COOKBOOKS GALORE

You can never have too many apple cake recipes, and I needed to make something for friends coming for a cuppa and chat. My lovely German dil, whom I've mentioned several times on here, gave me this recipe. It's easy to make, but is an unusual cake. Preheat oven to 220C/gas8 .  Line the base of a 20cm springform tin and grease the sides. Cream 125g butter with 75g caster sugar and 1/2 tspn vanilla extract, then fold in 150g plain flour. It will be a bit of a crumbly mixture. Press this into the base of the tin and spread with3 tbspn of seedless raspberry or apricot jam. In another bowl beat together 225g cream cheese, 45g caster sugar, 1 egg and 1/2 tspn vanilla extract and pour this over the jam. Peel and slice 4 medium apples; I used Coxes, then toss the slices in 75g of caster sugar and 1 tspn of cinnamon till they're well coated and spread these evenly over the cheese mixture. Sprinkle with flaked almonds. Put the cake tin on a baking sheet in case a...

This is such an easy recipe, but I like the holly decoration on the top. It's a bit fiddly to do, but I think they look Christmassy and a bit different from other Christmas biscuits. The basic biscuit recipe is one I've had for years, and I saw the holly and berries idea in a baker's shop window. I went in and bought some bread and asked about the holly biscuits and the kind lady explained how they were done. So easy, and adaptable to other designs and cutters. The recipe makes about 12 biscuits. 75g butter 50g icing sugar grated rind of a lemon 1 egg yolk 175g plain flour pinch of salt Decoration: 2 egg yolks red and green food colouring Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas5 Lightly grease 2 baking trays. Beat the butter, sugar and zest together till fluffy; beat in the egg yolk and add the flour and salt. Mix to a smooth dough. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for about half and hour. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to a...

It was my turn to make a cake for coffee morning, so decided to make a chocolate one. It's an American recipe from a neighbour. The caramel isn't made from a tin of Carnation Caramel, which we use nowadays, but is made using golden syrup, and the cake isn't topped with the usual sickly American-style icing, but with a simple chocolate icing, and topped with some chopped walnuts. For the cake you need: 1 large egg 120g unsalted utter, room temperature 200g  caster sugar 1 tspn baking powder 1 tspn bicarb soda 250ml full fat milk, room temperature 1 tbspn golden syrup 1 tbspn cocoa 1 tspn cinnamon pinch salt few walnuts, finely chopped  Icing: Icing sugar  1 tspn butter, softened 1 tbspn cocoa water Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease and base line a 20cm round cake tin. Cream butter and sugar together until mixture is pale and creamy, then beat in the egg. Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt together.  Slowly  add the milk...