COOKBOOKS GALORE

 Thought I’d try and make up for not posting for a few months and post another recipe. These are one of my favourite things to eat. My Mum was a great baker and made them regularly. You can buy ready made short crust pastry or make your own. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 You need a 12 hole bun tin. Grease the holes in the tin. Pastry : 225g plain flour, 110g butter, 1 egg beaten, 50g caster sugar Rub the fat into the flour till breadcrumbs. Add the egg to the sugar and add to the bowl and mix together. Add the flour then mix into a dough. Wrap in film and put in the fridge for 30 mins. Custard: 40g caster sugar, 4 medium egg yolks, 1/2 tspn vanilla extract, 300 ml warm milk and 1/2 tspn grated nutmeg.  Mi the caster sugar, egg yolks and vanilla extract together then stir in the warm milk. Keep stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Take pastry out of the fridge and roll out on lightly floured surface to 2mm. Use a cutter slightly bigger than the holes in the bun tin and cut out 12 ro...

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...

We don't like Christmas pudding, so I try a new Christmas dessert recipe every year. Last year it was sticky toffee pudd. and this year I wanted to do something lighter. The recipe said that this amount would serve 8, but it served 3 people who had seconds! I made it in advance and froze it. The recipe comes from this year's 'Woman's Weekly Christmas special'. 100g white chocolate broken up into pieces 250ml ready made vanilla custard 3 tbspns Baileys liqueur 142ml pot double cream 2 tbspns grated dark chocolate a few raspberries small loaf tin lined with cling film Melt the chocolate and stir in the custard. Leave to cool then stir in the Baileys. Whip the cream then add it to the mixture. Spoon it into the lined loaf tin and feeze overnight. When it's solid, cover and wrap and label it. Take it out and put it in the fridge 20 mins before you want to use it. Put onto a plate, sprinkle the top with grated dark chocolate and decorate with a few...