Ginger and Apricot Loaf

Another one of my favourite loaf cake recipes. This one uses stem ginger to give a better flavour than ground ginger. I've found a similar shop to the much missed [by me anyway] Julian Graves stores, so I stocked up on walnuts and dried fruit, including apricots. This such a quick loaf to make, and you can chose whether to ice it or not. I think the recipe is a WI one, as my mil gave it to me, and she usually used their recipes.

Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 900g loaf tin.

In a large bowl put 115g wholemeal flour, 115g plain flour, 11/2tspns baking powder, 150g soft brown sugar, 115g soft butter, pinch salt, 2 beaten eggs, zest of a lemon and 2 tbspns of milk - beat it all together with an electric hand mixer. Stir in 175g chopped dried apricots [the no soak ones] and add 3 pieces of stem ginger chopped finely together with 4 tbspns of the ginger syrup. Finely slice a 4th piece of ginger and keep for the top.
Spoon mixture into the tin, level, then arrange the 4th piece of ginger down the centre of the top.
Bake for about 1 hr or so. Mine took 75 mins, and I had to cover the top with some foil, as it was getting too brown.
Leave in tin for about 15mins then turn onto a wire rack.
I decorated the top when cool with some lemon glace icing [I used 115g icing sugar with about 1 tbspn of lemon juice].

A nice treat with a cuppa  - a lovely subtle ginger flavour and a bite from the apricots. A good combination of flavours.

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.

Welcome to my blog

Hello and welcome to my blog. I'm a keen cook who loves baking and who has way too many cookery books! Don't we all?

I started this blog to encourage myself to cook at least one recipe from all these books, so hope you'll enjoy sharing some of these recipes with me.

Thought I'd start with one of my favourite recipes - a bit of a cheat as I've done it many times before. It's from our lovely Delia's site and is her easy wholemeal bread.

The reason I love this recipe is that there is no kneading - which is a chore. Mind you, when I was teaching, I used to take all my frustrations out on the bread dough while kneading, instead of on the little dears at school! The resulting bread was very good too!

This recipes makes 1 large [as above] or 2 small loaves.

570g wholemeal flour

400ml handhot water

2 teaspoons salt [I use fine sea salt]

1 teaspoon soft brown sugar

2 teaspoons easy- blend dried yeast [1 packet]

Put your flour into a bowl, sprinkle in the salt, sugar and yeast.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the hand-hot water [ use half cold and half boiling water and this gives the right temperature].

Mix the liquid into the flour with a wooden spoon.

If the dough seems a bit dry, add some more hand-hot water; it's better to have too much water than not enough. The dough should leave the bowl clean.

On a flat surface, stretch the dough out into an oblong shape, then fold one end into the centre and the other edge over that. That's all there is to it - no kneading.

Put the folded dough into a 2lb [900] loaf tin or 2x1lb[450g] tins and press firmly round the edges.

Sprinkle the top of the dough with flour and cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise.

Preheat oven to gas 6/400F/200C.

When the dough has risen to the top of the tin/tins bake it for about 40 minutes. When it's cooked it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

Allow it to cool on a wire rack and then enjoy.