COOKBOOKS GALORE

I love Autumn and its flavours, and one of my favourite is nuts. I know I've mentioned it before, but every Autumn in France we got given a bag of walnuts from my neighbour's tree. She used to make this tart with some of them. I bought a large bag of shelled walnuts on offer at a local deli, so decided to make her tart. I know the taste won't be quite the same, not using fresh nuts, but it will be a lovely memory of Reneé. Preheat oven 200C/gas6.            23cm tart tin Pastry: 125g flour, 75g butter, 25g caster sugar, pinch salt, 1 egg and 25ml water. Mix all the ingredients together into a firm ball of dough. Pop in fridge till needed. Filling: 500g shelled walnuts, 150ml crème fraîche, 60g caster sugar, 1 beaten egg, 1 tspn vanilla extract and icing sugar for the top. Keep enough walnuts back to have enough to cover the top. Put these on a baking tray and put into the oven for a few minutes till they have some colour. Put the rest in a blen...

I love pears and I wanted to make something different with them. Happily my French friend came to my aid again and gave me this recipe. It's a dessert not a cake, but is easy to make. 4 medium pears [firmish but not too hard] 150g plain flour 100g caster sugar 2 eggs 100ml milk 3 tbspn vegetable oil 2 tspn baking powder For the topping: 80g melted butter 3tbspn caster sugar 1 egg Flaked almonds Oven 180C.                             Grease and flour  23cm cake tin Put the sugar and eggs in a bowl and beat till light and fluffy. Add the flour, baking powder and oil and mix in. Pour half of this batter into the cake tin. Peel the pears and cut into strips. Put on top of the batter in the tin and spoon the rest of the batter on top. Bake for 30 mins. Topping- Beat the egg and sugar together then add the butter and mix together. After the fondant has baked for 30 mins, take out of the oven a...