COOKBOOKS GALORE

  For some reason, I seem to have an awful lot of onions. With this wintry weather I thought I'd use some up and make an onion and bacon tart. Nothing fussy, just pastry, onions and lardons.  I knows chopping onions can be a tearful job, so I admit to using the slicer on my food processor. I used the grater for small slices, but they can be hand chopped!   You need 200g short crust pastry, 2 big onions [or more if you really like them!], 400ml crème fraîche, 150g lardons and some grated Gruyère or other flavourful cheese Preheat oven 180C/gas4                   You need a baking sheet Peel and chop the onions. Put into a frying pan, add half a glass of water and cook gently for 5-10 mins. leave to cool. Roll out pastry into a circle that will fit the baking sheet. My sheet will take a 28cm circle. prick with a fork. Spread the crème fraîche over the pastry leaving a gap round the edge. Spoon the onions on top and fin...

I have wanted to make a fraisier since I saw Mary Berry making one, but it looked rather complicated. It was a special birthday for my friend, so I decided to have a go and was very happy with the result. It's not as perfect as Mary B's, but tasted good and was a great hit. I didn't use her recipe either, but one I found in a French magazine, which was giving recipes for using strawberries. I made the Genoisse sponge the day before to make it a little more solid for the fruit and cream. I also used crème fraiche instead of double cream. You need 500g strawberries, 500ml crème fraiche, 100g caster sugar  For the Genoise, you need 125g caster sugar, 100g flour, 75g melted butter and 4 eggs To make the sponge: preheat oven 180C/gas4     line a 28 cm springform cake tin, sides and bottom Over a pan of simmering water beat together the eggs and the sugar till they've doubled in volume and become frothy, then take off the heat. Carefully add the flour and...

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...

Thought I'd do a savoury post for a change. Bought a bag of leeks cheaply in our local market, so decided to make a tart. I used creme fraiche as I had some left over in the fridge and I made it in a 20cm loose-bottomed flan tin; it was plenty for 2 of us, with seconds for OH. For the sc pastry, 110g flour, 25g lard, 25g butter or margarine, 1 tbspn water. Am not going to insult you by telling you how to make pastry! Chill pastry for 30 mins then bake blind - 15mins at 180C/gas4, take out beans or rice etc then bake for 5 mins more at reduced temperature 160C/gas3. Filling : about 200g leeks [2 medium sized], 2eggs, 200ml creme fraiche or double cream, 1 dspn chopped thyme, 80g grated strong Cheddar cheese, about 25g butter Melt butter in a sauté pan, or any pan with a lid, Add the finely sliced leeks, cover and cook till they're soft [about 5 mins] then season them. Beat the eggs, then add the creme fraiche and thyme and beat together. Put the leeks into the bottom of p...

I have to say that I'm not a fan of the American type cupcakes with lots of sickly icing on top, but these are upmarket fairy cakes.  Peaches were on offer in the local supermarket, so thought I'd try using them in a small cake for a change. The recipe makes 20 cakes. You need 2x12 hole greased  bun tins [not muffin tins- you need the ones you make jam tarts or mince pies in] or you can cook 2 batches of the cakes. You need 2 ripe peaches with stones taken out and cut into 40 thin slices - you need a good sharp knife! Preheat oven 180C/gas4       You can use paper cases in the tins if you want. Beat 225g soft butter with 225g caster sugar using a hand beater, till nice and creamy. Add 4 eggs a bit at a time, then fold in 250g sr flour; add 3 tbspn sour cream or crème fraiche [and 2 tbspn peach or apricot jam if you want a more fruity flavour] and mix in. Spoon into the cases or tins and put 2 peach slices on top of each cake and bake fo...

A quick post as I'm off to my daughter in London till Sunday. I made these muffins to use up the last sticks of rhubarb in the garden. I usually use oil instead of butter, but thought I'd give these a try. The recipe is from a tatty book I picked up in a charity shop, called '100 Muffins' , but it doesn't have the writer's name in it.  150g caster sugar 280g plain flour 21/2 tspns baking powder 1 tspn cinnamon 1/2 tspn bicarb. 1/2 tpsn salt 250ml creme fraiche  110g melted butter 2 eggs 1 tspn vanilla 150g diced rhubarb Topping: 3 tbspn caster sugar 1/2 tspn cinnamon Preheat oven 200C/gas6             Grease a 12 hole muffin tin. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, salt and bicarb together in a bowl. In another bowl whisk together the creme fraiche, eggs, butter and vanilla to a smooth batter. Stir the wet mixture into the dry one, but don't over mix. Stir in the rhubarb.  Spoon the batter into the muffin tin...

