COOKBOOKS GALORE

Sorry I haven't posted for a couple of months. I've not been well, and had family problems too, so have spent time in London.  I was given a bag of apples and wanted to make something different. Browsing through my recipe folder I found this recipe. It's an egg custard over apples, but the custard is made with cream. Lovely to have as a pudding as we're now into Autumn. For the apples:  50g butter, 1 kg cooking apples, 50g sugar and the zest of 2 lemons For the custard topping: 825ml double cream, 50g sugar, 4 eggs plus 2 yolks, 50g demerara sugar and 1/2 tspn cinnamon Heat a frying pan and add the butter and apples, peeled cored and sliced.  Cook for 6-7 mins till soft but still keeping shape. Add the sugar and zest and cook for a further 2-3 mins. Pour into an ovenproof dish. Beat the eggs, yolks and sugar together; warm the cream over a gentle heat then add to the eggs and gently mix in. Pour over the apples. Mix the brown sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle over th...

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?]

And now for something completely different! I fancied something a bit exotic and fresh, so found this recipe in an old cookery book I picked up in a jumble sale years ago. It has lots of recipes for using fruit, so as I had a grapefruit and some lemons, decided to try this tart. It's fairly easy to make, but does need time chilling before you eat it. You need:  150g caster sugar, 70g soft butter, 4 eggs, 2 lemons, 1/2 grapefruit, a pack of shortcrust pastry [or make your own] and 1 tspn cornflour Preheat oven 200C.   You need a 23cm Tart tin Roll out the pastry to fit the tart tin. Line base with piece parchment paper or foil and cover with baking beans or rice. Bake for 15 mins, remove beans and paper or foil and bake for another 19 mins. Cool. Wash and dry the fruit then grate the zests. Put a pan of water on to simmer and in a bowl put the zests, the juice of the fruits, the beaten eggs, sugar and cornflour. Beat this over the pan of water till it thickens. Once ...

 I first had this tart in a little bistro-style restaurant in France. It's very different from the usual apple tart, using grated apples and including lemons in the filling. As I was in a hurry to get it made, I cheated and bought some shortcrust pastry from Waitrose, but of course you can make your own. The recipe was on a bag of sugar I bought ages ago in France! What I loved about the ready-made pastry in France, was that is came in a round shape ready for the tart tin. Wish ours did! You need:  a block of shortcrust pastry, 3 large eating apples, 150g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 80g melted butter and 2 lemons, washed well. Preheat oven 200C/gas6.                          Grease a fluted tart tin. Zest the 2 lemons and put it in a small bowl then add their juice. Grate the apples into a larger bowl then add the lemon zest and juice to stop the apples turning brown. Mix together. Add the 2 eggs, the ...

My family came yesterday and they love desserts, especially anything with lemon. I wanted to make something different from my usual lemon meringue or tart, so as I had a large packet of boudoir biscuits in the cupboard, decided to try and make a lemon tiramisu. I found a recipe online, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I used both fresh lemons [from my tree in the greenhouse ] and lemon curd to give a good lemony flavour, as well as the small amount of Limoncello that was left in the bottle! I used: 250g boudoir biscuits, 250g mascarpone, 2 lemons, 3 eggs, 100g caster sugar, 20cl whipping cream, 3 tbspn lemon curd and 4 tbspn Limoncello. Cut one lemon in half and squeeze out the juice; mix this with 50g of the sugar and the Limoncello. Zest the other lemon finely. Whip the cream till it gets thick.  Separate the eggs and beat the whites till firm peaks, then beat the yolks with the other 50g of sugar till the mixture is white. Add the mascarpone, lemon curd ...

I think this is the first orange tart I've ever made. I bought some oranges and lemons that were on offer in a local market, and decided to make a tart rather than a cake. It's easy to make, but a bit different. I recently watched Mary Berry making some candied peel with orange zest, so decided to have a go at making some to decorate the top of the tart. The pastry is a sweet shortcrust, and I used icing sugar instead of caster sugar as the sweetener. preheat oven 200c/gas6  You need a 23cm fluted tart tin You can make the pastry in a processor or by hand, but I was lazy and used the processor. Put 225g plain flour, pinch salt, 125g butter and 2 tbspn icing sugar in a processor and blitz till crumbs. Beat 1 egg yolk with 2 tbspn cold water and add to the mixture and pulse till you nearly get a dough. Knead together then wrap in cling film and chill. For the filling - put the juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange, with the zest of 2 oranges, 75g butter, 225g granulated sugar a...

