COOKBOOKS GALORE

My son and family were coming at last, and I wanted to make a cake. My daughter in law loves ginger, so I found this great recipe on the BBC Good Food site. ://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search/recipes?query=Squidgy+Lemon+Ginger+Cake It's a lovely cake, easy to make, and the fresh ginger cuts through the sticky sweetness of the sugar and dates. It's a dense and sticky cake with great flavours. I didn't use the suggested candied lemon peel or the coffee crystals to decorate the top. I just used the white chocolate. It's great as a cake, but would also make a great dessert with cream or ice cream [minus the chocolate topping maybe?]

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...

I made these to take to a local coffee morning. Chocolate and spice go so well together. These freeze well, so you're never short of something sweet when the mood takes you! You need - 200g dark chocolate, 210g plain flour, 11/2 tspn ginger, 1/2 tspn mixed spice, 1 tspn cinnamon, 1 tbspn cocoa powder, 110g butter, 120g dark brown sugar, 4 tbspn golden syrup, 1 tspn bicarb, whole almonds to decorate Preheat oven 160C/gas3 Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper Chop the chocolate up, and in a bowl sift the spices and cocoa together with the flour. In another bowl beat the butter and sugar till fluffy, then add the golden syrup and beat again. Dissolve the bicarb in 11/2 tspn boiling water. Beat half o f the flour mixture into the butter one, beat in the bicarb then the rest of the flour mixture. Add the chocolate chunks and mix well. Roll into a sausage shape and cover in clingfilm. Chill for about 2 hours till firm. Cut slices off the roll and place on the ba...

I made a couple of batches of cookies recently, so thought I'd post the recipes here. They're both very easy and quick to make. The first one is for Chocolate-chip and Oats cookies, and the second one is for Ginger and Chocolate cookies. For the Choc-chip and Oats ones  - Preheat oven 180C/gas4  Mixture makes enough cookies to cover 3 baking sheets, but I did it in 2 batches, as I only have 2 baking sheets. Beat together 125g butter, 100g soft brown sugar, 110g caster sugar and 1/2 tspn vanilla extract till pale and thick, using an electric hand beater, then beat in 1 egg. Fold in 110g oats [not the jumbo ones]. sieve 150g plain flour with 1/2 tspn baking powder and 1/2 tspn bicarb. together and fold into mixture. Finally fold in 175g dark chocolate which has been chopped [not too small] and 150g peeled and chopped hazelnuts [you could toast them first]. Using a tablespoon or an ice cream scoop, put balls of dough onto the baking sheets, leaving a space between eac...

I love baking with Autumn fruits, and I bought some pears before we went on holiday to try out this recipe, another one from my friend's American mil. I think the US has a much better range of ideas for baking with fruit than we do in the UK.   I love tea breads of any kind, so one with pears, especially salted caramel pears, was a 'must bake'.  It's a typical teabread mixture with added pears, and then a streusel topping. For the pears: In a large saucepan melt 30g butter and add 450g diced pears and mix together. Add 2 tbspn muscovado sugar, 1/2 tspn salt and 2 tbspn double cream. Stir together gently, then cook on a low heat till lightly golden. Watch the pan as the pears will be bitter if they burn. Take off the heat and cool. For the cake: Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease a 900g loaf tin well. In a bowl put 200g plain flour, 1 tspn bicarbonate of soda, 1 tspn baking powder, pinch salt, 1/2 tspn cinnamon, 1/4 tspn allspice, 1/4 tspn ground ginger...

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...

A quick post, as the recipe is online. Another good recipe for a teabread - just fancied making one to have with a cuppa.  I changed a few things in the recipe - I used 'Quatre Epices', a French spice mix which has cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, and the cloves and nutmeg give the cake a lovely spicy musky  flavour. I also used dark muscovado sugar as I didn't have any of the light. There's marmalade in it and I used a thick cut, but cut the pieces of peel into small bits. The wholemeal flour makes it quite a dense cake, but the flavours are great, and we enjoyed a slice with some butter. I think if I made it again, I would use part wholemeal and part white flour for a better texture. At least the fruit didn't sink to the bottom this time!  This is the recipe, on the Baking Mad site.                                             http://...

This recipe is for a 'pain d'épice' [spice bread]  type of gingerbread - a French classic. Each country has its own version of gingerbread, but I love the French one best. I wanted to do something a bit different for a special tea, as I'd invited the French conversation group I belong to. I decided to push the boat out, so instead of making just a normal cake looking gingerbread, I made it into a sort of millefeuille version, and added chocolate to it. The basic recipe came from my French friend's mother, and unlike our English gingerbread, it uses several spices. It's not difficult to make, but making it into a millefeuille was a bit of a faff! You need: 100g of dark chocolate 100g of honey *200ml cold double cream 130g flour [my friend's Mum used rye flour but I didn't] 11/2tspns baking powder 2 tspns vanilla sugar 20g icing sugar for the spices: 1 tspn of cinnamon, 1/2 tspn ground ginger, 1 tpsn freshly grated nutmeg and 1 star anise [...

