COOKBOOKS GALORE

I went to a farmer's market yesterday and couldn't resist buying yet more apples. It's the time of the year for them, for pies, cakes, chutney, jam. What could I do with them that would be something different? I remembered some apple recipes I'd cut out of a magazines ages ago, so I looked through them and found this one. I'm sure there are many recipes for regional Harvest Cakes, but my being Welsh, this recipe seemed very appropriate, and it's not long since we had Harvest.The countryside around us has been buzzing with combines and tractors. It's an unusual cake because the fruit is put in in middle like a sandwich filling, and it seems as if there's much too much fruit for the batter. But have faith, all will be well! Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 18cm cake tin Melt 175g butter with 175g soft brown sugar - don't worry if it's not all dissolved, but stir it. Cool for a bit then add 2 beaten eggs. Sift 225g sr flour together...

My grandsons came for the weekend, and as the weather wasn't very kind, I wanted to find something to do with them. They enjoy cooking, so we made some cookies. The original recipe had walnuts in it, but I needed to use up the last of my pecans. We found the recipe in an old Blue Peter book, which had belonged to the boys' Dad. They were then called biscuits, but cookies sounded more modern. They all took a turn beating the mixture, adding ingredients and making the cookies into balls. I have to own up that I drizzled the chocolate over the ones in the photo - their efforts had the chocolate mainly over the worktop! They proudly took the finished cookies [well most of them!] home for their Mum, and wanted to take some in their lunch boxes. We made 15 cookies. Preheat oven 190C/gas5 and grease 2 baking trays. Put 125g butter, 70g soft brown sugar and 70g caster sugar in a bowl and beat together till nice and creamy. Add 1 beaten egg and beat into the mixture. Fold in 200g...

Another simple but delicious apple cake. Many years ago I entered a competition in a small magazine called 'Home and Freezer Digest'. You had to send in your favourite apple recipe, and the best 100 would be published. I did get a recipe [called 'Nutty Apples'] in the book, and I won a copy of the book [100 Best Apple Recipes] and a year's worth of the magazine. Why am I saying all this, well I found the rather tatty book in the loft recently, and it has some great apple recipes in it. I still had a few of the windfall apples left so decided top make an apple and ginger cake from the book. It's a small cake, so perfect for the 2 of us. It's unusual because the apple puree is mixed into the cake mixture rather than being a layer in the middle of the cake. This gives the cake a good flavour. It could be used as a pudding with some custard - ideal for this colder weather. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 20cm cake tin. You need: 225g of app...

This is my kind of cake - a nice simple apple loaf cake - just right for using up some apple windfalls which a friend gave me. Have been busy making chutney and trying apple butter [delicious]. I made some apple muffins and scones for my children to take, and this loaf for us. It's also nice as a dessert. You preheat oven 170C/gas3 and line a 900g loaf tin with some baking parchment. Using an electric mixer, beat 175g caster sugar and  175g butter together till nice and fluffy then add 3 eggs, one at a time. Add a tspn of vanilla extract and mix in. In another bowl mix 225g of plain flour together with a tspn of baking powder, a tspn of ginger and a tspn of cinnamon. Add this to the batter and fold in. Then add about 25ml milk to make a soft batter. Peel and core about 3 small apples - chop most of it into small pieces, but leave a few pieces to slice for the top of the loaf. Mix the apple pieces into the batter. Spoon the batter into the tin and arrange the slices along...