COOKBOOKS GALORE

The other day I found a Scandinavian cookery book in a local charity shop, and this recipe was in it. We have one lone rhubarb plant in the garden, and there was just enough ready to pick to use in this cake. I've adapted the recipe to the kind of cake I wanted, so I'm claiming it as mine now! It makes a small amount of rhubarb into a delicious dessert, tho' it's not a big cake if you have a family to feed. 2eggs 150g caster sugar 90g plain flour 1/2 tspn baking powder about 250g rhubarb 50g cold butter 1 tspn cinnamon 2 tbspn pearl sugar Preheat oven 175C/gas 3/4 Grease and line a 20cm springform tin [make sure you grease the tin well or the cake will stick like glue!] Cut the rhubarb into about 1cm pieces. Beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer till it's pale and nice and fluffy. Then fold in the flour and baking powder. Pour this batter into the tin and put the rhubarb on top, pushing it into the batter. Then cut the butter into thin slices - it ...

My friend and her family went to Norway on holiday recently, and she sent me a postcard, in English, with the recipe for cinnamon buns [kannelbullar]. Presume kannel means cinnamon like cannelle in French. I just had to try some. I decided to use my bread maker to make the dough, and then just had to roll it out, fill, roll it up, cut and give it a second rise. It worked out really well, and I'm very happy with the result. You can, of course, make the dough by hand. The recipe said it made 12, but I made one too big so only got 11! Dough: 2 tspns instant yeast [I used 1 sachet and it worked fine] 60g butter 50g sugar 150ml milk which has been scalded and cooled 1 egg 1/2 tspn salt 1 heaped tspn freshly ground cardamom 325g strong white flour Filling: 60g soft butter 60g caster sugar 3 tspns ground cinnamon pearl sugar Beat the egg and divide in half - half for dough and half to glaze buns. Bread machine - put all the ingredients into the bucket and run on ...