COOKBOOKS GALORE

There's nothing like chocolate for cheering a day up. I was given a large bar for Easter, so wanted to stretch it out by using it in a cake. I love loaf cakes, and this is one of my favourites. It uses courgettes as well as chocolate, and I just happened to have one medium sized one that needed using up. It also uses soft brown sugar, a bonus as I've no more caster sugar! You need: 2 eggs, 80ml honey, 120ml sunflower oil, 100g soft light brown sugar, 2 tspn vanilla exctract, 1/2 tspn baking powder and 1/2 tspn bicarb, 1 heaped tspn coffee granules, 45g cocoa powder, 210g plain flour, 2 small courgettes or 1 medium grated, and 200g dark chocolate cut into chunks and divided into  2 x100g portions Preheat oven 170C/gas4           Grease and line a 200g loaf tin Whisk together the eggs, honey, oil, sugar and vanilla. Sift together in another bowl the flour, bicarb, baking powder, coffee and cocoa: mix together then gently add to the egg mixture. Fol...

I'm never too sure about veg in cakes. I quite like carrot cake, but didn't like the parsnip one my friend made, and courgettes, well I haven't really used them. So I was surprised to find that they were an ingredient in a delicious cake someone brought for a social evening recently. I asked for the recipe and this is it! For the cake: 2 large eggs, 80ml runny honey,100g soft brown sugar, 120ml veg oil, 2 tspn vanilla extract, 100g vanilla yoghurt, 1 tspn bicarb, 1 tspn baking powder, 260g plain flour, 2 small courgettes, grated, 100g milk chocolate [chopped roughly] Ganache: 50g milk chocolate, broken into pieces and 50ml double cream Preheat oven 160C/gas3                        Thoroughly grease and flour a large bundt tin  - make sure you do the corners. Put the tin on a baking tray. Whisk the eggs, honey, sugar, oil, vanilla and yoghurt together. Squeeze any excess water out of the courgettes and add to the b...

I love loaf cakes. They’re easy to make, easy to cut and so useful. A few very ripe bananas in the fruit bowl was my inspiration for this loaf cake. I added some pecans, and used the buttermilk left over in the fridge from making scones. Cake : 3 ripe bananas, 100g pecan nuts broken into small pieces, 100g soft butter, 175g soft brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 250g plain flour, 1 tspn bicarb, 1 tspn mixed spice, 100 ml buttermilk Topping: 1 small banana, sliced, Preheat oven 180C/gas4.        Grease and line base of 200g loaf tin Beat the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract, a bit at a time. Mash the bananas and add to the batter then add  flour, bicarbonate and mixed spice and fold in. Stir in the buttermilk then most of the nuts, saving a few bits for the top. Pour into the loaf tin, then put the sliced bananas on top and sprinkle over the rest of the nuts. Bake for about 45-50 mins. If...

When 2 of my grandsons, aged 13 and 16 came to visit, to keep them off their x-boxes, I baked with them! We made these chocolate biscuits, and they were a great hit. Sadly there weren't any left to take home to their brother, so next time we'll have to make double the amount! Preheat oven 190C/gas5                Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper. you need: 125g butter, 125g caster sugar, 50g dark brown sugar, 1 beaten egg, 1/2 tspn vanilla extract, 100g plain flour, 25g cocoa powder, 75g oats, 1/2tspn baking powder, 1/2 tspn bicarb, 125g chopped hazelnuts and 25g demerara sugar Beat the butter and caster and dark brown sugars together till nice and smooth. Add the egg and vanilla and beat again. Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarb. and add to the batter. Stir in the nuts. Take tspns of the mixture and roll into about 30 balls. Put the demerara sugar on a plate and roll the balls in it. Put the biscuits about 5cm...

