COOKBOOKS GALORE

I love carrot cake, and the other day I was out with a friend and spotted another vegetable cake, this time with parsnip in it, so I wanted to make one. I have a friend who has a lovely little tea room, and she gave me this recipe - it's very popular in her shop. For the cake you need - 175g butter or margarine, 200g demerara sugar, 100ml maple syrup, 3 eggs, 250g sr flour and 2 tspn baking powder, 2 tspn mixed spice, 250g parsnip, peeled and grated,1 medium eating apple, grated, zest and juice of an orange, icing sugar to dust the top. Preheat oven 180C                     Grease and line the bottoms of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins. Melt the butter, sugar and syrup gently in a pan. Allow to cool a bit then beat in the eggs. Stir in the flour and baking powder and the spice. Add the parsnip, apple and orange. Pour into the tins and bake for 25-30 mins. Cook in tins for 5 mins then take cakes out and cool on a wire rack. Sandwich th...

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 ...

My friend went on holiday recently to Canada and brought me back a can of maple syrup. This recipe was on a leaflet attached to the can, so I thought I'd try it. It's a simple cake with a lot of flavour, and I've named it after my friend.  For the Cake: 125g butter, softened 100g white sugar 125cl maple syrup 1 tspn  vanilla extract 2 eggs  200g plain flour pinch of salt 2 1/2 tspn baking powder 60ml milk 100g toasted chopped walnuts For the Maple Icing: 125g butter, softened 200g icing sugar 2 tbspn maple syrup For the Maple drizzle topping: 125cl maple syrup 1 tbspn butter pinch of salt                Preheat oven 180C/gas4  Grease and line a 23cm cake tin Beat together the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time then add the maple syrup and the vanilla. Mix the baking powder, salt and flour together and fold into the mixture with the milk. Spoon ...

Bought a large bag of pecans recently on offer from Julian Graves. My lovely friend Jackie brought us some maple syrup from her recent trip to Canada, so, a marriage made in heaven. It's such an easy tart to make, and if you have some pastry in the freezer, it's even quicker. Pastry: 250g plain flour 125g salted, cold butter 2 tbspn sugar 3-4 tbspn very cold water I make this in the food processor, make double and keep half, wrapped carefully, in the freezer. I let the half I'm going to use, rest in the fridge for a couple of hours. I don't like sugar in pastry, even in sweet desserts, so I don't add it. Filling: 60g melted butter 100g sugar [I used golden caster] 180ml maple syrup 2 eggs 250g pecans Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas5 Grease a rectangular tart tin. [I bought mine from Lakeland and have had lots of use out of it. It's loose-bottomed!] Roll the pastry out into the tart tin. Beat the butter, sugar and maple syrup together with an ele...