Eats/Reads

113 g butter or margarine 1 cup sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 3/4 cup milk 1 1/4 cup flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 cup cocoa pinch of salt Preheat oven (fan) to 175 C Beat butter/marg in large bowl with mixer. Add sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, and milk. Mix well. Sift in dry ingredients. Fold wet and dry ingredients together with rubber spatula. Grease a loaf tin. Bake for 45-60 mins.

180g self-raising flour (or flour plus 1 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt) 180g caster sugar (or half/half with brown sugar) 60g cocoa powder 1 tsp to 1 Tbsp instant coffee dissolved in small amount of water (optional) 1 tsp cinnamon (optional) 100ml vegetable oil 200ml soya milk 1 tsp vanilla extract 50g chopped nuts (optional) Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/ 180°C (fan) Grease an 18x24cm tray or similar and line with greaseproof paper Sieve flour, cocoa, cinnamon, and sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl Measure soya milk, vegetable oil, coffee, and vanilla extract into a jug Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients in a steady stream and mix together Scrape out the gooey mix into your prepared tin Chop up the nuts or other topping and sprinkle them over the top Bake for 15 minutes until the edges are firm but the centre is still molten Leave to cool completely in the tray and then cut into 6 or 8 pieces, depending on how generous you are feeling. (recipe fro...

This is a recipe from the Katie Morag books - I recently read all of them to my 3-year-old. This is a great recipe to make with kids as it's easy and not too messy, and no eggs so they can taste it all. These are really yummy and more-ish - they are essentially flapjacks or chewy oatmeal squares. In the back of my mind I want to try to make a slightly healthier version... when I get the time. 100g / 4oz butter 75g / 3oz soft brown sugar 30ml / 2 tablespoons golden syrup (or light corn syrup) 200g / 8oz rolled oats (porridge oats) pinch of salt Melt butter in a large pan over a low heat. Add sugar and syrup and salt. Mix well. Stir in rolled oats. Mix very well. Spread mixture evenly in tray with palette knife. Bake at 160C fan for 25-35 minutes, until golden brown. Take out of oven. Let cool. Cut into squares and store in airtight container.

Here's another vanilla pudding recipe I tried, as part of my ongoing effort to use up milk. It had more steps than ' vanilla pudding I ' and the texture wasn't as good: it was a lot runnier, it was only slightly thicker than milk. I think I didn't cook it long enough at the end - with pudding I, cooking an extra five minutes is what thickened it up. I may try this again, and cook it longer, and see how it turns out. 3 1/2 cups milk 1/3 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated white sugar 1/4 cup cornstarch 1/8 teaspoon salt 2 large eggs 1 large egg yolk 2 teaspoons pure vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract 1 tablespoon unsalted butter In a large stainless steel (or heatproof) bowl whisk together 1/3 cup sugar, cornstarch, salt, eggs, and egg yolk. Whisk in 1/2 cup of the milk. Set aside while you heat the rest of the milk and sugar. Have ready a fine medium-sized strainer and bowl as you will need to strain the pudding after it is cooked. First, rinse a medium-sized...

In an effort to use up milk, I began searching for a good vanilla pudding recipe (in the American sense of that word). This one was nice, if a little sweet. And it was pretty runny - nice served over fruit or with cake but not gelatinous enough to be served on its own. 3 cups milk 1/4 cup cornstarch 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract Scald 2 2/3 cups of the milk. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch, sugar and salt; stir in remaining 1/3 cup milk. Add the milk/cornstarch mixture to scalded milk and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and smooth. Continue cooking vanilla pudding for about 5 minutes to thoroughly cook cornstarch. Serve warm or cool. It will thicken more as it cools.

SWC wanted coffee cake for his birthday so I cracked open the wonderful, ' Classic Home Desserts ' by Richard Sax cookbook and made the Quintessential Coffee Cake. It's not what I think of as coffee cake - I think of a white, fluffy, moist cake with thick brown streusel on top. This cake was made with brown sugar so was more molasses-y. And I messed up the streusel by putting the sugar-butter-flour mixture in the food processor, so when I put it on the cake, instead of nice little buttery-sugary chunks, it was like dusting the cake with flour. Yuck! I saved it by applying copious quantities of butter and sugar to the top of the cake about 5 mins before it was done baking. So the result was nice. A very moist, soft cake. The topping was crunchy and sweet enough, with no flour chunks - a decent save. But next time: do the butter cutting with knives and make sure the streusel is chunky before applying to cake. Also may want to investigate other coffee cake recipes in order to ...

It's Christmastime and though I haven't had much time to bake, I did find a few minutes after decorating the tree to make a batch of these molasses crinkles. These are the best cookies - chewy, sweet, gingery. I've made them for cookie exchanges, for colleagues, for friends, for Friday night poker games - and they are always a hit. I get asked for the recipe more often than anything else I bake or cook. It's an old family recipe, adapted here by sister Liz (baker and chef extraordinaire). The original called for Crisco (ewww) and less ginger, revealing its Midwestern roots. If you like ginger, you can add some diced-up crystallised ginger (mix it in with the wet ingredients right before you add the flour). But for first-timers I suggest you enjoy them in their 'classic' state. 5 Tbsp butter 1/4 cup canola oil 1/2 c white sugar 1/2 c brown sugar 1 egg 4 Tbsp molasses (I use blackstrap) 2 cups flour 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp nutmeg Ex...