COOKBOOKS GALORE

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...

Since watching the GBBO ages ago, I've been wanting to make choux pastry. Nowadays I only bake for an occasion or when my family visit, so when I was asked to make something special for a lovely lady's 90th birthday party, I was very happy. I chatted to other people who'd also been invited to bake. They were making cakes of some kind, so I thought something with pastry would be good.  I love profiteroles, so decided on a variation on the usual chocolate ones. I have some French baking magazines and in one of these they used strawberries,in the filling, and being French, the recipe didn't use double cream but ricotta cheese. Interesting, but I wanted to use raspberries, and I wasn't sure that ricotta would give the flavour I wanted, so I decided to use the traditional double cream. I'm not going to write about making the choux pastry - have a look here for a recipe http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/profiteroleswithpist_90242 or there are plenty of others o...

I'm sorting out my food cupboards, checking on use by dates etc. and I came across a some tinned peaches that needed to be used up. I'm not a great fan of peaches, but quite like them in cakes, so decided to make one from a recipe I made ages ago at a cookery class. It uses semolina as well as flour, and also yoghurt, so a bit different. I used a 200g loaf tin greased and lined with baking paper. Preheat oven to 180C/gas5 To make the cake you need 50g butter, 100g caster sugar, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 2 eggs - separated. Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and egg yolks together till nice and white and fluffy. Add 250g plain yoghurt and mix in. Mix together 125g plain flour, 2 tspn baking powder and 125g semolina and add to the batter. Whisk the 2 egg whites till stiff then fold carefully into the cake mixture.  Put half of the mixture into the cake tin. Chop up 200g peaches halves or slices into dice and add half to the cake tin on top of the batter. Put the rest o...

  I recently picked up a book in a local charity shop about 'Food of the British Isles'.It's a compilation of recipes from restaurants and cooks. I was especially interested in the Cake Section, as I've been wanting to try some of the more unusual British cake and pudding recipes for some time. This one isn't very unusual, but thought I'd try it as it's called a Bakewell Pudding and not a Tart. In the book, the writer says says that a Pudding is made with puff pastry and the Tart with shortcrust. Is it that simple? I bet a lot of local people would disagree with this definition! The writer made her puff pastry from scratch, but I bought mine, butter of course! For the Pudding you need : 500g butter puff pastry, 3 tbspn raspberry jam, 150g butter, 150g caster sugar, 3 eggs plus a yolk, beaten, 150g ground almonds, zest of a lemon,2 tspn almond extract, 1 tbspn flaked almonds and some icing sugar to dust the top. Preheat oven 190C/gas5        ...

I wanted a chocolate recipe for an Easter cake, but wanted to try something a bit different. I love the flavour of orange with chocolate [yes, I did get a Chocolate Orange Easter Egg!!] so this French recipe seemed just the thing. It's made in a Bundt mould, which makes it look a little bit more special for an occasion. For the cake you need - 150g sr flour,1 tspn baking powder, 100g ground almonds, 220g caster sugar, 150g butter [melted], 4 eggs, grated zest of 1 orange. For the syrup you need - 220g caster sugar, 250ml orange juice, peeled zest of 4 oranges. For the icing - 150g dark chocolate Preheat oven 160C/gas3 Grease a Bundt tin or mould well or spray with a Cake Release spray. To make the cake - grate the zest of the orange. Beat the eggs with the caster sugar till white and fluffy. Fold in the flour and baking powder. Melt the butter in a microwave then add to the mixture with the ground almonds and orange zest. Mix well. Bake for 45-50 mins. 5 mins befo...

I bought a pack of puff pastry from Waitrose, and having defrosted it, discovered that there were 2 lots of pastry in the box. I used one to make a seafood tart, so what to do with the other one? I wanted something easy and quick so decided to try a recipe my friend gave me.  1 lb (approx 450 grams)  puff pastry 100g caster sugar   30g unsalted butter, melted 1 tspn cinnamon [or more if you like it!] Directions Preheat your oven 180C/gas4.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll pastry out to about 1/8th inch thick. Brush the pastry with the melted butter and sprinkle the sugar evenly all over then sprinkle with the cinnamon. Roll the pastry into a log starting from the long edge of the rectangle that is closest to you. Cut the pastry into 1 inch pieces, and place cut side down on the baking sheet. Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes, until the bottoms of the puffs are golden brown. Turn them over and bake for another 10-15 minu...

I love Simnel cake at Easter and always made one for my husband and me, but the rest of my family either don't like marzipan or dried fruit, so I thought I'd try making small cakes with almost the same ingredients, then I could freeze some for me and give a few to friends. I didn't put the marzipan layer in the middle of the little cakes, but put a layer on top, and to make it more springlike, I cut it out with a flower shaped cutter. The final decoration was a sugar flower  - I'd bought a packet a while ago and they needed using! Preheat oven 180C/gas4                  You need a greased 12 hole silicone or metal muffin tin. 125g butter, 125g soft brown sugar, 2 eggs, 125g sr flour, 1 tspn mixed spice, 1 tspn cinnamon, 1-2 tbspn milk, 125g dried fruit and zests of 1 orange and 1 lemon [I didn't have any good mixed peel, hadn't got any home made, and I hate the cheap stuff, so decided to use zest instead], 100g marzipan, 2 tbspn apr...