COOKBOOKS GALORE

This is a very easy loaf to make. 300g plain flour 11/2 tspn bicarb. of soda 1/2 tspn salt 300g [10 fl oz] plain yoghurt 2 egg whites 60g raisins 2 tbspn runny honey butter or margarine to grease the tin Grease a 900g loaf tin. Preheat oven 425F/210C/gas 7 Mix the flour, bicarb. and salt in a bowl. Whisk the egg whites with the yoghurt and fold into the flour.Add the raisins and honey. Spoon into the tin and bake for 20 mins. Cool in the tin. ] This loaf has a nice light texture. I think it's better eaten warm.

And now for something completely different....! This is another recipe to use up a Christmas leftover, but this time it's a small bottle of Baileys that we were given in a hamper. We were invited for a meal to a friend's house last weekend and she'd asked me to bring something sweet to have with coffee after the meal. An unusual request, so I hunted through my cookbooks and eventually came up with these little tartlets. I made some sweet pastry, but shortcrust would do as well. I used 175g flour etc. and this made 12 tartlets. You need 12 little moulds or barquettes  - these are the ones I used. I bought them on a whim years ago and have never used them! I have 3 of each shape. Line the greased moulds with the pastry and bake blind. For the filling you need: 150g plain chocolate, melted 120ml milk 3 egg yolks 2 tbsp caster sugar 3 tbsp plain flour 4 tbsp Baileys Irish liqueur 4 tbsp whipping cream, whipped Chocolate shavings or cocoa to decorate. Put ...

Another teabread to add to my collection - a Scandinavian one, or so I thought when I saw the name of the recipe, but it's more of a loaf cake .This comes from a book on baking I bought from a charity shop a while ago - it doesn't have an author - it's just called 'The Baking manual'. 150g butter 120g sugar 3 eggs grated rind of 2 lemons 60ml orange juice 250g plain flour + 2 tspns baking powder breadcrumbs to coat the tin Fat to grease the cake tin. You don't preheat the oven for this recipe - you put the cake mixture into a cold oven. Grease a 900g loaf tin. Beat the butter and sugar together till pale then add the eggs, one at a time, beating between each one. Mix in the lemon rind, orange juice and the flour. You sprinkle the breadcrumbs into the greased tin [ I didn't do this as I didn't want wholemeal crumbs around the cake]. The recipe didn't give an amount and I can't see any crumbs on the cake photo in the book. Seems a s...

This recipe is another using up Christmas leftovers and this time it's some mincemeat. I wanted to make something different from mince pies and found this recipe in an old cookbook from the 70s. I'm not going to give the recipe for the shortcrust pastry - everyone has their own favourite one, or you can use Just Rol. 150g s/c pastry [that's 200g flour, 100g fat etc] 4 tbspns mincemeat 2 egg whites 75g caster sugar 75g ground almonds 15g flaked almonds a few cherries cut in 1/4s Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas 5 Grease a bun tin. Roll out the pastry, cut out with a 8cm cutter and line your bun tin. [I cut out 10 cases] Whisk the egg whites till stiff then fold in the sugar and the ground almonds. Spoon some of the mixture on top of each tart then sprinkle with some flaked almonds. Put a piece of cherry in the middle. Bake for about 20 mins, or until golden. The topping is a good contrast to the soft mincemeat. A recipe to keep.

I had some marzipan left over from Christmas so decided to make some of these biscuits. They're fairly easy to make, have few ingredients and are delicious [but not healthy!]. The recipe is one I've used many times, and was in a free booklet that came with a Prima magazine, I think. The recipe makes about 10 biscuits. 250g butter 100g marzipan 100g demerara sugar + little extra for sprinkling on top 250g plain flour Preheat oven 180C/350F/gas4 Grease a baking sheet. In a bowl, cream the butter using a mixer with a doughhook [I have a hand mixer which came with dough hooks, so I use this]. Mix in the marzipan and gradually add the sugar and flour, kneading the mixture well. Make the dough into a roll and put in the fridge for 2-3 hours. Then roll the dough out till it's about 15mm thick, then cut it into strips 15mm x 6 cm and put these back into the fridge for 30 mins. Put the biscuits onto your baking sheet. Makes grooves in each one using a fork, and sprin...

One of the presents I got for Christmas was a new sugar thermometer. Ever since I was a child,  I've been interested in making sweets. My Mum used to make them, and I inherited her old thermometer. I also inherited her book 'Toffees, fudges, chocolates and sweets' by Mary Novak, and I have a battered copy of Margaret Powell's ' Sweetmaking for children'. I made sweets with my children and yesterday I made some with one of my grandsons. We made coconut ice and he helped me make yogurt pecan fudge, the latter being an excuse to use my new thermometer! Coconut ice My grandson wanted to make something on his own, so this is a very easy version. 6 tbspns condensed milk 275g icing sugar 175g dessicated coconut pink food colouring Mix together the milk and icing sugar, then stir in the coconut. The mixture will be very stiff. Divide it into 2. Colour one half with the colouring. Grease and line a small cake tin, and put the white mixture in a layer at the ...