COOKBOOKS GALORE

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...

I love apple cakes, and this is a recipe from my lovely German dil. It's an unusual apple cake as it has 3 layers. It's not the prettiest of cakes, but the flavour's really good. It's not a huge cake, but it's nice eaten warm as a pudd., or you could eat it cold as a cake with your afternoon cuppa. 100g butter 100g caster sugar 200g sr flour 1 large egg pinch salt 500g cooking apples 55g sultanas 1 tspn cinnamon 55g demerara sugar Preheat oven 190C/gas 5. Grease and line a 20cm springform tin. Melt butter in microwave or pan. Remove and add the sugar, flour, egg and salt. Mix to a stiff dough. Put 2/3 of the dough in the bootom of the cake tin, pressing it to cover the base. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and then put on top of the dough. Put the 1/3 of the dough on top in pieces, tearing it and gently pressing it down. It won't cover the apple mixture. Bake for about 50 mins till golden, but cover with some foil for about the last...