COOKBOOKS GALORE

I haven't made a teabread for a while, so as I had a butternut squash to use up, I hunted for a recipe in my folders and found this one from 'Good Food' magazine; it's also online and the recipe is here  . The recipe is for pumpkin or butternut squash. I liked the moist texture of the teabread and the flavour of the squash. It's delicious buttered - the slice in the corner of the photo is for my husband who loves butter!

I have some apples to use up, so decided to hunt through my collection of apple recipes to find something different. This recipe is from a booklet I had many years ago in a magazine called 'Home and freezer Digest' which sadly no longer exists. I thought I'd also use this as my offering to Ruth's [of 'Pink Whisk'] October challenge -  to use apples in a recipe - which you'll find here Pastry: 75g butter 175g plain flour 25g ground almonds 1 egg yolk 15ml cold water 1/4 tspn almond essence Topping: 115g plain flour 1/2 tspn mixed spice 50g butter in cubes 50g light demerara sugar 50g flaked almonds Filling: 675g cooking apples 25g sultanas Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas5 I used a food processor to blend the flour and butter for the pastry, then stirred in the sugar and ground almonds. Whisk the egg yolk, water and almond essence together, then add them to the mixture and make into a nice soft dough. Put into the...

An easy, quick recipe to take over to my grandsons. It makes 16 fingers. Grease and line an 18cm square tin Melt 60g butter, 1 tspn cinnamon, 3 tbspn golden syrup and 200g dark chocolate in a large saucepan.  Then add 250g crushed biscuits - Nice, malted milk, digestive etc. I used just Nice biscuits and crushed them so some were left in pieces.  Mix it all together and spread into the tin.  Leave to cool then put into fridge to chill. Cut into fingers. The boys loved them, but we found them too sweet even tho' I'd used dark chocolate.

We had some of the family yesterday, and as my dil is a chocoholic, I thought I'd make these. The recipe has been adapted from a French cookery book that my penfriend gave me years ago, but which has languished at the back of the shelf ! The book has some other great tarts to try, so will be posting more recipes. It's called simply 'Les tartes' but I can't find an author. The recipe makes 8 tartlets. 250g  shortcrust pastry [your own or bought] 175g dark chocolate, broken into pieces 2-3 tbspn water 1 tbspn butter - softened 1 tbspn cognac or cointreau [opt!] 3 eggs, separated chocolate shavings or grated chocolate to decorate Preheat oven 200C/gas6 Roll out the pastry and line eight 10cm tartlet moulds. Then put them in the fridge for about 15 mins.  Line them with parchment and fill with beans and bake them 15mins; take out the beans and paper and cook them for another 5 mins; leave to cool. Melt the chocolate over a bowl of hot water or in ...