COOKBOOKS GALORE

We had some friends for a few days and it was G's birthday, so I wanted to make a nice dessert instead of a cake. He loves ginger, and I had a large jar of ginger confit bought on our last French trip. This could give the cheesecake a good ginger flavour, and be the decoration on the top. I read somewhere recently that ricotta makes a good cheesecake, so decided to use half ricotta and half my usual Philly. I used digestive biscuits, but could have used something with chocolate in them. 180g biscuits 250g ricotta 250g Philadelphia cheese 200g dark chocolate 2 eggs and 1 yolk 80g caster sugar 80g candied ginger and 50g for the decoration 60g butter Icing sugar for top Preheat oven 150C/gas2 You need a 23cm springform tin. Blitz the biscuits in a food processor or bash them with a rolling pin. Melt the butter and mix with the biscuits crumbs. Use your fingers to press it into the base of the tin, then put in the fridge. Melt the broken up chocolat...

We love tea breads and loaf cakes, or anything with fruit in really. I found this recipe in my cuttings folder, and I think it originally came from 'Woman's Weekly' magazine a few years ago. I adapted it to suit our tastes, as the original recipe used prunes, apple and pecans. It also used wholemeal flour, but I'd run out, so used white. I added some cinnamon, which is always good with apples, imho, and I didn't toast the pecans, as suggested. So here's my adapted recipe: 1 apple [about 175g - I used a granny Smith with its skin on] 175g dried apricots 175g pecans 11/2 tspns baking powder 220g plain flour 110g butter or margarine 175g light demerara sugar 2 beaten eggs 3 tbspn milk Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease and bottom line a 900g loaf tin. Add the baking powder and cinnamon to the flour and sieve into a bowl. Then add the other ingredients, except the fruit and nuts, and beat together with an electric hand mixer. If the mixture seems to thic...

These came about because I had a sort out in my baking cupboard and found some marzipan that needed using up.  I remembered eating some biscuits in France that had a layer of marzipan in the middle, and they were delicious, so thought I'd have a try and make something similar. I used my usual cookie recipe, rolled out the dough and added a chunk of marzipan to the circles I'd cut out. To give an extra flavour I added a few bits of broken dark chocolate before putting another circle on top and sealing them together. I piped some white chocolate over when they were cold. I made 12 complete cookies. 150g butter 150g light brown sugar 1 egg 250g flour 100g marzipan 100g dark chocolate, broken in small pieces 100g white chocolate Preheat oven 190C/gas5 Line a baking sheet with some parchment paper. Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer, then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1/2 c...