My love of cinnamon is well known, so when I got given some apples, I decided to try a recipe given to me ages ago by an American friend. It's nothing special to look at, but tastes great - that's of course, if you like cinnamon! It's not overwhelming, as there's none in the cake only in the topping. The recipe uses butter milk and oil. The amount of cinnamon sugar topping suggested for the cake was far too much, even for me, so I reduced it drastically, and there was still plenty. 225g light brown sugar, 75ml oil, 1 large egg, 225ml buttermilk, 1 tspn bicarbonate of soda, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 350g plain flour, 180g chopped apples [weight after peeled - I used 3 eating apples] Topping: 2 tbspn granulated sugar and 11/2 tspn cinnamon Preheat oven 160C/gas3                  Grease and base line a 20cm round cake tin. Put the brown sugar, oil, egg, buttermilk, bicarb, vanilla extract and flour in a big bowl and mis together well. St...

I've mentioned before that my Polish neighbour loves baking, and we have regular sessions together. I thought we'd make some traditional British cakes, so as I had a can of cider left in the fridge, we made a Somerset Cider cake.  It's easy to make, looks simple, but tastes good. Preheat oven 180C/gas4              Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin. You need 125g butter which you cream with 125g caster sugar till fluffy. Add 2 beaten eggs and eat in. Mix 225g sr flour with 1 tspn bicarb and 1/2 tspn each of nutmeg and cinnamon [or more if you want it more spicy]. Add half of this to the batter, then add 200ml cider and mix together. Fold in the rest of the flour and spoon into the tin. Bake for 35-40 mins. Cool in the tin, then take out and put on a wire rack and sprinkle some caster sugar over the top. This is a nice moist cake with a light texture.You can certainly get the apple taste from the cide...

My lovely Mum left a folder full of recipes she'd cut out from newspapers, magazines etc, and I was browsing through these and found this cake. It came from a series of recipes of cakes that were 'Old Fashioned'. It didn't say where the lumberjack comes into the picture!   I had some dates that needed using, so instead of the usual sticky toffee cake or pudding I thought I'd give this recipe a try. It's not a great heavy cake for beefy men chopping down trees, although I'm sure they'd love it, it's an old fashioned apple and date cake with a yummy caramelised coconut topping. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 23cm springform tin. Peel and finely chop 2 eating apples  - about 400g [ I used Granny Smiths] and put them in a bowl with 200g chopped dates, 1 tspn bicarb. and 250ml boiling water. Stir, then cover with clingfilm and leave till cooled. Beat together 125g butter, 1 tspn vanilla extract and 210g caster sugar till thick, the...

There are times when you just want something nice to have with your cuppa or coffee. This isn't a cake with coffee in it, but is an American cake suitable for eating with coffee, or at least I presume that's what a coffee cake is for!. It's the filling that makes this cake - I used some dark chocolate chopped up, but you could use some nuts - chopped walnuts or pecans.  It come from a charity shop book I bought ages ago called ' Cakes my Mom used to make'. I've made this cake several times, and have adapted the recipe to suit what I wanted.  I make it in a 23cm Bundt tin, so it's a big cake. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 For the filling: Mix together 170g dark brown sugar, 1 tbspn cinnamon, 1 tbspn cocoa powder, 160g chopped dark chocolate or chopped nuts. For the cake: 220g butter, 225g caster sugar, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 3 eggs, 350g plain flour plus 1 tbspn baking powder and 1 tspn bicarbonate of soda, 500ml sour cream or crème fraiche, icing suga...

Another one of my favourite loaf cakes. This one's another quite healthy cake, as it uses wholemeal flour, sunflower oil and nuts. It came about because in France we always had a glut of courgettes and were finding ways to use them up. The recipe came from a neighbour who had the same problem! I suppose this is a bit of nostalgia too, as we don't have room to grow courgettes in our small garden, so the ones I used were lurking in the veg drawer. 3 eggs 90g light muscovado sugar 125ml sunflower oil 250g wholewheat flour 1 tspn baking powder 1 tspn bicarb. of soda 1 tspn cinnamon 1 tspn allspice 150g grated courgettes 125g chopped walnuts 60g sunflower seeds Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas4 Grease and base line a 900g loaf tin. Beat eggs and sugar together and gradually add oil. Sift flour into another bowl and add the baking powder, bicarb, spices and nuts. Add the grated courgettes and mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones ...

