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...

This is a lovely big sharing cake. It's very moist and uses a lot of apples- great for windfalls! I used Gala Apples, but you could use Granny Smith, Golden Delicious or an apple of your choice. My friend gave me the recipe, and it's really easy to make. You can never have too many apple cake recipes! You need: 1kg sliced apples, 400g caster sugar, 2-3tspn cinnamon, 190ml vegetable oil - I used sunflower, 3 eggs, 250ml orange juice, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 375g plain flour with 2 tspn baking powder and 1/4 tspn salt. Preheat oven 180C/gas 4                Grease a 23cm round cake tin well and line base. My dil had my round tin on loan, so I used a 23x30cm cake tin, and it worked out fine. Toss the apples with 100g of the sugar and the cinnamon. Blend the rest of the sugar with the oil, then add the eggs, orange juice and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour mixture and beat to make a batter. Put half the batter into the cake tin and t...

This is another cake that came about because I was having a sort out in my cupboard, seeing if anything was out of date.  I found a packet of polenta that needed using up, and had saved this recipe ages ago from the side of a polenta packet. It's easy to make, and using the polenta makes a lovely light cake. Preheat oven 160C/gas3              Grease a 23cm springform cake tin. Grate the zest from 3 medium sized oranges and keep it to put in the batter. Put 1 lemon aside to use later. In a bowl, mix together 210g plain flour, 2 tspn baking powder, 120g polenta and a tspn salt. In another bowl of a stand mixer or using a hand beater, beat together 4 large eggs and 200g caster sugar till it's pale and fluffy and tripled in size. Beat in the orange zest. You need 175ml olive oil, and you add this to the batter alternating with the flour mixture, scraping the bowl down occasionally; just beat gently until incorporated into batter. Spoon...

I wanted a chocolate recipe for an Easter cake, but wanted to try something a bit different. I love the flavour of orange with chocolate [yes, I did get a Chocolate Orange Easter Egg!!] so this French recipe seemed just the thing. It's made in a Bundt mould, which makes it look a little bit more special for an occasion. For the cake you need - 150g sr flour,1 tspn baking powder, 100g ground almonds, 220g caster sugar, 150g butter [melted], 4 eggs, grated zest of 1 orange. For the syrup you need - 220g caster sugar, 250ml orange juice, peeled zest of 4 oranges. For the icing - 150g dark chocolate Preheat oven 160C/gas3 Grease a Bundt tin or mould well or spray with a Cake Release spray. To make the cake - grate the zest of the orange. Beat the eggs with the caster sugar till white and fluffy. Fold in the flour and baking powder. Melt the butter in a microwave then add to the mixture with the ground almonds and orange zest. Mix well. Bake for 45-50 mins. 5 mins befo...

Following on from the Madeira cake from week 1 of the GBBO, I decided to make some biscuits from week 2. I'm not a fan of biscotti, or making fancy biscuit  holders, so decided to have a go at Paul's Artlettes. I cheated  and used ready made butter puff pastry and was pleased with the results. You'll find Paul's recipe  here . The whirls aren't as good as his, but you could taste the cinnamon, and they were nice and crisp, and they had a good snap!! After making these I decided that I hadn't put enough cinnamon and sugar in them so made them again with bought butter puff pastry. My second attempt was much better; they're not as oval, but the spiral filling is better. Honey Biscuits I also made some honey biscuits as I was given a local jar of honey to try. These are orange and walnut flavoured biscuits which are dipped in honey to glaze. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper. In a bowl...

I'm not usually a fan of American frostings, finding them too sickly, but my daughter wanted me to make her a cake with frosting for her birthday. I decided on a sweet potato one because it's been on my list of 'to make' for ages, and I had bought a bag of sweet potatoes with my weekly shopping. I tasted a cake like this for the first time recently, and thought it was reminiscent of a carrot cake, one of my favourites, but without nuts! This is another recipe from an American paperback I brought back on one of my visits, 'Cakes my Mom used to make'. There are only a few photos in the book, and not one for this cake, so I had to use my imagination; the recipes are very basic so you need to work out exactly what you have to do - not really an ideal baking book. It's a 3-layer cake, filled with an orange cream and covered in a chocolate cream cheese frosting - so not many calories! Preheat oven 200C/gas6. Prick 350g sweet potatoes [ 2 medium or 1 large] ...

And now for something completely different! I love Lebanese food; I knew little about it till we lived in France and made friends with a Lebanese couple. I love their use of spices, sumac, z'atar, dried mint, 7 spices etc, and I love falafel, houmous [sp?] and tabbouleh.  I've long had a love-hate relationship with tahina or tahini, sesame seed paste, but was given this recipe for using it in a cake by our Lebanese friend, and I really liked the result. You could use peanut butter instead, and I think it would work really well, but the tahini makes a really rich, flavoursome cake. Preheat oven 180C/gas 4. Grease a 24cm cake tin well and sprinkle with 3 tbspn sesame seeds. Beat 250ml tahini in a large bowl with 165g caster sugar, 40g light brown sugar and grated zest of 2 oranges till mixture is thick and creamy. Add the juice from the 2 oranges and 200g thick plain yoghurt and mix well. Fold in 375g sr flour, 1/2 tspn salt, 1 tspn mixed spice, 100g chopped pistachio nut...

We're having a new kitchen installed starting on the 28th, so today is my last day for using my oven. Tomorrow, OH and friend are taking out the last part of the old kitchen which I've been hanging on to, the sink unit, dishwasher, cooker and washing machine. From tomorrow, I'll have a microwave and a slow cooker in the dining room for 2 and a bit weeks.  What fun! So I decided to have a bit of a Bake In today, last time in my gas cooker, as it will be looking for a new home on Freecyle. I'm having a new electric oven and gas hob. The gas cooker was in the house when we bought it, so we decided not to change it till we changed the kitchen. The Bake In - I made some chocolate chip muffins, a banana loaf, cheese scones and a very easy Bara Brith - not using Gran's recipe, but one a new friend gave me.   I made the cheese scones from the Good Food site; here's the recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cheesescones_1287 The banana bread recipe ...

I love citrus cakes so had to try this one; the recipe was given to me by a church friend whose son is married to a Swedish girl. This is Anneke's family recipe, and she calls it a teabread and serves it as a dessert with some fruit salad. It's lovely as a cake with your afternoon cuppa.  Another easy cake for my repertoire. 150g butter 120g caster sugar 3 eggs greated zest of a lemon 60ml fresh orange juice orange essence [opt] 250g plain flour with 2 tspn baking powder added breadcrumbs to coat the tin topping: 80g icing sugar orange juice - 1-2 tbspn Preheat oven 175C/gas4 Grease a 900g loaf tin and sprinkle with breadcrumbs Beat butter and sugar together till fluffy. Whisk the eggs in one at a time then mix in the rind, juice and flour. Blend together. Pour into the tin and bake for about an hour. Remove from the tin and leave to cool under the upturned tin! Mix the icing sugar with enough juice to make it the consistency you want; make su...