COOKBOOKS GALORE

I'm not a great fan of cupcakes as I find the topping too sweet, and I prefer muffins or our British fairy cakes. I was asked to make some for a special tea, so decided to make lemon ones, to use up 2 lemons which just happened to fall off my tree! The topping is a bit different as I used mascarpone.  You need a muffin tin with paper muffin or cupcake cases.  Preheat oven 180C/gas4 80g flour 1 tspn baking powder pinch bicarb. 40g ground almonds 75g caster sugar 3 eggs 100g melted butter zest of 1 lemon Icing: 250g mascarpone juice and zest of 1 lemon 50g icing sugar yellow colouring Beat eggs and caster sugar together till white and fluffy. Add the baking powder and bicarb to the flour and add to the mixture together with the ground almonds, butter and lemon zest. Mix together till a smooth batter. Put the paper cases in the muffin tin and fill them 3/4 full with the batter. Bake 15 mins till golden, then take out if tin and cool on a wire rack. Beat th...

 I first had this tart in a little bistro-style restaurant in France. It's very different from the usual apple tart, using grated apples and including lemons in the filling. As I was in a hurry to get it made, I cheated and bought some shortcrust pastry from Waitrose, but of course you can make your own. The recipe was on a bag of sugar I bought ages ago in France! What I loved about the ready-made pastry in France, was that is came in a round shape ready for the tart tin. Wish ours did! You need:  a block of shortcrust pastry, 3 large eating apples, 150g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 80g melted butter and 2 lemons, washed well. Preheat oven 200C/gas6.                          Grease a fluted tart tin. Zest the 2 lemons and put it in a small bowl then add their juice. Grate the apples into a larger bowl then add the lemon zest and juice to stop the apples turning brown. Mix together. Add the 2 eggs, the ...