COOKBOOKS GALORE

Something to cheer us up in these miserable days. Was given a bottle of local cider, and had several apples needing using up, so found this recipe from an old Woman's weekly magazine. You need:  330ml cider, 150g melted butter, 4 medium apples, peeled, cored and grated, 2 large eggs, 150g soft brown sugar, 300g plain flour, 2 tspn bicarb, 1 tspn mixed spice, 1 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn grated nutmeg, 200g raisins or sultanas and 100g roughly chopped pecans. Preheat oven 180C/gas4         Grease and line a 20cm spring form cake tin. Pour cider into a pan and bring to boil. Lower the heat to simmer and let the cider reduce. You need about 100ml. Melt the butter in another pan and pour the cider over to cool a bit until just warm. Mix the sugar and  eggs into the apples and pour in the butter and cider. Mix together. Sift the flour and spices together then fold into the mixture. Finally add the fruit and nuts and stir together. Pour into the ca...

I've had a very nice French lady staying with me . She came with a party from our twin town in France. I bought some wine and a nice bottle of cider, only to discover she didn't drink any alcohol! So I decided to use some of the cider in a cake. A nice easy cake to make; am not sure where I found the recipe as it was scribbled on a piece of paper. Preheat oven 180C/gas4                Grease a 20cm square cake tin. Cream 125g butter and 125g caster sugar together till nice and fluffy. Mix together 225g sr flour, 1 tspn bicarb and 1 tspn mixed spice. Fold half of the flour mixture into the batter then add 200ml cider and mix well. Stir in the rest of the flour and pour batter into the tin. Bake for about 35-40 mins. Cool the cake in the tin then sprinkle some caster sugar mixed with a little more mixed spice over the top. It's a nice moist cake with a soft texture. The cider flavour comes through well and the sp...

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...

Thought we'd have a change from chocolate cakes, so decided to make a traditional cider cake from Herefordshire. Doing a bit of research about cider cakes I found that this cake was baked for the annual Cider festival. Several other counties make cider, so I expect they have their own versions of the cake.Some friends brought us some local cider they'd bought there, so made use of some of it in this cake. It's a simple cake, easy to make. You could vary the spices to suit your taste, and I suppose that the type of cider you used would make a difference to the flavour. preheat oven 180C/gas4 grease a 20 or 21cm square cake tin and line the bottom. Cream together 125g butter and 125g caster sugar till nice and fluffy. Add 2 beaten eggs and mix well. Sift 225g sr flour with 1 tspn bicarb, 1 tspn cinnamon and 1/2 tspn ginger. Fold some of the flour into the batter then add 200ml cider. Mix together well. Fold in rest of flour and spoon into tin.  Bake for 35-40 mins til...