COOKBOOKS GALORE

 I’m a great muffin fan and have adapted my basic recipe, given to me by an American friend, many times. This is my latest idea. I made the muffins and was asked by a friend if I could make some for a party with the icing you usually get on a carrot cake.  280g plain flour, 1 tbsps baking powder, 1 tspn mixed spice, pinch salt, 115g soft dark brown sugar, 200g grated carrot, 50g chopped pecans or walnuts, 50g sultanas, 2 eggs, 175ml milk, 6 tbsps sunflower oil Optional: icing - 75g soft cream cheese, 49g butter and 35g icing sugar, sprigs of orange zest Preheat oven 200C/gas6. Grease a muffin tin or use muffin cases. Sift together the flour, baking powder and spice. Add carrots, sugar walnuts and sultanas and stir together. In a jug add the milk, oil and beaten eggs. Mix well. Make a well in flour mix and add milk mixture. Stir gently till just mixed. Don’t over mix or muffins will be heavy. Soon into the muffin tin - I use an ice cream scoop. Bake for 20 mins till risen. Cool...

Something to cheer us up in these miserable days. Was given a bottle of local cider, and had several apples needing using up, so found this recipe from an old Woman's weekly magazine. You need:  330ml cider, 150g melted butter, 4 medium apples, peeled, cored and grated, 2 large eggs, 150g soft brown sugar, 300g plain flour, 2 tspn bicarb, 1 tspn mixed spice, 1 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn grated nutmeg, 200g raisins or sultanas and 100g roughly chopped pecans. Preheat oven 180C/gas4         Grease and line a 20cm spring form cake tin. Pour cider into a pan and bring to boil. Lower the heat to simmer and let the cider reduce. You need about 100ml. Melt the butter in another pan and pour the cider over to cool a bit until just warm. Mix the sugar and  eggs into the apples and pour in the butter and cider. Mix together. Sift the flour and spices together then fold into the mixture. Finally add the fruit and nuts and stir together. Pour into the ca...

A couple of years ago my lovely Dutch friend sent me some goodies, including some of my favourite speculoos [ or speculaas?] biscuits. I used them in a recipe I found in a French magazine, and decided to make the cake again. It doesn't need any cooking. 125g speculoos biscuits [or any spicy biscuit - the ones they sell in Lidl are good] 4 dried figs, finely chopped 4 dates, finely chopped 2 tbspns sultanas 60g melted butter 200g milk or plain chocolate - broken into small pieces 15cl single cream 2 packets of Werther's originals or other butterscotch sweets 22cm cake tin - preferably a silicone mould Crush the biscuits and mix them with the dried fruit and melted butter. Press the mixture into the bottom of the tin/mould and put it in the fridge to harden. Break the chocolate up into a bowl. Put the cream in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, then pour it over the chocolate. Stir well till the mixture is nice and smooth. Cool. Take the ...

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...

I've mentioned my lovely German dil before, and this is one of her family recipes. I bought some Bramleys in a local market, and wanted to make some kind of dessert with them. I love apple cakes and have quite a lot of recipes for them, but this is a bit different in the way you put it together. You get a layer of cake, then a layer of apples, sultanas, cinnamon and citrus zest, then another cake layer. The cake mixture is more like a dough than the normal cake batter, and I found it difficult to spread the second layer over the fruit. It was quite stiff and I kept getting lumps of dough. I spread it as well as I could, but there were some sultanas poking through [unlike my dil's version, where there's not a sultana in sight - well she works in catering!]. Not a very pretty plate - I asked my OH to get a nice plate for me to put it on, and this is what he produced! It can be a dessert or eaten as a cake for afternoon tea. We ate it warm with some ice cream. I...

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...

I love crumbles of any kind, but this one has become my new love. Pears are one of my favourite fruit, so this recipe was a must try. It came from my French friend, as 'les crumbles' are very fashionable in France too. She likes trying out new flavour combinations and the ones she uses here are very different. When cooked, pears always seem to go mushy, but cooked in this way, they seem to hold their texture. It's also a new way of making a crumble - sprinkling it onto pear halves, instead of onto sliced or quartered pears. You need: for the crumble: 100g flour 80g soft brown sugar 1/2 tspn ginger 80g butter + about 20g to grease the dish 1 tspn soluble coffee for the rest: 4 pears 50g sultanas or raisins 30g butter Preheat oven 180C/gas 4 Put the sultanas or raisins in a bowl of warm water and leave them to soak for about 2 hours. To make the crumble - put the flour in a bowl, add the ginger, sugar, coffee and the butter cut into pieces. Rub the butter...

