COOKBOOKS GALORE

It was my daughter's birthday recently and she came up for the weekend, so needed a cake - this was just the thing. It's made with oil not butter and is very easy to make, yet it looks 'an occasion' cake. Preheat oven 190C/gas5 Grease and line 2x18cm [7"] sandwich tins For the cake you need to sieve 150g plain flour, 25g cornflour and 2 level tspns baking powder into a bowl. Mix together 100ml veg oil [I used sunflower] and 100ml water in another bowl. Separate 2 eggs and add the yolks to the oil/water mixture and mix together. Stir the dry ingredients in and mix to a batter. Whisk the egg whites till stiff then fold into the mixture. Divide into the tins then bake for 25-30 mins. Cool on a wire rack. Turn the oven off. For the little meringues you need to put 1 egg white in a clean dry bowl and whisk till stiff and dry. Mix together 40g caster sugar and 15g icing sugar, then gradually whisk them into the whites. Put a sheet of baking paper or a silicon...

We had a good holiday in Brittany, and enjoyed lots of excellent food and wine. We ate in several creperies, enjoying the galettes made with buckwheat flour and filled with great things like prawns, cheese, ham and veg. We enjoyed some of the regions specialities such as Le Far Breton [ which is similar to the French Flan I posted about a while ago, but it has prunes and rum in it] and Kouign-amann, a butter cake made with yeast - very rich. We visited  couple of biscuit factories and sampled different flavoured palets and the galettes breton. My favourite flavour was the caramel and sea salt one. We also ate some gateau Breton, which is very similar in texture and flavour to the special cake from the Deux Sevres. I find them rather dry, but ok with a glass of cider! I thought I'd post a French recipe to keep our holiday memories alive. It was given to me by my friend's neighbour; we were invited to her house for a meal, and this was the dessert. She also made a fantastic ...

Off on holiday to France tomorrow, so thought I'd post a French recipe. Will be back posting in 2 weeks. At the weekend I picked just enough rhubarb to make some kind of dessert. Wanted something different, and browsing through some old French cookery magazines, I found a recipe for a meringue tart with a difference, as it has a custard layer on the rhubarb before you add the meringue topping. Sounded like a great idea. I love rhubarb, but we haven't a very big garden so I have to make good use of what we can grow! It uses a 27cm tart tin, which is quite big. So, you need: 350g of shortcrust pastry 1 kg rhubarb 1 egg and 2 yolks 20cl of cream 1 tbspn vanilla sugar 150 g of caster sugar (50g for marinating the rhubarb and about 100g or a bit less in the custard] 1 tbspn cornflour For the  meringue :  2 egg whites 50g caster sugar per egg Preheat oven 220C/gas 8 Make the pastry and chill. Cut the rhubarb stems into 2cm pieces, taking the strin...

This recipe is my adaptation of one from an American cookery book called ' Mom's 100 Best Cakes' by Annette Bley. To be honest, most of the cakes in the book don't appeal to me as they're too fussy and complicated, but I've made this one a few times, usually in a plain springform tin; but my lovely dil gave me a tin which had a tube insert a while ago, so I thought I'd try it out. There seems to be a lot of ingredients, but it's not difficult to make, tho' it is a bit more effort than a chocolate sponge. The original recipe was of course in cups, hence the strange amounts. It's quite a big cake, so one to make for an occasion [and not if you're on a diet!]. Preheat oven 160C/gas3 Grease a 23cm/9" springform tin or tube pan, and line the base with baking paper. Dust inside of tin with flour and shake out excess. 2 tspn instant coffee granules 2 tsps vanilla extract 1/4 tspn hot water 330g plain flour 30g sr flour 40g + 1 tbs...

I'm making the most of the British asparagus season [hence the clafoutis in my previous post] so decided to make a tart. I wanted the asparagus to be the main feature, so no tomatoes nor other veg. Creme fraiche and eggs makes a good savoury custard, so that's what I used. To add some flavour I chopped up a spring onion [oh, I did say no other veg, but these aren't a strong flavour] and it needed some kind of herb, so I used some finely chopped thyme. I made some shortcrust pastry for the case. So, for the pastry: Put 200g plain flour and 120g butter in the food processor and blitz to breadcrumbs, then add 1 medium beaten egg mixed with 1 dspn water. Put it in the fridge in a polybag for 30 mins, then roll it out into a 20cm loose-bottomed flan tin. There was some pastry left over, so I put it in the freezer. I think this amount of pastry would be just right for a 22-23 cm tin, but I don't have one.  Bake the pastry blind, plus baking beans, in oven preheated  to 1...

And now for something completely different! I don't usually post anything savoury on here, but this was so tasty that I wanted to share it. I posted a recipe not long ago for a clafoutis, which we love. Looking through some old French cookery magazines of recipes for summer [making the most of the sun!] I found this recipe for a savoury version. Local asparagus will soon be gone, so this is a different way of making the most of it. 100g asparagus 10 cherry tomatoes 20cl of whole milk 25cl of single cream 2 eggs 4 tbspn plain flour salt and pepper Preheat oven 180C/gas4 4 ramekins or an oven-proof dish about 20cm. If you're using ramekins, cut the asparagus into 2 or 3 pieces, then wash and dry the tomatoes. In a bowl mix the eggs, milk and cream, season, then fold in the flour and beat with a whisk till it's all combined. Put the asparagus and tomatoes in the bottom of a greased ovenproof dish, or if using ramekins, as I did, put a couple of pieces...

Another one of my favourite loaf cakes. This one's another quite healthy cake, as it uses wholemeal flour, sunflower oil and nuts. It came about because in France we always had a glut of courgettes and were finding ways to use them up. The recipe came from a neighbour who had the same problem! I suppose this is a bit of nostalgia too, as we don't have room to grow courgettes in our small garden, so the ones I used were lurking in the veg drawer. 3 eggs 90g light muscovado sugar 125ml sunflower oil 250g wholewheat flour 1 tspn baking powder 1 tspn bicarb. of soda 1 tspn cinnamon 1 tspn allspice 150g grated courgettes 125g chopped walnuts 60g sunflower seeds Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas4 Grease and base line a 900g loaf tin. Beat eggs and sugar together and gradually add oil. Sift flour into another bowl and add the baking powder, bicarb, spices and nuts. Add the grated courgettes and mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones ...