the tins then bake for 25 mins till golden. Cool in tins for 5 mins then turn onto a wire rack. Filling:  Sift 280g icing sugar into a large bowl. Add 115g butter and 3 tbspn creamed coconut and beat toget...

I've mentioned before that my Polish neighbour loves baking, and we have regular sessions together. I thought we'd make some traditional British cakes, so as I had a can of cider left in the fridge, we made a Somerset Cider cake.  It's easy to make, looks simple, but tastes good. Preheat oven 180C/gas4              Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin. You need 125g butter which you cream with 125g caster sugar till fluffy. Add 2 beaten eggs and eat in. Mix 225g sr flour with 1 tspn bicarb and 1/2 tspn each of nutmeg and cinnamon [or more if you want it more spicy]. Add half of this to the batter, then add 200ml cider and mix together. Fold in the rest of the flour and spoon into the tin. Bake for 35-40 mins. Cool in the tin, then take out and put on a wire rack and sprinkle some caster sugar over the top. This is a nice moist cake with a light texture.You can certainly get the apple taste from the cide...

My lovely Polish neighbour and I enjoy making cakes together. I tasted a Polish gingerbread cake at her house recently, so thought I'd find a recipe and make one too. I had a look online, but some didn't seem to be authentic, some had strange ingredients, so in the end I used a mixture of several recipes, taking what I thought were good bits from each! The cake contains a mix of spices - ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, so I mixed together what I thought would give the cake a good spicy taste, without it being overpowering. Some of the cakes in the recipes were cut in half and filled with plum jam, some were iced with chocolate, so it seems as if there's as many variations with this cake as there are with some traditional British cakes. Preheat oven 180C/gas4           grease a 900g loaf tin The recipe is very easy - you melt 170g light brown sugar with 75g butter, 170g honey and 2 tbspn strong coffee granules[ I used Azera Espresso] in a pan...

I keep buying sweet potatoes and  forgetting about them, so decided to use them up in a cake. I had a look online, but thought most were too fussy for me. This one came from the book I've mentioned before, 'Cakes Mom Used to Make'.  It doesn't have an author, as it's recipes from different people. It makes a big 3-layer cake, but as I was making it for a largish family get together, this was fine. The nuisance part was that you needed 3 x 23cm cake tins. I have 2, so borrowed the other one from my neighbour. Preheat oven 200C/gas6 Prick 2 medium or 1 large sweet potato [about 350g], put on a baking tray and bake for about an hour till they're soft. Take them out and cool for a bit. When they're cool, you can peel and chop them and purée in a blender.  Turn the oven down to 180C/gas4. Grease the 3 cake tins and line the bottoms. Sift together 320g plain flour with 90g of cornflour, then add 3 tspn baking powder, 11/2 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn nutmeg and ...

I love baking with Autumn fruits, and I bought some pears before we went on holiday to try out this recipe, another one from my friend's American mil. I think the US has a much better range of ideas for baking with fruit than we do in the UK.   I love tea breads of any kind, so one with pears, especially salted caramel pears, was a 'must bake'.  It's a typical teabread mixture with added pears, and then a streusel topping. For the pears: In a large saucepan melt 30g butter and add 450g diced pears and mix together. Add 2 tbspn muscovado sugar, 1/2 tspn salt and 2 tbspn double cream. Stir together gently, then cook on a low heat till lightly golden. Watch the pan as the pears will be bitter if they burn. Take off the heat and cool. For the cake: Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease a 900g loaf tin well. In a bowl put 200g plain flour, 1 tspn bicarbonate of soda, 1 tspn baking powder, pinch salt, 1/2 tspn cinnamon, 1/4 tspn allspice, 1/4 tspn ground ginger...

A quick post, as the recipe is online. Another good recipe for a teabread - just fancied making one to have with a cuppa.  I changed a few things in the recipe - I used 'Quatre Epices', a French spice mix which has cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, and the cloves and nutmeg give the cake a lovely spicy musky  flavour. I also used dark muscovado sugar as I didn't have any of the light. There's marmalade in it and I used a thick cut, but cut the pieces of peel into small bits. The wholemeal flour makes it quite a dense cake, but the flavours are great, and we enjoyed a slice with some butter. I think if I made it again, I would use part wholemeal and part white flour for a better texture. At least the fruit didn't sink to the bottom this time!  This is the recipe, on the Baking Mad site.                                             http://...

I had some dessicated coconut in the cupboard, so decided to make another cake. I also had a lovely pot of local honey bought in a recent farmer's market, so would use this too. I found a lot of recipes online for a honey cake, but they weren't exactly what I wanted. This recipe is a mixture of bits of several recipes I've used before. Grease and line a 200g loaf tin. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Beat 125g butter with 100g brown sugar till nice and creamy; then add 2 beaten eggs, 1 tspn vanilla extract and 60ml honey. Add 25g dessicated coconut and mix in. Fold in 250g sr flour, 1 tspn nutmeg, 1/2 tspn cinnamon and 1/4 tspn allspice. Stir in 125ml milk and mix gently till smooth. Pour into the tin and bake for 30 mins. Leave in tin for 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack. Cream cheese and honey icing: Beat 125g cream cheese [like Philly] till creamy, then add 75g sieved icing sugar and 1 tbspn honey. Beat together till smooth and fluffy. Spread icing over cake and spr...

I'm going through a 'nostalgic phase' at the moment, having made coconut ice, coconut pyramids and an orange coconut cake in the last few weeks - all recipes from my Mum's notebook, and which I remember from my childhood. I wanted to continue with the coconut theme, and I remembered a recipe I'd always meant to try. I have a few US cookery books and magazines brought back from when we lived there, and I've adapted this cake from a book called 'Cakes That Mom Baked' - it has 2 of my favourite ingredients in it - bananas and coconut. I've changed to metric measures and altered some of the ingredients. When living in the US, we got used to the fact that a cake wasn't a cake unless it had 'frosting' on top. This was usually a heavy butter cream, flavoured or coloured. This cake has a 'frosting' which is flavoured with banana and rum, and it's then sprinkled with shredded coconut [which I bought on Amazon UK]. I made it in a 9...

I was inspired by a recent post on the excellent Strong as Soup blog           http://asstrongassoup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/black-sticky-gingerbread-random-recipe.html    to look for a recipe my neighbour gave me for a gingerbread made with honey. This is a very different gingerbread from the dark moist one on Phil's blog. The method is unusual in that you put the dry ingredients into a bowl, then heat the honey and pour it over. It's got a good spicy flavour and as Phil said in his post, gingerbread is great for taking on an Autumn walk, or with your afternoon cuppa, or even as a dessert with some custard. The original French recipe used 'quatre epices' but I don't think there's much difference between that and our mixed spice, and I found some ground aniseed in a local deli, but you could leave it out if you don't like it. 250g runny honey 250g plain flour 100g caster sugar 1 tspn baking powder 1 tbspn vanilla sugar 1 tspn ground anis...

This is a very plain looking cake, but it's full of flavour. It comes from Indonesia and has been influenced by the spice traders who passed through during the centuries. I love spices, but haven't made a cake with nutmeg before - the odd grated bit in a cake, but this one has 2 tspns of it. It's made by the rubbing-in method and a half the crumbs are put into the base of the cake tin then covered with the rest of the crumbs which has been mixed into a batter mixture. The recipe has been adapted from one I found in 'Bake Your Cake', a book I borrowed from the library a while ago. It's by an Australian author, but I forgot to write down her name! 250g plain flour 250g brown sugar 1 tbspn mixed spice 2 tspns baking powder 130g butter 1 tspn bicarbonate of soda 1 egg 2 tspns nutmeg 150ml milk 2 tbspns caster sugar Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease the sides of a 20cm spring form tin then line the bottom with baking paper. Mix the flour, brown sugar, ...

This addition to my teabread recipe collection comes from a book I bought in a charity shop called 'The complete book of baking'. It really is a very quick bread to make, and is very moist. Another recipe with oil instead of butter must be good! 175g plain flour 11/2 tspn baking powder 1/2tspn grated nutmeg 6-g rolled oats 250g light brown sugar 60g dried cranberries 60g dried apricots 2 eggs 120ml sunflower oil 1 tspn vanilla essence 2 ripe bananas, mashed Preheat oven 180C/gas 4 Grease a 900g loaf tin Put flour, baking powder and nutmeg in a bowl and add the oats, sugar and dried fruit. Mix together till blended. make a well in the middle. In another bowl beat the bananas, eggs, oil and vanilla essence together with an electric mixer. Add this to the flour mixture and combine together. Pour into the tin and bake for 45mins- an hour till well risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack. Dust the top with icing sugar if you want. I served this to friends w...

This is a lovely moist cake with a soft, dense texture. Make sure, if you do try it, that you grease the cake tin well, as I used my 2lb silicone loaf mould and even thought I did grease it, the cake still stuck to the bottom. Apple puree cake 100g butter or margarine, softened 225g soft brown sugar [I used light brown muscovado sugar and it gave the cake a lovely flavour] 2 eggs, lightly beaten 225g plain flour 1 tspn ground cinnamon ½ tspn grated nutmeg 100g apple puree 1 tspn bicarb. 2 tbspn hot water Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F Grease a 2lb loaf tin well Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy Beat in eggs and stir in flour, spices and apple puree. Mix the bicarb. with the hot water then stir it into the mixture. Spoon into tin and bake for about 50mins. Test with skewer to see if it’s cooked.