Honey and Coconut Cake

I had some dessicated coconut in the cupboard, so decided to make another cake. I also had a lovely pot of local honey bought in a recent farmer's market, so would use this too. I found a lot of recipes online for a honey cake, but they weren't exactly what I wanted.
This recipe is a mixture of bits of several recipes I've used before.

Grease and line a 200g loaf tin.
Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Beat 125g butter with 100g brown sugar till nice and creamy; then add 2 beaten eggs, 1 tspn vanilla extract and 60ml honey. Add 25g dessicated coconut and mix in. Fold in 250g sr flour, 1 tspn nutmeg, 1/2 tspn cinnamon and 1/4 tspn allspice. Stir in 125ml milk and mix gently till smooth.
Pour into the tin and bake for 30 mins. Leave in tin for 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack.

Cream cheese and honey icing:

Read More

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. 

Read More

Pain d'Epices au Miel - Honey Gingerbread.

I was inspired by a recent post on the excellent Strong as Soup blog          http://asstrongassoup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/black-sticky-gingerbread-random-recipe.html  to look for a recipe my neighbour gave me for a gingerbread made with honey. This is a very different gingerbread from the dark moist one on Phil's blog.
The method is unusual in that you put the dry ingredients into a bowl, then heat the honey and pour it over.
It's got a good spicy flavour and as Phil said in his post, gingerbread is great for taking on an Autumn walk, or with your afternoon cuppa, or even as a dessert with some custard.
The original French recipe used 'quatre epices' but I don't think there's much difference between that and our mixed spice, and I found some ground aniseed in a local deli, but you could leave it out if you don't like it.

250g runny honey
250g plain flour
100g caster sugar
1 tspn baking powder
1 tbspn vanilla sugar
1 tspn ground aniseed
1 tspn grated nutmeg
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn ginger
1 tspn mixed spice
2 eggs
10cl of warm milk

Preheat oven.160C/gas3

Put the flour, baking powder,sugars and spices in a bowl.
Heat the honey in a microwave or in a saucepan then pour the hot honey over the flour mixture.
Mix together with a wooden spoon then add the eggs a little at a time, then the warm milk and mix together.
Grease and flour a 900g loaf tin then pour the mixture in and bake for 1 to 1hr 15mins till golden.
Leave to cool in the tin and wait 24 hours before eating.

This cake keeps well, up to a week, if you wrap it in foil, so a useful standby for Christmas. Maybe a little cinnamon or ginger icing would make it look more festive? But with this cake, it's all about the flavour - spicy with a lovely honey flavour too.

Read More

Spicy Christmas Trees

We have a houseful for Christmas this year, including 2 lovely people from Poland, so thought I'd try out a few family biscuit recipes from the French friend I mentioned recently. The first one is spiced Christmas trees.
G's paternal family live in Alsace, so she's grown up with the lovely spicy biscuits and bakes they make at Christmas. I'm going to try out a few and have my grandsons help me, and then they can choose their favourites [as they're going to be here for Christmas anyway].
My daughter and dog came up for the weekend, so we roped her into helping us. She loves decorating cakes and biscuits, so she helped the boys with their trees, and the photo is of her creations. The boys didn't want their efforts put on here, so they ate them!
I expect every family in Alsace has their own recipe for Christmas biscuits, but this is the translated Ruff family one, but the decoration is the boys' idea - they wanted garlands on the trees and baubles!


100g butter at room temperature
85g soft brown sugar
250g plain flour
125g honey [I used some local honey, not the runny sort]
1 tbspn rum [opt]
1 tspn lemon zest
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn ginger
1 tspn cinnamon
2 pinches of salt
To decorate - icing sugar and silver balls.

Preheat oven 180C/gas4        Grease and flour a baking sheet.

 Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the honey, lemon zest and rum.
Beat well together.
Add the spices, baking powder and salt to the flour, then mix gently into the batter to get a nice dough.
Make into a ball and cover in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 2-4 hrs.
Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface as thinly as possible. Use a Christmas tree cutter to cut out shapes and put onto the baking tray.
Bake for 8-10 mins till lightly golden and cool on a wire rack.
Make up some thickish glace icing then pipe garlands on the cooled trees. Decorate with the silver balls to look like baubles.

