This cake is a great way to use up leftover pumpkin from Halloween Jack o’lanterns, but also benefits from more flavoursome eating squashes. Makes two loaf cakes, two stacked cakes or one large cake Ingredients 350g pumpkin / squash puree 150g wholemeal flour 100g self-raising white flour 1 teaspoon baking powder Pinch of salt 1.5…
Category: Cakes and sweet bakes
Spiced cider-poached pears
Ingredients 1L cider 5 hard pears – comice or Williams 100g sugar 5 cloves 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely sliced 5 cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed 1 cinnamon stick 1 orange, zest and juice 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out Method Heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Put the cider in a saucepan…
‘Strawberry Surprise’ biscuits
Made up on the hoof at a Sunny’s Kitchen community lunch, the surprise of the title was whether these were going to be edible…They were intended to be shortbread, but I messed the recipe up and had to doctor it as I went along. They turned out well enough for the recipe to be requested…
Chocolate ginger breadcrumb trifle
In the UK, we throw away 24 million slices of bread per day. And yet supermarkets still sell pre-made breadcrumbs! What is happening? Whizz your leftover loaf into breadcrumbs and freeze them so they’re always on hand for coating fish or chicken; sprinkling over mac n’ cheese for crunch; adding to veggie burgers and crab cakes; making…
Chocolate ginger breadcrumb biscuits
Our sliced bread tapers off into tiny end slices, all crust and not worth bothering with. Rather than waste them, we put these ends into a bag in the freezer, and when we have enough they get whizzed into breadcrumbs in the food processor and frozen. Handy as it is to have breadcrumbs available all…
Blackberry Beremeal Bannocks
Bannocks have owned their central spot on the traditional Scottish table for millennia – plain bannocks spread with butter and cheese for lunch, or sweetened for special occasions like the fruity, leavened Selkirk bannock. The two are different feasts with roots in the same place – the rounded, quick to knock up, girdle-cooked beremeal bannock,…
Low sugar chocolate chip oat biscuits
I had a hankering for chocolately oat/digestive biscuits, and I’m now struggling to keep my hands off these. Fortunately there’s only a tablespoon of sugar in the whole lot, so they’re a perfectly reasonable snack that I predict are going to be made pretty regularly. Dark chocolate makes them taste more grown up and,…
Banana pancakes
These have been made too frequently in the short time since I remembered about them; I’m almost sick of them already. Almost. Our local greengrocer has a box of squashy cut-price bananas which I raid almost daily to use in kefir smoothies, banana ice cream (i.e. frozen bananas chucked in the blender) and porridge; they’re…
Chai, date and honey loaf cake
This is entirely because my much loved pot of chai spice mix suggests adding it to cakes. Tremendous idea. This low-sugar loaf cake is light as air; quick and simple to make; wonderful with a cup of tea and its grown-up flavour still passed the toddler test. Freezes well, cuts into 10-12 slices Ingredients 3 tablespoons honey 200g unsalted butter…
Learn to Cook: apple crumble
Serves 6 Ingredients 800g apples (about 5) of any variety about 60g brown sugar: demerara, soft brown or golden caster are all fine (use less sugar if your apples are already sweet) juice of 1/2 lemon For the crumble: 350g plain flour 100g brown sugar 250g cold butter To finish: 1 tablespoon brown sugar 2 tablespoons…
Elderberry and coconut lemon drizzle polenta cake
As a fairweather forager, elderberries are one of the few things I can pick each year that I’m confident won’t kill anyone. Even then, the stems are toxic, thus making the hours it takes to get rid of as many of the tiny stalks as possible a necessity. Use a fork to strip off the berries, and…
Sugar-free carrot and date loaf cake
If you’re planning to freeze any of the loaf, you can spread the ‘icing’ on your slice like jam. As this isn’t super-sweet, it makes an excellent breakfast or afternoon tea with a cuppa. Ingredients 200g carrots, grated (about 2 medium carrots) 1 apple 150g dates 75g raisins 75g walnuts, chopped small (optional, only for babies over 1)…
Time to Cook 