I'm making the most of the British asparagus season [hence the clafoutis in my previous post] so decided to make a tart. I wanted the asparagus to be the main feature, so no tomatoes nor other veg. Creme fraiche and eggs makes a good savoury custard, so that's what I used. To add some flavour I chopped up a spring onion [oh, I did say no other veg, but these aren't a strong flavour] and it needed some kind of herb, so I used some finely chopped thyme. I made some shortcrust pastry for the case. So, for the pastry: Put 200g plain flour and 120g butter in the food processor and blitz to breadcrumbs, then add 1 medium beaten egg mixed with 1 dspn water. Put it in the fridge in a polybag for 30 mins, then roll it out into a 20cm loose-bottomed flan tin. There was some pastry left over, so I put it in the freezer. I think this amount of pastry would be just right for a 22-23 cm tin, but I don't have one.  Bake the pastry blind, plus baking beans, in oven preheated  to 1...

I’ve made a lot of cakes lately, large and small, and decided I wanted to make a tart. I bought a large bag of walnut halves last week, so decided they were just what I needed. My lovely friend who runs a cake shop gave me a few more of her recipes when we met up recently, and this tart is one of hers. You can use shop bought short crust pastry or make your own – enough for a 25cm tart tin, so it’s quite a good sized tart. I made 12oz /350g of pastry – that is 350g of flour and 175g of fat, and I used a mixture of sunflower margarine and Trex, but you could use all butter for a very short pastry. This was just the right amount for the tin. The tart’s made in 2 stages, the baked part with the eggs, sugar, butter and finely chopped walnuts and the topping with the walnut halves topped with caramel. So if you like walnuts, this is the tart for you! Preheat oven 180C/gas4      You need a 25cm tart tin [with sides at least 2.5 cms] You beat 2 eggs and 10...

I'm always looking for new ways to use apples, and I found this recipe on Mary Berry's site. She calls it 'The very best Apple Dessert Cake'.  It's a sponge cake mixture with an added tspn of almond extract, and you put half of the mixture in the bottom of a 20cm springform or loose bottomed cake tin, lined, then you put a layer of thickly sliced apples then the rest of the cake mixture. You sprinkle the top with flaked almonds and bake for about 45 mins. You'll find the recipe  here  . It's got a great almond flavour and a lovely moist sponge; I like the contrast between the cake and the apple layer, then the crunch of the almonds on top. We ate ours with some creme fraiche. I liked it cold, but my OH preferred it warm.

Something savoury for a change.  I recently bought myself a deep fluted tartlet tin from our excellent local family 'everything you'll ever need' store, so for New Year's Eve, I made some tartlets to have as part of the buffet. I suppose they're like little quiches, as they have an egg filling. I made 2 types -  bacon and cheese and mushroom and garlic. I used the HB's recipe from their 'Perfect Pies' book, but used my deep tin instead of making them in mini muffin tins. I made 18 tartlets. I can't find the recipe online so this is what you'll need. The pastry is a shortcrust one with a little grated cheese added, rolled and and cut out to fit your tin. The egg custard type filling is enough for the 18, and it's just eggs, creme fraiche, some chopped parsley, s&p. For the bacon and cheese you need a little onion fried with the bacon, put into the pastry case and top up with some egg custard. Sprinkle some grated cheese on ...

As I said in a recent post, plums are one of my favourite fruit. I love making crumbles and tarts with them, but wanted to find something different to try. This recipe is from a Woman's Weekly magazine; it's one of the hundreds of recipes I have to sort out in my cuttings folder! I bought a punnet of plums from the supermarket which were marked as seconds, and they were really hard. Anyway I thought I'd use them in my new recipe, and they turned out soft and juicy. 250g plain flour 170g chopped up butter 1 egg yolk I used my processor to make the pastry, putting in the flour, butter and egg yolk and adding a tbspn of water and blitzing till the pastry started to come together. Roll out and line the flan tin and chill for 30 mins. it's a very short pastry and breaks easily, but is easily patched up. Filling: 1 tspn cinnamon 2 tbspns soft brown sugar 750g plums, stoned and quartered Topping: 1 egg + a yolk 125g creme fraiche 45g soft brown sugar ...

We love apple cakes, and as there were a few wrinkly apples to use up, I found this recipe in my binder; it's one I've not tried before. Anything with cinnamon is a winner with me, and if it's easy to make, it's a double winner! The other good thing about this cake is that it freezes well [or so the recipe says]. 2 large apples, peeled and cored [ I used 3 Royal Gala] 125g butter or margarine, softened 125g caster sugar 2 eggs 1 tspn vanilla extract 200g plain flour 11/2 tspn baking powder 1 tspn cinnamon 100g sour cream or creme fraiche - I used creme fraiche 1 tbspn apricot jam Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease and line a 23cm tin. Beat the butter and sugar together till white and fluffy, then beat in the eggs. Add the baking powder and cinnamon to the flour and fold into the mixture, then add the vanilla and sour cream or creme fraiche. Mix together gently till smooth. Chop 1 of the apples into chunks and add to the mixture. Slice the other one. Spoon...