COOKBOOKS GALORE

 In France, the tradition is to have a Galette de Rois for Epiphany, January 6th., the visit of the Wise Men. I love these almond filled galettes, but decided to try something different this year and added apples. You need: 2 packs of puff pastry, 3 eating apples, 200g crème fraîche, 200g ground almonds, 100g caster sugar + 40g, 3eggs and 1 egg yolk Preheat oven 220C/gas7                 A baking tray Cut the apples up into small cubes and put into a pan with the 40g of sugar. Caramelise for about 10 mins. Add 1 tbspn of the cream and mix together. In a bowl mix together the rest of the cream and the 100g of sugar, the ground almonds and eggs. Put this in the fridge for 10 mins. Roll out the pastry sheets. Cut out 2 large circles [I used a large dinner plate]. Put one of the circles on the baking tray and cover with the apples. If you have one, put a bean or little fêve in, then spoon over the almond mixture. Cover with the second circle...

A belated Happy New Year.  I’ve had great problems posting on here for a while. Hopefully this has now been solved., I love Scandinavian baking and have several Scandi baking books, but to honest, I've never baked from them. Reading an article recently on this type of baking, I thought I must use my books, so decided to make a caramel almond cake. I've adapted it from 'Scandilicious Baking'. For the cake  you need; 20ml milk, 1 tspn lemon juice [or 75ml buttermilk] 75g butter, 3 eggs, 150g caster sugar, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 150g plain flour, 1 tspn baking powder and a pinch of salt. For the topping:  150g flaked almonds, 125g butter, 125g light brown sugar, 50ml milk and 1/2 tspn sea salt Preheat oven 160C/gas3                     Grease and base line a 23cm springform cake tin Stir the lemon juice into the milk to sour it, or use 75ml buttermilk instead. Toast the almonds till they're a light golden colour [takes ...