COOKBOOKS GALORE

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...

My friend gave me some courgettes and I wanted to make a cake with some of them. I had a look on the internet, but nothing really appealed, so I hunted through a couple of old baking cookery books and found a carrot cake with raisins, so adapted this. I fancied making a ring cake, but it can be made in a normal round cake tin. Preheat oven 180C./gas4 Grease a 20cm ring mould well with butter or oil. Beat together 125g butter and 150g caster sugar till nice and fluffy. Then add 2 beaten eggs and 2 tspn vanilla extract. Add 220g grated courgettes [about 11/2 medium courgettes] and 60g sultanas [or other dried fruit]. Mix together then fold in 225g sr flour. Spoon into tin and smooth top. Bake for 35-40 mins till golden. Leave cake in tin for about 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack. I wanted a creamy topping, so made some vanilla buttercream. I wanted to try a method I'd found in a magazine; it's more complicated than the simple buttercream of icing sugar and butter, bu...

My grandsons popped in to see us yesterday with their Dad, and I wanted something for them to munch, as they're always hungry! I'd been looking through Mum's old recipe notebook and found this. It brought back lots of happy childhood memories - these were a staple for family picnics, carried carefully in their special tin. The boys enjoyed them too, and asked if I'd tell their Mum how to make them. Praise indeed! Mum's recipe was in ounces, so I've converted it to metric. It's a 'melt in the saucepan and add everything else' sort of recipe, quick and easy to do, and it doesn't need cooking. 175g plain chocolate [or milk if you prefer] broken into pieces 60g butter 250g digestive biscuits (crushed) grated orange peel 125g sultanas 60g chopped glace cherries Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat then add the chocolate. Stir in the crushed biscuits, chopped cherries, sultanas and grated orange peel and mix till everything is cover...