Lime, Walnut and Date Tray Bake.

Bought a bundle of cookery magazines from a charity shop the other day, and this recipe was in an Australian one. I like traybakes.
The bake has lots of good things in it - dessicated coconut, lime zest, walnuts, dates, and it's easy to make. The biggest problem was changing the Aussie cups into grams. The cake turned out fine, so I must have my conversions fairly accurate!

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease and line a rectangular tin about 28 x 8 cm.

For the cake:
Put 150g flour, 110g caster sugar, 85g dessicated coconut, finely grated zest of 1 lime [you'll need another lime if you're going to make the candied lime peel, 150g chopped dates and 60g chopped walnuts into a bowl. Stir together.
Add 180g melted butter and mix together; then add 1 egg [lightly beaten] and stir together. Press this mixture into your tin and bake for 20 mins till golden.
Leave in tin for 5 mins then turn out onto wire rack.

For the lime Icing:
Put 225g icing sugar in a bowl with 15 melted butter and 1-2 tbspn lime juice. Mix together and spread over cool cake. Leave to set then cut into squares.

Make some candied lime peel - peel rind off 1 lime with a potato peeler and cut it into thin slices. Put 110g of caster sugar in a pan with 60ml of water. Add lime rind and stir over low heat till sugar has dissolved. Simmer uncovered, without stirring for 5 mins. Drain on wire rack and use it to decorate the tray bake.

Great flavours, lovely textures - crunch from the walnuts, soft from the dates, and the lovely hint of lime. The candied lime peel gives it that extra lime kick. One to make again.
I made the peel before making the cake so it could 'set', if that's the right word. Think I'll make some candied orange and lemon peel using this method - don't like the taste of the shop bought stuff.

Walnut and Courgette cake

Another one of my favourite loaf cakes. This one's another quite healthy cake, as it uses wholemeal flour, sunflower oil and nuts. It came about because in France we always had a glut of courgettes and were finding ways to use them up. The recipe came from a neighbour who had the same problem!
I suppose this is a bit of nostalgia too, as we don't have room to grow courgettes in our small garden, so the ones I used were lurking in the veg drawer.

3 eggs
90g light muscovado sugar

125ml sunflower oil

250g wholewheat flour

1 tspn baking powder

1 tspn bicarb. of soda

1 tspn cinnamon

1 tspn allspice

150g grated courgettes

125g chopped walnuts

60g sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas4

Grease and base line a 900g loaf tin.

Beat eggs and sugar together and gradually add oil.

Sift flour into another bowl and add the baking powder, bicarb, spices and nuts. Add the grated courgettes and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and spoon into loaf tin.

Bake for about 40 mins. Cool slightly in tin and then turn on to a wire rack.

A nice moist texture, with a good hit of spice. You can see specks of green in the cake, but I don't think people would realise that it's a courgette cake.

Walnut and Orange Cake

This is a nice easy, healthy cake made using a food processor.


I love Claudia Roden's orange cake with whole cooked oranges, but this recipe uses a whole orange, chopped up and not cooked.
We're trying to eat less and lose a bit of weight. I know eating any cake won't help, but at least this one has oil instead of butter and  is a healthier option [or IS it? I'm confused by all the research on butter, oils and fats]
You need a thin skinned orange, a navel if possible, as it has little bitter pith and no seeds - I found some in my local supermarket which were fine. They were sold singly, not in a net.

preheat oven 180C/gas4
grease and base line a 20cm springform cake tin

So, cut 1 orange into quarters and take out any core and pips. Put it in a food processor with 220g of caster sugar, 100 ml olive oil and 2 eggs, then whizz it up till the orange is finely chopped.
Add 135g plain wholemeal flour with 2 tspns of baking powder and 100g ground walnuts and whizz again till just mixed together. Pour into the tin and smooth top.
Bake for 30-35 mins then take out and leave in tin for 5 mins then turn onto a wire rack.
Dust top with icing sugar.
The cake will keep up to 3 days in an airtight tin.

I used ground hazelnuts because I found a bag in the cupboard that needed using up. The cake's very moist and I'm not sure if I like the tiny bits of orange. OH thought the cake wasn't cooked, but I left it in for 45 mins and the tester came out clean. It's an interesting idea, and I'll try it again with the suggested ground walnuts and see what difference it makes, if any.

