COOKBOOKS GALORE

As I said in a recent post, plums are one of my favourite fruit. I love making crumbles and tarts with them, but wanted to find something different to try. This recipe is from a Woman's Weekly magazine; it's one of the hundreds of recipes I have to sort out in my cuttings folder! I bought a punnet of plums from the supermarket which were marked as seconds, and they were really hard. Anyway I thought I'd use them in my new recipe, and they turned out soft and juicy. 250g plain flour 170g chopped up butter 1 egg yolk I used my processor to make the pastry, putting in the flour, butter and egg yolk and adding a tbspn of water and blitzing till the pastry started to come together. Roll out and line the flan tin and chill for 30 mins. it's a very short pastry and breaks easily, but is easily patched up. Filling: 1 tspn cinnamon 2 tbspns soft brown sugar 750g plums, stoned and quartered Topping: 1 egg + a yolk 125g creme fraiche 45g soft brown sugar ...

These were mentioned recently on the GBBO, so I thought I'd find out more about them. They're made on the Isle of Anglesey and are a traditional biscuit really, not a cake. They're served sprinkled with sugar and even with cream and jam, like a scone. The bit I liked was that a scallop shell is pressed into the top to give it a shell-like pattern. Nowadays, a lot of the Aberffraw cakes have the pattern put on with a knife. I have a bag of scallop shells, brought back from France so I used a genuine one to make my pattern. The recipe is a 3.2.1  - quite common for biscuits. This means 3 parts flour to 2 parts fat to 1 part sugar. 175g flour 110g butter 55g caster sugar a little milk more caster sugar for sprinkling over Preheat oven 190C/gas5. Grease a baking sheet. I used a processor to make my dough. Put flour and sugar in a bowl and rub in the butter. Bind together with a litle milk to make a soft dough. Roll out and cut out circles. I used a 7cm cutter an...

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...

This addition to my teabread recipe collection comes from a book I bought in a charity shop called 'The complete book of baking'. It really is a very quick bread to make, and is very moist. Another recipe with oil instead of butter must be good! 175g plain flour 11/2 tspn baking powder 1/2tspn grated nutmeg 6-g rolled oats 250g light brown sugar 60g dried cranberries 60g dried apricots 2 eggs 120ml sunflower oil 1 tspn vanilla essence 2 ripe bananas, mashed Preheat oven 180C/gas 4 Grease a 900g loaf tin Put flour, baking powder and nutmeg in a bowl and add the oats, sugar and dried fruit. Mix together till blended. make a well in the middle. In another bowl beat the bananas, eggs, oil and vanilla essence together with an electric mixer. Add this to the flour mixture and combine together. Pour into the tin and bake for 45mins- an hour till well risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack. Dust the top with icing sugar if you want. I served this to friends w...

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...

A tin of Carnation caramel was lurking in the back of the cupboard, and carrying on with my biscuit theme, thought I could use it as a filling in a double biscuit. I have an easy shortbread recipe given to me many years ago when I was a student, by my Scottish landlady, and this would go really well with the caramel. You must use butter for these to get the lovely flavour. Shortbread: 350g plain flour 110g cornflour 110g caster sugar 225g butter Filling: tin caramel 100g dessicated coconut -optional Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Cream the butter and sugar either by hand or with electric mixer on a low speed till nice and smooth. Sift the flours together and add to the mixture. Work the flours in by hand. Knead the dough till it's smooth then wrap in clingfilm and chill for about 30 mins. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to about 5mm and cut out rounds with a cutter, the size depending on how big you want your biscuits! Put the biscuits on baking sheets a...

This is another variation of my basic cookie recipe.  We love pears and finding some dried ones, I had to make some cookies. You could use other nuts if you prefer, other dried fruit too - I've used dried cranberries and cherries and these are good. Here's the basic recipe again: :Oven 190C/375F/gas5. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchent paper or a silicone sheet. Basic recipe: 225g soft butter 140g caster sugar 1 beaten egg yolk 2 tspn vanilla extract 280g plain flour pinch salt Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl with a wooden spoon, then beat in egg yolk and vanilla essence. Stir in the flour and salt. Mix together to make a ball of dough. Additional ingredients: 55g ready to eat dried pears, chopped finely 55g pistachio nuts, chopped some whole pistachio nuts to decorate This time, add the nuts and pears after the flour and mix it all together into a ball of dough. Take spoonfuls and roll into balls, put on baking sheets and spac...