COOKBOOKS GALORE

 This is an unusual cake as it’s made with cream, which is used instead of the usual butter and milk. So the cake is quite firm, tho’ you make it like a sponge cake. You need: 600ml whipping cream, 3 eggs, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 275g light brown sugar, 300g sr flour Topping: 60g butter, 110g soft brown sugar, 2 tbspn milk and 80g icing sugar. Preheat oven 180C/gas4/fan160C Grease and base line a 22cm deep tin. Beat half of the cream with hand mixer till soft peaks. Beat the eggs and vanilla in another bowl till thick and creamy. Gradually add the sugar, beating well between each addition. Spoon egg mixture into a large bowl and fold in 1/4 of the remaining cream, then the flour. Make sure it’s all mixed together. Spoon into the tin and bake for about 50 mins. Leave in tin to cool for 5 mins then put in wire rack.  Beat the remaining 1/4 of the whipped cream into soft peaks. Make the caramel topping : melt the butter in a small pan , add the sugar and milk. Bring to the boil a...

I went to a 50th wedding anniversary party a few weeks ago, and this was the celebration cake. It was delicious, so I asked my friend who made it for the recipe. It's more like a solid mousse than a cake, but the chocolate flavour is so good. I have to say tho' that a slice is very rich. I made it last weekend as a try out for Easter, as I had friends coming for lunch. For the cake you need ; 330g dark chocolate, 120g cocoa, 350g melted butter, 10 egg yolks, 330g icing sugar and 330g  whipping cream For the ganache: 200g dark chocolate and 10cl single cream You need  a 23cm springform cake tin lined with baking parchment Beat the egg yolks together till fluffy. [Freeze the whites in batches for meringues?] Melt the chocolate and butter over a bain marie then add to the yolks and mix gently together. Add the cocoa powder and mix well. Whisk the cream till firm, and carefully fold into the egg mixture. For the icing - melt the chocolate and cream over a bain marie. S...

My family came yesterday and they love desserts, especially anything with lemon. I wanted to make something different from my usual lemon meringue or tart, so as I had a large packet of boudoir biscuits in the cupboard, decided to try and make a lemon tiramisu. I found a recipe online, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I used both fresh lemons [from my tree in the greenhouse ] and lemon curd to give a good lemony flavour, as well as the small amount of Limoncello that was left in the bottle! I used: 250g boudoir biscuits, 250g mascarpone, 2 lemons, 3 eggs, 100g caster sugar, 20cl whipping cream, 3 tbspn lemon curd and 4 tbspn Limoncello. Cut one lemon in half and squeeze out the juice; mix this with 50g of the sugar and the Limoncello. Zest the other lemon finely. Whip the cream till it gets thick.  Separate the eggs and beat the whites till firm peaks, then beat the yolks with the other 50g of sugar till the mixture is white. Add the mascarpone, lemon curd ...

What is a Bavarois? Well, according to the internet it's   the French name for Bavarian cream, it is a delicate cream dessert with a crème Anglaise base made from either milk, cream or a fruit puree and then aerated with whipped cream and whipped egg whites before being set in the refrigerator with gelatine. It may be a straight vanilla or combined with additional flavourings; such as chocolate, coffee or liqueurs, served on its own as an individual dessert or as a filling for a variety of charlottes, tortes, cakes etc.   So now you know! I wanted a dessert for my son and family's visit this week, and I found this in an old French magazine cutting. It's unusual in that instead of having a pastry case and filling it with the Bavarois cream, you use dessicated coconut, flour, milk, egg whites and sugar to make a sort of nest. Preheat oven 150C/gas2                         Grease and base line a 23cm cake tin. In...

Having got back from our Lake District break on Saturday, my friend J asked if I'd make something a bit special for her sister's birthday. I know her sister loves anything with lemon in it, and I'd recently seen this recipe in an old French magazine. Also I had just enough Limoncello in the bottle. and it needed using. I seemed to have used an awful lot of bowls! I've never been a great fan of tiramisu, but I like the idea of a lemon one.  I used a small square loose-bottomed tin with deep sides to put the dessert together. Juice and zest a lemon and in a bowl mix the juice with 50g of caster sugar and 4 tbspns of Limoncello. Keep the zest for later. Separate 3 eggs and beat the whites into stiff peaks. In another bowl whip 20cl of whipping  cream till thick - the cream needs to be very cold to do this. In yet another bowl mix together 50g caster sugar, 250g mascarpone cheese, the 3 egg yolks, and most of the lemon zest. Add the whipped cream and ...

And now for something completely different....! This is another recipe to use up a Christmas leftover, but this time it's a small bottle of Baileys that we were given in a hamper. We were invited for a meal to a friend's house last weekend and she'd asked me to bring something sweet to have with coffee after the meal. An unusual request, so I hunted through my cookbooks and eventually came up with these little tartlets. I made some sweet pastry, but shortcrust would do as well. I used 175g flour etc. and this made 12 tartlets. You need 12 little moulds or barquettes  - these are the ones I used. I bought them on a whim years ago and have never used them! I have 3 of each shape. Line the greased moulds with the pastry and bake blind. For the filling you need: 150g plain chocolate, melted 120ml milk 3 egg yolks 2 tbsp caster sugar 3 tbsp plain flour 4 tbsp Baileys Irish liqueur 4 tbsp whipping cream, whipped Chocolate shavings or cocoa to decorate. Put ...