Walnut Caramel Tart

I’ve made a lot of cakes lately, large and small, and decided I wanted to make a tart. I bought a large bag of walnut halves last week, so decided they were just what I needed. My lovely friend who runs a cake shop gave me a few more of her recipes when we met up recently, and this tart is one of hers.

You can use shop bought short crust pastry or make your own – enough for a 25cm tart tin, so it’s quite a good sized tart. I made 12oz /350g of pastry – that is 350g of flour and 175g of fat, and I used a mixture of sunflower margarine and Trex, but you could use all butter for a very short pastry. This was just the right amount for the tin.

The tart’s made in 2 stages, the baked part with the eggs, sugar, butter and finely chopped walnuts and the topping with the walnut halves topped with caramel. So if you like walnuts, this is the tart for you!

Preheat oven 180C/gas4      You need a 25cm tart tin [with sides at least 2.5 cms]

You beat 2 eggs and 100g of caster sugar together till pale and fluffy using an electric beater or a stand mixer. Add 100g of finely chopped walnuts and 60g of melted butter and gently mix together.

Roll out your pastry to fit the tin and spoon the mixture in.

Bake for about 30 mins till golden

 

For the caramel – melt 150g of caster sugar in a pan till brown then pour in 100ml of very hot crème fraiche and mix. Boil this till it’s not grainy then add 20g of warm melted butter and stir together.

Decorate your tart with 100g of walnut halves and pour over the caramel and leave to set.

Quite a sweet tart with a really nutty flavour. The caramel topping finishes it off.

Apple, Date and Walnut Pudding

These day, I only make puddings when we have friends or family for a meal - they seem to expect it! I wanted to make something tasty, but not stodgy.
 Hunting through my cookery books, I found one I'd bought a few years ago from the famous 'Pudding Club' in 'Three Ways House' in Chipping Camden.
If you've nor heard of this club, it was founded in 1985 to save our great British puddings. At the time, puddings were looked on with horror - much too fattening. So the club meets, eat their main course and then 7 different puddings are brought out and devoured. At the end of the evening, they vote for the best one.

Looking through the book, many of the pudds are very filling ,but I found one that was marked as 'healthy', and it does contain fruit, nuts and honey and very little fat. I suppose with the latest bad press for sugar, 120g would be classed as a lot, so perhaps it wouldn't be classed as 'healthy'! Many of the puddings are steamed, but this one is baked - a bonus for me as I don't have a steamer, and find using a saucepan a faff!

Preheat oven 200C/gas6

I used a 20cm square cake tin, but you could use a 20cm baking dish instead. Make sure you grease it well or the pudding sticks!

You chop up 480g of peeled and cored apples, 60g of walnuts and 120g of stoned dates into little pieces and put in a bowl. Add 120g of wholemeal sr flour, 120g of soft brown sugar and 30g of melted butter, 1 tbpsn of honey and 1 beaten egg. Mix it all together and put into your tin or dish. Bake for 30 mins.

We ate it warm with some creme fraiche and it was very moist, packed with soft apple, but I thought it was rather sweet - this was probably because I used eating apples instead of Bramleys, so I should have reduced the amount of sugar. The crunchy walnuts made a nice contrast to the soft apple. It was filling, but not stodgy. I cut it into 6 pieces, which gave everyone a very generous sized pudding. 

Pear and walnut muffins

 


I still had a couple of pears left in the fruit bowl after making the pear cake, so decided to make some muffins. I played around with my basic muffins recipe and came up with this one - pears and walnuts are 2 of my favourite things.
I usually make muffins in paper cases, but I've noticed that a lot of crumb gets stuck to these, so this time I decided to make them directly in the muffin tin. Although the tin is non-stick, I greased the holes and dredged over a little flour just to make doubly sure the muffins would pop out easily, which they did.




180ml milk
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large egg
225g wholewheat flour or white plain flour if you prefer
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
150g demerara sugar
1 large firm but ripe pear
50g coarsely chopped walnuts
1-2 tbsp demerara sugar for sprinkling


Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas mark 6, and lightly grease and flour a 12 hole muffin tin.

Put the milk, oil and egg in a small mixing bowl and whisk to blend. Set aside.

Remove the cores from the pears, leaving the skin on, then chop the flesh into 1cm pieces. Set aside.

Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl, add the sugar and stir to combine. Now add the chopped pear and walnuts and toss to coat and distribute evenly throughout the mixture.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, pour in the egg mixture and stir until just combined. Do not over mix. Divide the mixture between the muffin cups, sprinkle with the extra sugar, and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave the muffins to cool for ten minutes in the tin before moving them to a cooling rack.

Well, they've cooled off now and I've just tasted one.... The crumb is nice and open, the walnuts give a lovely bit of crunch, and the chunks of pear lend a deliciously sweet and refreshing contrast. I'll certainly make these again. They came out of the tin easily, so I think I'll make them without paper cases in future.

Walnut, raisin and cheese teabread

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 sprinkle over the top of the mixture.
Bake for about 1-11/4 hours till golden.
Cool on a wire rack and serve sliced with some good butter.

The texture and flavour was very good. Not sure if I liked the raisins; maybe I'd use a different fruit next time.
The crunchy topping was a good contrast to the loaf.

Oaty banana muffins

Is it just me, or do bananas ripen more quickly nowadays? I always seen to have a few overripe ones in the fruit bowl. Then, what do do with them? Have made banana muffins before, but not with oats and walnuts.

They're not as 'cakey' tasting as my normal muffin recipe,but are substantial and great with a cuppa! They'd be good for breakfast too.

The recipes makes 12 muffins.

100g oats

200g plain flour

11/2 tspn baking powder

cinnamon to taste [opt]

1 tson bicarb. of soda

little salt

100g light brown sugar

4 ripe bananas

1 large beaten egg

60g melted butter or oil [I used rapeseed]

75g chopped walnuts

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease a 12 hole muffin tin, or line with paper cases.

Put the flour, oats, baking powder, bicarb., salt and sugar in a bowl and mix together. I then mixed in a tbspn of cinnamon as I love it!

Mash up the bananas in another bowl and add the egg, butter or oil and the walnuts. Mix this together and add to the dry ingredients. Mix together gently - don't overmix or the muffins will be hard.

Spoon into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 mins. Cool on a wire rack.

Fruity teabread

Another one of my favourite recipes for teabreads. It's full of juicy fruit that's been soaked in tea and it's spicy too.

375g mixed dried fruit
125g soft brown sugar
150ml hot tea of choice
1 large egg
1 tbspn milk
50g chopped walnuts
225g sr flour
1 tbspn mixed spice

Preheat oven 150C/gas3

Grease and line a 900g/2lb loaf tin.
Put the fruit, sugar and tea in a large bowl and leave to infuse together for about 4 hours or overnight.
Beat the egg and milk together and add to the bowl with the walnuts.
Sift the flour and spice together and fold into the fruit mixture.
Put into the tin and bake for about 50mins to an hour.
Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Can be eaten on its own or with butter.

Apricot and walnut loaf

Yes, another easy loaf!
I'm now trying to use up the contents of my food cupboard. There were a few dried apricots, sultanas and walnuts left, so this was the perfect recipe.

300g plain flour
21/2 tspn baking powder
11/2 tspn mixed spice
90g diced butter
90g soft brown sugar
200g dried apricots
125g sultanas
90g chopped walnuts
210 ml milk
1 beaten egg

Preheat ovem 180C/350F/gas4

Grease a 900g [2lb] loaf tin

Sift flour, spice and baking powder into a bowl and rub in the butter. Add the sugar, fruit and walnuts and mix together.
Add the milk and egg and mix well.
Put into tin and bake for 45-50 mins till golden. Cool on a wire rack.

                                    I didn't have enough apricots so I also added some dried apple.

Courgette and walnut loaf

I love teabreads and loafcakes. This one is quite healthy as it uses wholemeal flour, sunflower oil and nuts. It's one of my Mum's recipes so is in ounces.
recipe:


3 eggs
4fl oz sunflower oil
8oz wholewheat flour
3oz light muscovado sugar
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn bicarb. of soda
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn allspice
5oz grated courgettes
4oz chopped walnuts
2 oz sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas4

Lina a 2lb loaf tin.
Beat eggs and sugar together and gradually add in oil.
Sift flour into another bowl and add the baking powder, bicarb,spices and nuts. Add the courgettes and mix well.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and spoon into loaf tin.
Bake for about 40 mins. Cool slightly in tin and then turn on to a wire rack.