COOKBOOKS GALORE

 I love carrot cake, so thought I’d make cupcakes instead of the usual large cake. A friend recently gave me the icing recipe, so thought it would marry well with the cupcake.  You need: 225 sr flour, 220g light brown sugar, 2 tspn mixed spice, 125ml vegetable oil, 3 eggs, 480g grated carrots and 90g chopped pecan nuts, plus some for the top Icing: 30g soft butter, 80g cream cheese, 2 tbspsn maple syrup and 200g icing sugar Preheat oven 180C/ gas . Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases. Mix together the flour, sugar, eggs, spice and oil in a bowl till thoroughly mixed. Add the carrots and nuts and stir into mixture. Spoon equally between the paper cases and bake for 30 mins. Cool on a wire rack. Beat the butter , cream cheese and syrup together in a small bowl (using an electric hand mixer) until it’s nice and fluffy. Add the icing sugar gradually.  Spread the icing onto the cooled cupcakes and top with a nut. My family loved these especially the topping. It worked really well wit

 My lovely friend has been giving me lots of veg from her allotment. This week it was courgettes. I decided to make a cake, and was very happy with the result.  Preheat oven 180C/gas 4  Grease and line a 200g loaf tin You need: 200 g margarine or butter, 200g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 150g courgettes, 1 small apple, 200g plain flour, 1/2 tspn baking powder, 1 tspn cinnamon, 60 g pecans or walnuts, 80g sultanas Beat the fat and sugar together till fluffy, add the beaten eggs a bit at a time. Coarsely grate the courgettes and apple then squeeze as much water as you can out of them and add to the mix.  Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together and gently fold into the mix. Stir in the chopped walnuts or pecans. Spoon into the tin and bake for an hour. Cool in the tin. Sorry there’s only half a loaf, but my son and family arrived and ate half before I could take a photo! The cake is very moist and I love the contrast between the crunchy nuts and the soft fruit. I cut the apple into qu

 I love muffins, preferring them to cupcakes, as am not keen on all the cupcake topping. The usual over ripe were bananas left in the bowl, so looked for something a bit different to make with them. The recipe is adapted from one on the easypeasylemonsqueezy blog, but that one uses butter and I prefer using oil.  Preheat oven 180C   Grease a 12 hole muffin tin or use muffin cases.  Muffin cases vary in size. Mine from Lakeland are bigger than the ones from the supermarket. I made 8 big muffins, but you could make 12 with the smaller cases. You need: 6 tbspn vegetable oil or 90g melted cooked butter,  3 ripe bananas, 1/2 tspn vanilla extract, 2 eggs, 125g soft brown sugar, 250g sr flour, 1 level tspn baking powder,  1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda and a packet of chocolate chips In a large bowl put the oil, bananas, vanilla and eggs and whisk together. Add the rest of the ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix together. Don’t overmix! Add the chocolate, keeping a few back to put on

 My neighbour brought me a bag of rhubarb from a friend,so I decided to make my Mum’s rhubarb cake. The rhubarb is on the top of the cake.  150g butter or soft margarine, 115g soft light brown sugar, 1/2tspn vanilla extract, 2 beaten eggs, 150g sr flour, 1/2 tspn baking powder, 50g ground almonds, 1 tspn ground ginger, 1-2 tbsps milk,  360g rhubarb cut into 2  cm chunks and 3 tbspn Demerara sugar Preheat Oven 180C/gas4/350F Line a 20cm springform tin with parchment paper Cream fat and brown sugar till fluffy. Add the eggs. Stir flour, almonds, ginger and baking powder together then fold into the mixture with enough milk to give soft dropping mix.  Spoon into tin, level the surface and scatter the rhubarb over the top. Sprinkle with the Demerara sugar. Bake for 45 mins - 1 hour till skewer comes out cleanly. Cool in the tin. I didn’t have Demerara sugar so used soft dark brown. The rhubarb still has a good tang to it and isn’t too sweet. I had a slice with ice cream. It’s quite a soft c

 This is a new recipe that a friend gave me recently. She’d made some for a coffee morning and I thought they were delicious and a bit different. My lovely neighbour ( who is always a tester for my recipes ) thought so too! You need: 140g butter or margarine, 2 heaped tbsps sieved cocoa, 1 tbspn golden syrup, 1 dspn caster sugar and 350g digestive biscuits, crushed Topping: 200g icing sugar, 3 tspn s peppermint essence and 300g milk or dark chocolate, or a mixture of both  Shallow cake tin 18x30cm Grease the tin Melt the fat, cocoa, syrup and sugar over a low heat or in the microwave. Add the crushed biscuits and mix well.  Spoon into the tin and press down to fit. Leave to cool. Topping - sieve icing sugar into a bowl and add the peppermint essence and enough cold water ( about 2tbspn) to make a spreadable icing. Spread over the biscuit base.  Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or microwave on Medium. Pour over the mixture, spreading it all over the top.  Chill

 I love any kind of clafoutis, but this one’s a bit different as it has ground almonds in it. A clafoutis is really a batter and you add different fruits. Raspberries are my favourite, so I used these in this recipe. Oven 200C/gas6  Grease a gratin dish You need: 400g fresh raspberries, 80g caster sugar, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 50g flour, 50g ground almonds, 3 eggs and 250ml milk.  In a bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, almonds and vanilla extract. Beat the eggs together then add to the bowl. Mix everything. Slowly add the milk to make a smooth batter.  Put the raspberries into the bottom of the dish and pour the batter over.  Bake for about 45-50 mins till golden.  200C / You can use any other fruit, but I think fresh fruit tastes better than tinned in this recipe. Loved the hint of almond which goes well with the raspberries. Had to have a little decoration with my herbs!!