COOKBOOKS GALORE

Something to cheer us up in these miserable days. Was given a bottle of local cider, and had several apples needing using up, so found this recipe from an old Woman's weekly magazine. You need:  330ml cider, 150g melted butter, 4 medium apples, peeled, cored and grated, 2 large eggs, 150g soft brown sugar, 300g plain flour, 2 tspn bicarb, 1 tspn mixed spice, 1 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn grated nutmeg, 200g raisins or sultanas and 100g roughly chopped pecans. Preheat oven 180C/gas4         Grease and line a 20cm spring form cake tin. Pour cider into a pan and bring to boil. Lower the heat to simmer and let the cider reduce. You need about 100ml. Melt the butter in another pan and pour the cider over to cool a bit until just warm. Mix the sugar and  eggs into the apples and pour in the butter and cider. Mix together. Sift the flour and spices together then fold into the mixture. Finally add the fruit and nuts and stir together. Pour into the ca...

On my friend Phil's lovely blog, As Strong as Soup, [ http://asstrongassoup.blogspot.com ]   he writes about Nonnettes and using honey. I haven't tried his recipe yet, but my Polish dil also gave me her  recipe for a Polish Honey cake. Every time I visit a farmer's market I always buy a jar of local honey, so have plenty to use in both recipes. I decided that I needed a large cake to take to a meeting yesterday, so made the Polish honey cake. It's called Piernik in Polish. There seem to be many varying recipes for this cake, but they all contain a mixture of ground spices. The recipe said to use a 22cm tin, but I don't have one this size, so used a 23 cm tin and it turned out fine. 500g plain flour, 2 tspn baking powder, 1/2 tspn ginger, 1/2 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn cloves. 1/2 tspn allspice, grated zest of 1/2 orange, 25g chopped walnuts, 25g seedless raisins, 25g chopped figs, 300g honey, 90g caster sugar, 90g butter, 4 egg yolks, 2 tspn instant coffee dissol...

Yet another of our favourite loaf cakes. There were some very ripe bananas in the fruit bowl just asking to be used up. The recipe comes from 'Cakes, Breads and Gateaux', a book published in 1979 by 'Living' magazine - anyone remember it? This one is made by the 'rubbing in' method, and is supposed to keep well, for up to a week, if wrapped in foil. The recipe says that it cuts into 12 slices - depends on your appetite! 175g sr flour 50g wholemeal flour 1/2 level tspn baking powder 1 tspn cinnamon 125g butter of margarine 75g demerara sugar 175g raisins 450g bananas, peeled and mashed 2 eggs, beaten finely grated rind of a lemon Preheat oven 180C/gas 4. Grease and line a 900g loaf tin. Sift the flours, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl. Rub in the fat till the mixture is like breadcrumbs. Mix in the rest of the ingredients - the sugar, bananas, eggs and lemon rind. Beat it together lightly then spoon into the tin. Bake for 45-55 mins till...

This is a very easy loaf to make. 300g plain flour 11/2 tspn bicarb. of soda 1/2 tspn salt 300g [10 fl oz] plain yoghurt 2 egg whites 60g raisins 2 tbspn runny honey butter or margarine to grease the tin Grease a 900g loaf tin. Preheat oven 425F/210C/gas 7 Mix the flour, bicarb. and salt in a bowl. Whisk the egg whites with the yoghurt and fold into the flour.Add the raisins and honey. Spoon into the tin and bake for 20 mins. Cool in the tin. ] This loaf has a nice light texture. I think it's better eaten warm.

I have a friend coming to stay for a few days and have been baking in preparation for her visit. I've made a spice cake, some muffins and wanted something else a bit different to have with a cup of tea. I decided that a savoury teabread would be unusual, and found this recipe in an old cookery book called 'Cakes, breads and gateaux'. 350g sr flour 1/2tspn salt pinch cayenne pepper 1 level tspn dry mustard 75g butter or margarine 90g mature Cheddar, grated finely [keep 15g for the topping] 75g raisins 65g chopped walnuts [keep 15g for the topping] 1 beaten egg 250ml milk Preheat oven 180C/350F.gas4 Grease and line a large loaf tin - 200g. Sieve the flour, salt, cayenne and mustard together into a bowl, then add the fat and rub it in. Stir in 75g of the grated cheese, raisins and 50g of the walnuts. Mix the egg into the milk then add it to the mixture and beat well. Put into the tin and level the top. Mix the rest of the walnuts and cheese together and spr...