COOKBOOKS GALORE

I try and buy seasonally, but I have to admit to having a passion for blueberries. They were on offer last week in my usual supermarket, so had to buy some. I know they don't taste anything like the ones I grow in my pot in the garden, and that they'd been shipped half way round the world, but I still love them.  I've been eating some every morning with my porridge, but decided I wanted to make a cake. This is one of our favourite loaf cakes, but with a streusel topping. The original recipe was from an American website so has been converted from cups - hence the odd amounts. I've tweaked the recipe because it had way too much sugar in the cake. I like making cakes with oil - makes me think they're healthier! So, preheat oven 190C/gas5 Grease a 900g loaf tin. Put 80g granulated sugar in a bowl with 60ml sunflower oil. Mix together with an electric mixer, then add 1 egg, 250ml milk and 1 tspn vanilla extract and beat till smooth and creamy. Fold in 280...

Far Breton is a French speciality from Brittany. The  Far  bit comes from the Latin  farina  or flour [hence the french  farine  I guess]. Doing a bit of research, I found that it was orginally eaten by farming labourers who took it into the fields for their lunch, and it was a savoury flan - a Farz Fourn [oven baked  far  in Breton].   It's similar to a clafoutis - a baked custard, and is usually made with prunes. I've gone rather off piste and made the custard then topped it with salted caramel sauce. So I suppose it is a Far, but not a true Breton one - except the caramel sauce is from a jar I brought back from Brittany, and which was made locally there. Preheat oven 200c/gas 6. Grease a 20cm cake tin [not a springform one in case the custard leaks]  or an ovenproof glass dish . I find this mixture works best if you mix well between each addition. I have seen recipes which use a food processor, but haven't tried this. Bea...

My daughter has been staying for a few days and wanted to do some baking. She wanted to make something retro! This recipe was a great family favourite, which happily Mum had written down in her notebook. There's a nice chewy coconut layer on a chocolate biscuit base, so not sure if it's a biscuit or a cake. Either way it's good. It's also simple to make - a bonus for my daughter! Preheat oven 190C/gas5 and grease and base line a 20cm square cake tin. Crush 225g of dark chocolate digestive biscuits in a bag using a rolling pin - or put them in a processor an whizz. Melt 75g of butter in a pan and stir in the crumbs  till they're all combined. Press this mixture into the base of your tin. Beat a 170g tin of evaporated milk with 1 egg, 1 tspn vanilla extract and 25g caster sugar till smooth. Add 50g sr flour and 125g dessicated coconut and mix well. Pour this over the biscuit layer in the tin and level top. Bake for 30 mins till the top is firm and starting ...

I went to a local farmer's market the other week and found some local honey. I wanted to use it in a cake, and found this recipe in one of my folders. I think it came from a Woman's Weekly magazine. It makes good use of honey, both in the cake and in the topping. It's made in a 23cm tin, so quite a big cake, enough for about 10 good slices. Preheat oven 180C/gas4, and grease and line a 23cm springform tin. For the cake - beat 225g butter with 95g of soft brown sugar and 1 tspn vanilla extract till light and fluffy. Add 175g honey and beat well. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, then fold in 300g sr flour and 1 tspn cinnamon. Stir in 250g sour cream of crème fraiche gently with a metal spoon.  Spoon into the cake tin and bake for about 45-50 mins till golden. Leave cake to cool in tin for 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack. For the topping - put 30g butter and 260g honey in a pan and bring to boil, stirring. Turn heat down and simmer for 2 mins. Take off the heat and st...

I was in an experimental mood yesterday, so found this American recipe given to me by a friend. It's a sort of traybake pie, with pastry top and bottom and a chocolate filling. I love chocolate in any form and this sounded interesting. Preheat oven 180C/gas4           Grease and flour a 18x30cm cake tin. To make the pastry put 250g flour, 250g butter of margarine, an egg yolk and 4 tbspn of water into a processor and blitz. Wrap in cling film and put in fridge to rest. For the filling beat 6 egg whites till stiff; add 200g caster sugar gently. Mix in 5 egg yolks, one at a time. Add 1 tspn vanilla extract, 140g grated or melted dark chocolate and  the juice a a lemon and mix together carefully. Fold in 80g ground hazelnuts or walnuts with a spatula or spoon. Cut pastry in half and roll out one piece to fit the tin. Spoon over the chocolate filling then top with the other piece of pastry. Bake for about 30 mins till golden. You ca...

I seem to have made quite a lot of calorific pudds lately, so I wanted to make something simple but delicious. I love French madeleines, so decided these would be just right. I know that Proust's plain madeleine is perfection, but I wanted to make them different, so decided to add one of my favourite flavour combinations - apple and cinnamon. [I'm in apple mode atm!] I used a jar of apple purée instead of bothering to cook some. Madeleines look very simple, but I have had a few disasters making them. Some recipes say that you use brown butter, but you have to keep a close eye on the butter or it burns [one disaster]. Then to get the traditional hump, you need to put the batter in the fridge for 1-2 hours, and some recipes tell you to put the tin in the fridge too for an hour before using. One chef even puts his tin in the freezer. Then another says before you bake them you must heat a baking sheet in the oven, and put the madeleine tin on this. Did I say they were simple? ...

If you're on a diet, this isn't the recipe for you! It's a recipe for a special occasion, and as our French friends were coming to stay for a few days, I thought this was one of those occasions. It's another case of using up ingredients that are near their 'use by' dates; this time it was a tin of Carnation Caramel, a bag of pecans and a few Granny Smith apples. The idea for a cheesecake came from a programme I watched on Food Network - the chef was using walnuts and apples in a cheesecake. So what you have is the usual biscuit layer at the bottom, then a layer of the salted caramel, a layer of chopped pecans, a layer of apple purée, then the cheesecake and topping it off some whipped cream with a drizzle or so of the salted caramel. What's not to like? You need a 23cm springform tin or the same sized pie dish. Preheat oven 180C/gas4. To make the biscuit base - mix together 12 digestive biscuits with 3 tbspn caster sugar and a tspn of cinnamon. Melt...