COOKBOOKS GALORE

 I've written the title in French because moelleux is a difficult word to translate. It means soft or tender or moist. This cake is soft and moist and simple to make.  It's another recipe passed on by my French friend [who is my school penfriend from when we were 11!] and is a useful recipe to have, as it can easily be adapted. You need; 150g flour and 1 tspn baking powder, 50ml vegetable oil [I use rapeseed], 150g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 125g mascarpone cheese, and either the zest of a lemon or a few drops of lemon oil, icing sugar to dust Preheat oven 180C/gas4                         You need a ring mould, greased Beat the eggs and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the mascarpone, oil, flour and baking powder and lastly the lemon zest or lemon oil. Mix well. Spoon into the tin and bake for 30 mins. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 mins before turning our onto a wire rack. A dusting of icing sugar is all it needs. ...

Since lock down started, I have been baking every week to share with my lovely neighbour who gets some shopping for me. I decided this week I wasn't going to make just a cake, but a cake that can also be a dessert. In the fruit bowl were some ripe pears, so I made my favourite pear recipe, a French one from Creuse, Gargouillau. You need for the cake: 150g butter, 150g caster sugar, grated zest 1/2 lemon, 2 eggs, 350g plain flour, 2 tspn baking powder and 8 tbspn milk You also need: 600g pears, ripe but not soggy and 50g butter, extra sugar and cinnamon/icing sugar Preheat oven 200C/gas6        Grease a 25cm springform tin and line the base with greaseproof                                                            paper,lightly greased Cream the butter and sugar, add the lemon zest and mix in. Add the eg...

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 in this miserable weather. 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 the top. Bake in preheated oven, 180C/gas 4 for about an hour, till set but still a bit wobbly. It feeds about 8 people, ...

I don't make many sweet tarts these days, but my son loves treacle tart and especially this version, which is a Norfolk Tart. As he was coming for the weekend, I decided to indulge him with his favourite pudd! Preheat oven 200C/gas6 Roll out 225g shortcrust pastry [bought or home made] and line a 7" or 17.5 cm round tin. Fill with baking beans and bake for 15 mins. Take out the beans and reduce the oven to 180C/gas4. Warm 100g syrup in a pan till runny, then take off the heat and stir in 25g unsalted butter and the grated zest of a lemon. Beat 1 egg and 3 tbspn double cream together gently then stir into the syrup mixture. Pour this into the pastry case and bake for 30 mins. Serve this warm with some cream or ice cream. This is very rich and moreish. It has a lovely creamy filling with a good lemony hint.

I'm not a great fan of cupcakes as I find the topping too sweet, and I prefer muffins or our British fairy cakes. I was asked to make some for a special tea, so decided to make lemon ones, to use up 2 lemons which just happened to fall off my tree! The topping is a bit different as I used mascarpone.  You need a muffin tin with paper muffin or cupcake cases.  Preheat oven 180C/gas4 80g flour 1 tspn baking powder pinch bicarb. 40g ground almonds 75g caster sugar 3 eggs 100g melted butter zest of 1 lemon Icing: 250g mascarpone juice and zest of 1 lemon 50g icing sugar yellow colouring Beat eggs and caster sugar together till white and fluffy. Add the baking powder and bicarb to the flour and add to the mixture together with the ground almonds, butter and lemon zest. Mix together till a smooth batter. Put the paper cases in the muffin tin and fill them 3/4 full with the batter. Bake 15 mins till golden, then take out if tin and cool on a wire rack. Beat th...

I was pleased to find some Victoria plums in my local market. They're my favourite sort after Mirabelles. The polenta makes a change from flour, and gives the cake a bit of crunch. Topping: 8 plums 75g light muscovado sugar Juice of 1/2 a lemon For the cake : 120g butter, softened 125g caster sugar 2 eggs, lightly beaten 75g ground almonds 75g fine polenta 1 tsp baking powder zest of 1 lemon          Preheat oven 190C/gas5               Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin, not a loose bottomed one as the juice might run out of the plums. if you only have this kind of tin, wrap a double laye of foil round the outside of the bottom of the tin.         Halve the plums then cut into 1/4s. Put the sugar and lemon in a bowl and stir the plums through to coat. Put them in n overlapping layer in the bottom of the cake tin. If there's any syrup left in the bowl, spoon it over the plums. ...

Another recipe for a loaf cake, my favourite type of cake. This time it has maple syrup, pecans and lemon zest in it. Easy to make using the rubbing in method. Preheat oven 170C/gas3   Grease and line the bottom of a 900g loaf tin. Sift 350g plain flour and 1 tspn baking powder together, then rub in 175g butter or margarine. Stir in 75g caster sugar and 125g chopped pecan nuts. In another bowl, beat 3 eggs with 1 tbspn milk and add zest of a lemon. Stir in 5 tbspn maple syrup and mix well. Add the flour mixture to the egg one and mix well, but don't over mix. Should be a nice dropping consistency. Spoon into the tin and bake for about 50 mins. till golden and risen. Leave to cool in tin for about 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack. Make some lemon icing by beating 1 tbspn lemon juice into 75g icing sugar. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cake. The texture was quite dense, but I suppose the rubbing in method doesn't make for a fine crumb. The maple taste ...

I love using my bundt tin, but don't do so very often. I had several lemons to use up so decided to make a lemon cake in this tin. It's easy to do and doesn't need any icing or decoration - not too much work! You need 170g plain flour, 2 tspn baking powder, 170g butter, 120g light brown sugar, 3 eggs, the juice of 1 lemon and the zest of 2 lemons, icing sugar if you want to sprinkle it over the top. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Spray a bundt tin with Cake Release or something similar Beat the butter with the sugar to get a nice creamy mixture. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each one. Add the flour plus baking powder and the lemon juice and zest and beat together. Spoon into the tin and bake for about 45 mins. Cool in the tin for 10 mins then finish cooling on a wire rack. If you want, sprinkle some icing sugar over the top. A nice lemony cake with a good soft texture. You could ice it with lemon glacé icing, but I think it's...

I needed a simple recipe to use up some lemons, and found many versions of this uncooked tray bake [I suppose it's not really a tray bake as it's not baked, but it's made in my Delia tray bake tin!]. I played around with several recipes till I made exactly what I wanted - a good lemony flavoured slice, with a decent amount of coconut and a lemon icing. It was perfect to make for my daughter's recent visit. We brought a lemon tree back from France and it now lives in the greenhouse. It was a gift from our neighbours, and has faithfully produced lemons every year. The lemons I used in this recipe were from this tree, and they are much juicier than the ones you buy. You put 125ml of condensed milk in a pan with 125g butter and stir till the butter has melted. In a food processor or using a plastic bag and a rolling pin, break a 250g packet of Nice biscuits into crumbs and put into a bowl with 1 tspn of grated lemon zest, 1 tspn lemon extract and 85g dessicated coco...

I love Simnel cake at Easter and always made one for my husband and me, but the rest of my family either don't like marzipan or dried fruit, so I thought I'd try making small cakes with almost the same ingredients, then I could freeze some for me and give a few to friends. I didn't put the marzipan layer in the middle of the little cakes, but put a layer on top, and to make it more springlike, I cut it out with a flower shaped cutter. The final decoration was a sugar flower  - I'd bought a packet a while ago and they needed using! Preheat oven 180C/gas4                  You need a greased 12 hole silicone or metal muffin tin. 125g butter, 125g soft brown sugar, 2 eggs, 125g sr flour, 1 tspn mixed spice, 1 tspn cinnamon, 1-2 tbspn milk, 125g dried fruit and zests of 1 orange and 1 lemon [I didn't have any good mixed peel, hadn't got any home made, and I hate the cheap stuff, so decided to use zest instead], 100g marzipan, 2 tbspn apr...

I had one more lot of butter puff pastry left over from Christmas, and I've been wanting to make these tarts for ages, as I love custard tarts in any form. I don't think this is exactly like the famous ones, but they're made to a secret recipe! The tarts were first made by Catholic monks in the 18th century. Large amounts of egg whites were used to starch clothes, so the yolks left over were used to make cakes and pastries. Preheat oven 200C/gas6 These are easy to make - you need 250g of puff pastry which you roll out. Lightly grease a muffin tin, cut out 12 small circles and  and line the tin with these. Put the tin in the fridge for about 20 mins. For the filling - beat 4 egg yolks with 100g caster sugar till thick and white. Add 1 tspn of flour and the zest of a lemon, then mix in 25cl of crème fraiche. Pout into a saucepan and bring to the boil over a gentle heat, stirring all the time. As soon as it comes to the boil, take it off the heat and allow to cool. P...

