COOKBOOKS GALORE

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...

This is my offering to the GBBO, as it's more complicated than I usually make! I'd offered to make a cake for a birthday we'd been invited to, and as my daughter was here to help me, decided to try something a bit more ambitious. It's not the official birthday cake, but just another contribution to the tea. The recipe comes from a leaflet I picked up many years ago in a supermarket, but it doesn't say much about the origins of the cake, just that it's from Denmark. It's unusual in that it has chopped pears in it, and uses gelatine to stiffen the cream mixture for the filling. It's a 'bit of an effort' cake to make too, so one for an occasion. Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease and line a 20cm springform tin. Whisk 4 egg yolks with the grated zest and juice of 1 lemon and 125g of icing sugar till pale and creamy. Whisk the 4 egg whites till stiff peaks.  Sieve 75g plain flour, 25g cornflour and 1/2 tspn baking powder together then fold i...

I made this as my dessert contribution to my OH's family's Christmas get together. I had a couple of bars of white chocolate in my baking cupboard, so these were the basis for the cake. I wanted to make a chocolate sponge base with a light topping, and I'd made a similar topping for a cake before, only using a 50% dark chocolate. It's a bit of a faff to make, as it uses gelatine [not my favourite ingredient], but the results are worth the effort. Hope you think so too! Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin with baking paper. To make the sponge base, whisk 2 eggs with 60g of caster sugar till thick and creamy. Add 60g plain flour and 1 tbspn cocoa powder into the batter and fold in. Gently add 30g of melted butter and mix together. Spoon or pour into the tin and bake for 20-25mins till firm to touch. For the topping, sprinkle an 11gm sachet of gelatine over 3 tbspns of cold water and leave to sponge. Melt 200g of white chocolate car...

The title is not quite correct because I couldn't find any Key limes! I've made this cake before using oranges, which were the fruit used in the original recipe.It's  from Woman's Weekly magazine, but when I don't know, as it's in my recipe folder. I thought I'd try it with limes, and it turned out well. It's a thick layer of mousse, and it's definitely a dessert cake, rather than a cake to have with a cuppa. I haven't used the original cake recipe either this time, as I wanted to make a Victoria sandwich. 175g butter 400g caster sugar- 175g for the cake 3 eggs 175g sr flour 1 tspn baking powder 400ml double cream 250g mascarpone cheese juice and rind of 5 limes juice of a small orange 1 tbspn gelatine powder icing sugar to dust if you want the filling really green, you can use a few drops of green colouring, which I did. Preheat oven 160C/gas 3 Grease and line a 23cm springform tin. Beat the butter and 175g of the sugar togethe...