Having got back from our Lake District break on Saturday, my friend J asked if I'd make something a bit special for her sister's birthday. I know her sister loves anything with lemon in it, and I'd recently seen this recipe in an old French magazine. Also I had just enough Limoncello in the bottle. and it needed using. I seemed to have used an awful lot of bowls! I've never been a great fan of tiramisu, but I like the idea of a lemon one.  I used a small square loose-bottomed tin with deep sides to put the dessert together. Juice and zest a lemon and in a bowl mix the juice with 50g of caster sugar and 4 tbspns of Limoncello. Keep the zest for later. Separate 3 eggs and beat the whites into stiff peaks. In another bowl whip 20cl of whipping  cream till thick - the cream needs to be very cold to do this. In yet another bowl mix together 50g caster sugar, 250g mascarpone cheese, the 3 egg yolks, and most of the lemon zest. Add the whipped cream and ...

I still have some pecans to use up from the bag I bought a while ago from the sadly- no- longer Julian Graves shop. I love making loaf cakes, so this is my variation on a recipe that had walnuts in it. Had a pot of local honey in the cupboard which needed using up, so added 1 tbspn to the cake mixture and also put 1 tbspn in the icing. 190g butter 190g caster sugar 190g plain flour 1 tspn baking powder 3 eggs 1 tspn vanilla essence 1 tbspn runny honey 60g chopped nuts - pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts Icing - icing sugar, lemon juice and 1 tbspn of honey - depends how thick you want your icing to be  as to how much icing sugar and lemon juice you use! Preheat oven 170C/gas 3 Grease a 900g loaf tin. Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer till white and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat well after each one. Fold in the flour gently, a bit at a time. Add the vanilla and 1 tbspn of honey, then mix in the chopped nuts by hand. ...

Another teabread to add to my collection - a Scandinavian one, or so I thought when I saw the name of the recipe, but it's more of a loaf cake .This comes from a book on baking I bought from a charity shop a while ago - it doesn't have an author - it's just called 'The Baking manual'. 150g butter 120g sugar 3 eggs grated rind of 2 lemons 60ml orange juice 250g plain flour + 2 tspns baking powder breadcrumbs to coat the tin Fat to grease the cake tin. You don't preheat the oven for this recipe - you put the cake mixture into a cold oven. Grease a 900g loaf tin. Beat the butter and sugar together till pale then add the eggs, one at a time, beating between each one. Mix in the lemon rind, orange juice and the flour. You sprinkle the breadcrumbs into the greased tin [ I didn't do this as I didn't want wholemeal crumbs around the cake]. The recipe didn't give an amount and I can't see any crumbs on the cake photo in the book. Seems a s...

This cake is a family favourite which I rarely bake these days. Younger daughter is coming for the w/e, so thought I'd make it 55g ground almonds 170g natural yoghurt 200g caster sugar 125g melted butter 1 tspn vanilla extract 2 eggs 185g semolina 1 tspn baking powder 2 tbspn pistachios, roughly chopped lemon syrup : 170g caster sugar 1 tspn lemon zest 1 tbspn lemon juice Preheat oven 180C/360F/gas 4 Grease a 23cm square cake tin. Line the bottom with parchment paper. In a bowl, beat the yoghurt, sugar, vanilla extract and eggs together. Mix the baking powder and semolina together, then add to the yoghurt . Spread the ground almonds out in a little frying pan and stir them around for about 3 mins or so on a medium heat till they've become lightly browned. Add the almonds and pistachios to the cake mixture and mix well. Spread it in the tin and bake for 35 mins. Test to see that the cake is cooked. While it's baking, make the syrup by putting the ...