I've been a follower of the GBBO since it started, but have rarely made anything I've seen. This series I thought I'd try and made something from each week [or two!]'s programmes and decided on a Madeira Cake. My Mum used to make it frequently, sometimes in a round tin and sometimes in a loaf tin. I decided on the latter as it's easier to cut. I looked at recipes from Mary Berry, James Martin, the WI baking book, the Good Food site and the BBC food site, and the recipes all had the same amount of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. The only difference was that a couple added ground almonds, a couple added milk and some added lemon zest. Mum's recipe in her much-used notebook had the same quantities as the others, but used plain flour with baking powder. It's a very plain version  - no ground almonds, milk or lemon zest. Preheat oven 160C/gas3          Grease and line a 900g loaf tin or a 18cm round cake tin. It's such a simple recipe - you need 175g of ...

I recently posted on a friend's blog that I haven't been able to find any gooseberries this year. Sadly we left our gooseberry bushes in our French garden, and haven't room here to plant any. On Sunday we went to Suffolk for our granddaughter's 5th birthday, and my lovely German dil gave me a bagful of gooseberries given to her by a friend - they don't like them. She also gave me this recipe handed on by her grandmother. It's not the prettiest cake, but it is delicious. I had to change a couple of things in the recipe as we can't find them in the UK [maybe you could online?] such as 'Sahnesteif' which helps cream stiffen and packet vanilla sugar. In the German recipe they used single cream, but I used double cream. The German recipe also used a packet meringue mix, but I made my own. Preheat oven 160C/ gas 3 Grease 1 or 2 x 26cm springform cake tin and line the base with parchment paper. Beat 100g of butter and 100g caster sugar toge...

The idea for this cheesecake came about because I had a punnet of cranberries and some cream cheese to use up, so I thought of a cheesecake. Crumble toppings seem to be in fashion and this would give an extra dimension to the dessert. So, there's a pastry crust, then the cheesecake, the cranberry layer then a final crumble layer. The cranberry layer has the same consistency as cranberry sauce, so you could use a jar of sauce instead of fresh cranberries. Preheat oven 180C/gas4       23cm tart or pie tin To make the cranberry filling - put   250g cranberries in a pan with 6tbspn granulated sugar, 1/2 tspn lemon zest, 1 tspn lemon juice and 120ml water. Bring to the boil on medium-high heat, then reduce to simmer for about 10 mins till cranberries are soft; leave to cool. To make the crumb base and topping - mix together 175g plain flour, 100g sugar, 1/2 tspn baking powder, 1/2 tspn salt ; add115g butter cut into dice and rub together till breadcrumbs. Take o...

I needed a simple recipe to use up some lemons I bought, and found many versions of this uncooked tray bake [I suppose it's not really a tray bake as it's not baked, but it's made in my Delia tray bake tin!]. I played around with several recipes till I made exactly what I wanted - a good lemony flavoured  slice with a decent amount of coconut and a lemon icing. It was perfect to make with my grandsons over the w/e. You put 125ml of condensed milk in a pan with 125g butter and stir till the butter has melted. In a food processor or using a plastic bag and a rolling pin, break a 250g packet of Nice biscuits into crumbs and put into a bowl with 1 tspn of grated lemon zest, 1 tspn lemon extract and 85g dessicated coconut. Add the butter mixture and stir together till well mixed. Line a baking tin 28x18cm with parchment paper and press the mixture in. Put in the fridge for about an hour. Make the icing - 250g icing sugar, 3 tbspn lemon juice and 15g butter - beat tog...