My grandsons came for the weekend, and as the weather wasn't very kind, I wanted to find something to do with them. They enjoy cooking, so we made some cookies. The original recipe had walnuts in it, but I needed to use up the last of my pecans. We found the recipe in an old Blue Peter book, which had belonged to the boys' Dad. They were then called biscuits, but cookies sounded more modern. They all took a turn beating the mixture, adding ingredients and making the cookies into balls. I have to own up that I drizzled the chocolate over the ones in the photo - their efforts had the chocolate mainly over the worktop! They proudly took the finished cookies [well most of them!] home for their Mum, and wanted to take some in their lunch boxes. We made 15 cookies. Preheat oven 190C/gas5 and grease 2 baking trays. Put 125g butter, 70g soft brown sugar and 70g caster sugar in a bowl and beat together till nice and creamy. Add 1 beaten egg and beat into the mixture. Fold in 200g...

The recipe was given to me by my friend Sian ages ago, and I've made it lots of times since. It's a lovely moist chocolate cake, which uses oil instead of butter or margarine. It keeps well . 190g plain flour 2 level tbspns cocoa 1 level tspn bicarb 1 level tspn baking powder 150g caster sugar 2 tbspn golden syrup 2  eggs [beaten] 150ml veg. oil 150ml milk Icing 50g butter or marg 4 level tbpns cocoa [sieved] 3 tbspns milk 150g icing sugar Preheat oven 160C/gas3/325F Grease and base-line 2 x20cm sandwich tins. Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl then make a well in the centre and add the oil, eggs, syrup and milk. Beat it well and pour into the sandwich tins. It's a very runny batter. Bake for 30-35 mins then turn onto a wire rack, remove paper and leave to cool. Icing - melt the butter or marg in a pan, add the cocoa, stir well, and cook gently for about 1 minute. Then stir in the milk and icing sugar, take off the heat, mix well and leave t...

This is a lovely moist cake with a soft, dense texture. Make sure, if you do try it, that you grease the cake tin well, as I used my 2lb silicone loaf mould and even thought I did grease it, the cake still stuck to the bottom. Apple puree cake 100g butter or margarine, softened 225g soft brown sugar [I used light brown muscovado sugar and it gave the cake a lovely flavour] 2 eggs, lightly beaten 225g plain flour 1 tspn ground cinnamon ½ tspn grated nutmeg 100g apple puree 1 tspn bicarb. 2 tbspn hot water Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F Grease a 2lb loaf tin well Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy Beat in eggs and stir in flour, spices and apple puree. Mix the bicarb. with the hot water then stir it into the mixture. Spoon into tin and bake for about 50mins. Test with skewer to see if it’s cooked.

This a recipe I've used before and it's a lovely moist cake and it keeps well too [if there's any left!!]. 275g sr flour 3 level tbspns cocoa 175g caster sugar 1 level tspn bicarbonate os soda 300ml milk 150ml corn oil 3 tbspns golden syrup 1/2 tspn vanilla essence icing: 25g cocoa 3-4 tbspns hot water 25g soft butter 100g icing sugar [sieved] Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F Grease and line 2x20cm sandwich tin or a 20cm springform tin Sift flour, cocoa a nd sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the middle. Dissolve the bicarb in 1 tbspn of the milk and then pour into the flour with the rest of the milk, oil, syrup and vanilla essence. Beat well till a smooth batter. Pour into tin/tins and bake for about 35-40 mins till the cakes spring back when pressed with fingertip. Turn on wire rack to cool. Make the icing - put the cocoa in a bowl with the hot water and butter and beat till smooth and butter is blended in. Beat in the icing sugar and then sandwich ...