I was inspired by a recent post on the excellent Strong as Soup blog           http://asstrongassoup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/black-sticky-gingerbread-random-recipe.html    to look for a recipe my neighbour gave me for a gingerbread made with honey. This is a very different gingerbread from the dark moist one on Phil's blog. The method is unusual in that you put the dry ingredients into a bowl, then heat the honey and pour it over. It's got a good spicy flavour and as Phil said in his post, gingerbread is great for taking on an Autumn walk, or with your afternoon cuppa, or even as a dessert with some custard. The original French recipe used 'quatre epices' but I don't think there's much difference between that and our mixed spice, and I found some ground aniseed in a local deli, but you could leave it out if you don't like it. 250g runny honey 250g plain flour 100g caster sugar 1 tspn baking powder 1 tbspn vanilla sugar 1 tspn ground anis...

We have a houseful for Christmas this year, including 2 lovely people from Poland, so thought I'd try out a few family biscuit recipes from the French friend I mentioned recently. The first one is spiced Christmas trees. G's paternal family live in Alsace, so she's grown up with the lovely spicy biscuits and bakes they make at Christmas. I'm going to try out a few and have my grandsons help me, and then they can choose their favourites [as they're going to be here for Christmas anyway]. My daughter and dog came up for the weekend, so we roped her into helping us. She loves decorating cakes and biscuits, so she helped the boys with their trees, and the photo is of her creations. The boys didn't want their efforts put on here, so they ate them! I expect every family in Alsace has their own recipe for Christmas biscuits, but this is the translated Ruff family one, but the decoration is the boys' idea - they wanted garlands on the trees and baubles! 100g b...

Another simple but delicious apple cake. Many years ago I entered a competition in a small magazine called 'Home and Freezer Digest'. You had to send in your favourite apple recipe, and the best 100 would be published. I did get a recipe [called 'Nutty Apples'] in the book, and I won a copy of the book [100 Best Apple Recipes] and a year's worth of the magazine. Why am I saying all this, well I found the rather tatty book in the loft recently, and it has some great apple recipes in it. I still had a few of the windfall apples left so decided top make an apple and ginger cake from the book. It's a small cake, so perfect for the 2 of us. It's unusual because the apple puree is mixed into the cake mixture rather than being a layer in the middle of the cake. This gives the cake a good flavour. It could be used as a pudding with some custard - ideal for this colder weather. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 20cm cake tin. You need: 225g of app...

This is my kind of cake - a nice simple apple loaf cake - just right for using up some apple windfalls which a friend gave me. Have been busy making chutney and trying apple butter [delicious]. I made some apple muffins and scones for my children to take, and this loaf for us. It's also nice as a dessert. You preheat oven 170C/gas3 and line a 900g loaf tin with some baking parchment. Using an electric mixer, beat 175g caster sugar and  175g butter together till nice and fluffy then add 3 eggs, one at a time. Add a tspn of vanilla extract and mix in. In another bowl mix 225g of plain flour together with a tspn of baking powder, a tspn of ginger and a tspn of cinnamon. Add this to the batter and fold in. Then add about 25ml milk to make a soft batter. Peel and core about 3 small apples - chop most of it into small pieces, but leave a few pieces to slice for the top of the loaf. Mix the apple pieces into the batter. Spoon the batter into the tin and arrange the slices along...

I love crumbles of any kind, but this one has become my new love. Pears are one of my favourite fruit, so this recipe was a must try. It came from my French friend, as 'les crumbles' are very fashionable in France too. She likes trying out new flavour combinations and the ones she uses here are very different. When cooked, pears always seem to go mushy, but cooked in this way, they seem to hold their texture. It's also a new way of making a crumble - sprinkling it onto pear halves, instead of onto sliced or quartered pears. You need: for the crumble: 100g flour 80g soft brown sugar 1/2 tspn ginger 80g butter + about 20g to grease the dish 1 tspn soluble coffee for the rest: 4 pears 50g sultanas or raisins 30g butter Preheat oven 180C/gas 4 Put the sultanas or raisins in a bowl of warm water and leave them to soak for about 2 hours. To make the crumble - put the flour in a bowl, add the ginger, sugar, coffee and the butter cut into pieces. Rub the butter...

I haven't made a teabread for a while, so as I had a butternut squash to use up, I hunted for a recipe in my folders and found this one from 'Good Food' magazine; it's also online and the recipe is here  . The recipe is for pumpkin or butternut squash. I liked the moist texture of the teabread and the flavour of the squash. It's delicious buttered - the slice in the corner of the photo is for my husband who loves butter!

This was going to be my offering to the 1st birthday challenge, but in my hurry to bake something, I left out the chocolate! Having arrived back from our French holiday last night, I went over to see my grandsons this morning. Tom, who's 10, and I have started baking together, and I'd promised we could make something. We hunted through his children's baking book and found these. He loves ginger and bananas so they seemed perfect. Here's the recipe. 125g butter 150g golden syrup 100g light muscovado sugar 2 bananas 2 eggs 2 tbspns milk 250g sr flour 2 tspns ground ginger 1/2 tspn bicarb. of soda Topping 200g icing sugar 5-6 tspns water hundreds and thousands/sugar strands [or anything else you fancy] to sprinkle on top Grease and line a 18x28cm roasting tin. Preheat oven 180C/350F/gas4 Put the butter, syrup and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently till melted. Take off the heat. Peel and mash the bananas with a fork. Beat the eggs and mi...