Yet another loaf cake to add to my repertoire - well the recipe used a 900g loaf tin, but I wanted a round cake so used a 20cm springform tin. Inspiration for the cake was a few very ripe bananas in the fruit bowl. I rarely use alcohol in cakes, but this time I did what the recipe said, and soaked the sultanas in the rum. I wanted to try a different topping so I used a butterscotch one I'd wanted to try for ages - I know it has a lot of sugar in it, but for a special occasion..........! 100g sultanas 50ml rum 185g plain flour 2 tspn baking powder ½ tspn bicarb pinch salt 2 tspn cinnamon - I used 3 tspns 125g soft unsalted butter 150g light soft brown sugar 2 large eggs 4 small very ripe bananas 1 tspn vanilla extract For the icing: 75g golden caster sugar 15g butter 50g light muscovado sugar 1 tbspn golden syrup 75ml double cream In a small pan pour the rum over the sultanas and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and leave to soak. Preheat the oven 17...

I love apple cakes, and this is a recipe from my lovely German dil. It's an unusual apple cake as it has 3 layers. It's not the prettiest of cakes, but the flavour's really good. It's not a huge cake, but it's nice eaten warm as a pudd., or you could eat it cold as a cake with your afternoon cuppa. 100g butter 100g caster sugar 200g sr flour 1 large egg pinch salt 500g cooking apples 55g sultanas 1 tspn cinnamon 55g demerara sugar Preheat oven 190C/gas 5. Grease and line a 20cm springform tin. Melt butter in microwave or pan. Remove and add the sugar, flour, egg and salt. Mix to a stiff dough. Put 2/3 of the dough in the bootom of the cake tin, pressing it to cover the base. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and then put on top of the dough. Put the 1/3 of the dough on top in pieces, tearing it and gently pressing it down. It won't cover the apple mixture. Bake for about 50 mins till golden, but cover with some foil for about the last...

I couldn't let St David's Day pass without making some of my Granny's welshcakes. I have her bakestone too [or llechfaen as she called it], rather black but still usable. Her recipe was in ozs and lbs so I've changed it to metric. 450g flour 1 tspn baking powder 110g margarine 110g lard 175g currants 1 tspn mixed spice 1 egg 2 tbspn milk Sift the flour and baking powder in a bowl then rub in the fat. Add the fruit and spice and mix in. Beat the egg and add to mixture to make a firm dough. if needed add siome of the milk. Don't make the dough wet! Roll onto a floured board to about 1/4 " and cut into rounds. Cook on a greased bakestone or heavy bottomed frying pan for about 3 mins each side till golden. Cool and sprinkle with sugar. I don't use lard or margarine, I use butter. Granny used to make about 30 Welsh cakes out of this amount; I seem to make much less - about 16! They're best eaten warm on the day they're made, as th...

Yes, another easy loaf! I'm now trying to use up the contents of my food cupboard. There were a few dried apricots, sultanas and walnuts left, so this was the perfect recipe. 300g plain flour 21/2 tspn baking powder 11/2 tspn mixed spice 90g diced butter 90g soft brown sugar 200g dried apricots 125g sultanas 90g chopped walnuts 210 ml milk 1 beaten egg Preheat ovem 180C/350F/gas4 Grease a 900g [2lb] loaf tin Sift flour, spice and baking powder into a bowl and rub in the butter. Add the sugar, fruit and walnuts and mix together. Add the milk and egg and mix well. Put into tin and bake for 45-50 mins till golden. Cool on a wire rack.                                     I didn't have enough apricots so I also added some dried apple.

Yet another apple cake! We still have some more Bramleys to come - a great year for them. Helen is a friend who is an excellent cook. She made this cake during one of our visits and it's really delicious. Bob,my husband,hates bananas, but loves this cake. He doesn't know that there are any in it!!! This amount makes 2 generous 2lb loaf cakes, but I usually halve the recipe. I'm not sure if it would freeze. 250g unsalted butter 250g dark brown sugar 500g sr flour 4 large apples, peeled, cored and chopped 5 small ripe bananas 500g sultanas 4 large eggs cinnamon and mixed spice to taste [I use a lot as I love them!} Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F Beat sugar and butter together till fluffy. In another bowl beat eggs and bananas together and then add to the sugar mixture. Add the apples and mix well. Add the spices to the flour and then add gradually to the mixture, mixing well after each addition. Divide between the 2 tins and bake for about an hour. In my ov...