This is my offering to the GBBO, as it's more complicated than I usually make! I'd offered to make a cake for a birthday we'd been invited to, and as my daughter was here to help me, decided to try something a bit more ambitious. It's not the official birthday cake, but just another contribution to the tea. The recipe comes from a leaflet I picked up many years ago in a supermarket, but it doesn't say much about the origins of the cake, just that it's from Denmark. It's unusual in that it has chopped pears in it, and uses gelatine to stiffen the cream mixture for the filling. It's a 'bit of an effort' cake to make too, so one for an occasion. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease and line a 20cm springform tin. Whisk 4 egg yolks with the grated zest and juice of 1 lemon and 125g of icing sugar till pale and creamy. Whisk the 4 egg whites till stiff peaks.  Sieve 75g plain flour, 25g cornflour and 1/2 tspn baking powder together then fold i...

Another one of my favourite loaf cake recipes. This one uses stem ginger to give a better flavour than ground ginger. I've found a similar shop to the much missed [by me anyway] Julian Graves stores, so I stocked up on walnuts and dried fruit, including apricots. This such a quick loaf to make, and you can chose whether to ice it or not. I think the recipe is a WI one, as my mil gave it to me, and she usually used their recipes. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 900g loaf tin. In a large bowl put 115g wholemeal flour, 115g plain flour, 11/2tspns baking powder, 150g soft brown sugar, 115g soft butter, pinch salt, 2 beaten eggs, zest of a lemon and 2 tbspns of milk - beat it all together with an electric hand mixer. Stir in 175g chopped dried apricots [the no soak ones] and add 3 pieces of stem ginger chopped finely together with 4 tbspns of the ginger syrup. Finely slice a 4th piece of ginger and keep for the top. Spoon mixture into the tin, level, then arrange the 4...

We had a good holiday in Brittany, and enjoyed lots of excellent food and wine. We ate in several creperies, enjoying the galettes made with buckwheat flour and filled with great things like prawns, cheese, ham and veg. We enjoyed some of the regions specialities such as Le Far Breton [ which is similar to the French Flan I posted about a while ago, but it has prunes and rum in it] and Kouign-amann, a butter cake made with yeast - very rich. We visited  couple of biscuit factories and sampled different flavoured palets and the galettes breton. My favourite flavour was the caramel and sea salt one. We also ate some gateau Breton, which is very similar in texture and flavour to the special cake from the Deux Sevres. I find them rather dry, but ok with a glass of cider! I thought I'd post a French recipe to keep our holiday memories alive. It was given to me by my friend's neighbour; we were invited to her house for a meal, and this was the dessert. She also made a fantastic ...

Have had a silicone bundt mould for ages, but haven't used it. It's a friend's birthday today so I decided to make her a bundt birthday cake. Her favourite fruits are blueberries, and they were on offer in my local supermarket - perfect. I decided to add some lemon flavour with the blueberries. I also had a pot of  natural yoghurt to use up, so added some to the mixture to make the cake nice and moist. I finished it off with some lemon glace icing drizzled over the top. I love Ina Garten's lemon yoghurt cake link is here   which Smitten Kitten made into a lovely lemon and blueberry one -   link is here  . The cake mixture is really a sandwich mix, or pound cake or quatre quarts - most countries seem to have their own version. I bought one of the Cake Release sprays so the cake would come out of the mould [my dil had problems getting her cakes out of bundt tins, so advised me to buy some]. So, it's a simple cake made to look more interesting by using a fancy...

I try and buy things in season, but the punnets of shiny blackberries caught my eye this week, so I bought some. I know they have air miles, but nobody's perfect! I love tray bakes,and I got the idea for this one from this Good Food site recipe. It seems to be fashionable at the moment to add crumble tops to cakes and muffins, and I think it gives a great contrast of textures to a cake.I like my crumble a bit clumpy, not too much like breadcrumbs. 115g butter, softened 175g caster sugar 1 egg 280g sr flour 125ml milk 200g blackberries Crumble topping: 115g caster sugar 85g pl flour finely grated rind of 1 lemon 50g butter Preheat oven 180C/gas4.  Butter an oblong cake tin. Beat sugar and butter together till pale and fluffy.Beat in the egg, then fold in flour and milk and mix well. Spoon into tin and sprinkle the blackberries over the top. The crumble - mix sugar,flour and lemon rind together then rub in butter till you have large crumbs,then sprinkle...