COOKBOOKS GALORE

I have to confess to not being a cupcake fan. This is because I find the topping too sweet and too much! My  friend loves them, so I made some for her birthday. It was yet another way of using up some very ripe bananas. 225g plain white flour 1 1/4 tspn baking powder 1/4 tspn bicarb of soda 2 ripe bananas, mashed 115g butter, softened 115g caster sugar 1/2 tspn vanilla extract 2 eggs 4 tbsp soured cream 55g walnut pieces, roughly chopped Topping 175g butter, softened 350g icing sugar some walnut pieces, roughly chopped Preheat oven 190C/gas 5.               Line 2 cupcake or muffin tins with 14 paper cupcake cases  Sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda. Beat the butter, caster sugar and vanilla extract together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, then stir in the mashed bananas, soured cream and walnuts. Fold in the flour mixture.  Put the mixture into the paper cups and bake for a...

Am still doing my weekly bake for my kind neighbours, so decided to make something different this week, muffins. There’s been a lot of hype on Facebook about Muffnuts or Donkins! They’re a doughnut muffin. I just had to try them. Decided also to make one of my favourite muffins, using some rosemary from the garden and walnuts . So 2 for the price of 1 today!                                                         Muffnuts It makes 6.            Preheat oven 180C/gas 4 200g sr flour, 100g caster sugar, 125ml milk, 85ml sunflower oil, 1egg and 1 tspn vanilla extract Jam, Nutella or other filling of choice Topping : 75g melted butter and 100g granulated sugar Mix milk, oil, egg and vanilla together in a bowl. In another bowl mix flour and sugar.  Add the milk mixture to the flour, gently. No problem if ther...

On my friend Phil's lovely blog, As Strong as Soup, [ http://asstrongassoup.blogspot.com ]   he writes about Nonnettes and using honey. I haven't tried his recipe yet, but my Polish dil also gave me her  recipe for a Polish Honey cake. Every time I visit a farmer's market I always buy a jar of local honey, so have plenty to use in both recipes. I decided that I needed a large cake to take to a meeting yesterday, so made the Polish honey cake. It's called Piernik in Polish. There seem to be many varying recipes for this cake, but they all contain a mixture of ground spices. The recipe said to use a 22cm tin, but I don't have one this size, so used a 23 cm tin and it turned out fine. 500g plain flour, 2 tspn baking powder, 1/2 tspn ginger, 1/2 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn cloves. 1/2 tspn allspice, grated zest of 1/2 orange, 25g chopped walnuts, 25g seedless raisins, 25g chopped figs, 300g honey, 90g caster sugar, 90g butter, 4 egg yolks, 2 tspn instant coffee dissol...