COOKBOOKS GALORE

I love using my bundt tin, but don't do so very often. I had several lemons to use up so decided to make a lemon cake in this tin. It's easy to do and doesn't need any icing or decoration - not too much work! You need 170g plain flour, 2 tspn baking powder, 170g butter, 120g light brown sugar, 3 eggs, the juice of 1 lemon and the zest of 2 lemons, icing sugar if you want to sprinkle it over the top. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Spray a bundt tin with Cake Release or something similar Beat the butter with the sugar to get a nice creamy mixture. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each one. Add the flour plus baking powder and the lemon juice and zest and beat together. Spoon into the tin and bake for about 45 mins. Cool in the tin for 10 mins then finish cooling on a wire rack. If you want, sprinkle some icing sugar over the top. A nice lemony cake with a good soft texture. You could ice it with lemon glacé icing, but I think it's...

Wanted a quick and easy dessert, so used 3 ripe pears from the fruit bowl and made an easy tart. Chocolate and pears are a marriage made in heaven for me, but if you haven't got a bar of chocolate, you could use Nutella spread over the pastry. You don't have to make the pastry - use a ready made butter puff. Preheat oven 220C/gas7                23cm tart tin In a bowl, mix together 100g soft butter, 100g ground almonds and 125g caster sugar. Mix together then add 2 beaten eggs and beat together. Roll out the puff pastry and line the tart tin. Prick with a fork. Peel, de-pip [is there such a word?] and cut 3 ripe Conference pears each into 4 pieces. Melt 100g chocolate [you can use cooking chocolate if you want] in the microwave or over simmering water, then pour over the pastry in the tin. Spoon in the batter then spread the pears on top. Bake for about 30 mins - keep an eye on the tart at the end so it doesn't burn! Nic...

 Needed to use up two very ripe looking bananas in the fruit bowl, so it would be a banana cake. I think banana goes well with caramel, so made a caramel icing for the top. The recipe uses sunflower  oil and yoghurt, so definitely healthy [if you ignore the caramel!]. Preheat oven 180C/gas4                   Grease and base line a 23cm springform cake tin. In a bowl mix together 250g plain flour with 2 tspn baking powder and 1/2 tspn bicarb. Mix in 250g caster sugar. In another bowl beat together 150ml sunflower oil, 250g ripe bananas [ I used 2 large ones], 2 eggs, 50ml natural yoghurt and 1 tspn vanilla extract. Pour the oil mixture into the flour and stir together till mixed. Spoon the batter into the cake tin and bake for about 40 mins. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins, then turn onto a wire rack. For the caramel topping: Put 85g butter, 175ml double cream and 175g soft brown sugar in a pan over a medium heat ...