 You could cut the biscuits out with any Christmas cutters and decorate them as you like. It's a good basic spiced biscuit to have in your repertoire.

Read More

Honey and Cinnamon Cheesecake

We're going to have a quiet Easter this year, just the 2 of us on Easter Sunday, but we had friends coming on Good Friday. I'd made  Hot Cross Buns, but wanted to make a nice dessert to have after the fish pie.
I fancied a cheesecake, but a baked one, and looked in my books and online for inspiration.
I found this recipe, and as we love honey and I adore cinnamon, it was just the thing.
It was on an Australian blog, in cups, so I've changed the measures and adapted the recipe to suit our tastes. It uses cottage cheese and cream cheese and I wasn't sure about this, but it tasted delicious. It's an unusual cheesecake in that it has a pastry base - so is it a cheesecake? Well, seeing how much cheese is in it, I think so!

pastry:
225g plain flour
125g cold butter, chopped up
55g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tbspn finely grated lemon rind
about 3 tspns cold water

Filling:
250g cottage cheese
250g cream cheese
265g honey
110g caster sugar
2 tspns cinnamon [or more!]
4 eggs

grease a 22cm springform tin.

preheat oven to 200C/gas6

Rub butter into flour; add egg yolk, sugar, rind and enough water to make a dough.
Wrap in clingfilm and put in fridge for 1/2 hour.
I rolled the pastry out between 2 sheets of clingfilm, as I find this easier. Lift the pastry into the tin, and again put in fridge for 1/2 hour.
Cover pastry with foil or baking parchment and beans and bake for about 10 mins, then take beans and paper out and bake for further 10 mins or till it's light brown. Take out and leave on the side.
Turn oven down to 160C/gas 3
Filling - beat the cheeses, honey, sugar and cinnamon with electric mixer till nearly smooth, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each one.
Pour into pastry case and bake for about 11/2 hours or till filling is firm. Leave to cool, then put in fridge overnight.
When you're ready to serve, drizzle with a little honey.

Everyone enjoyed this. Nice contrast between the pastry and the soft filling, and the flavours of the honey and cinnamon together was delicious. It's very rich, but not too sweet for our taste.An unusual cheesecake, but one I'd certainly make again.

Read More

Israeli Date and Pecan Cake

This month's challenge from Alpha Bakes is a hard one - baking something beginning with letter I . Lots of recipes begin with 'iced ....... ' but I wanted to find something different.
I borrowed a book from the library called 'Cakes, Tortes and Gateaux'  - it has no author, and I found a recipe for an Israeli cake. I love cakes with nuts and I like dates, so had to give it a try. I changed a few things in the recipe, and had to convert it to grams. It worked out really well, and is full of good things.

2 eggs
180ml honey
150ml buttermilk
1 tspn vanilla essence
3 mashed bananas
300g sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
100g soft brown sugar
2 tbspn cocoa
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn allspice
pinch salt
125g butter
150g chopped dates
125g chopped pecans
2 tbspns honey for top of cake

Preheat oven 180C/gas4
grease a 23cm springform tin

Beat together the eggs, honey, buttermilk and vanilla essence, then add the bananas.
Keep 2 tbspn of the flour, then put the rest with the baking powder, sugar, cocoa, spices and salt in another bowl and add the egg mixture. Mix together gently with an electric beater or stand mixer, then add the butter and beat till smooth. Takes about 4 mins.
Mix the 2 tbspn flour with the dates and pecans and fold these into the mixture.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 1 hr and 20 mins.
Heat the 2 tbspn of honey and brush over the cake, then leave it to cool.

It's a lovely nutty cake, not too sweet, and it also keeps very well in an airtight tin. We had it as a dessert with some creme fraiche, but ice cream would be good too. It's full of flavour and is moist, but not too soft. You can really taste the dates and pecans. I expected it to be like a sticky toffee pudding, but it wasn't.

Alpha Bakes is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker blog and Caroline of Caroline Makes blog. This month Caroline is hosting, the letter is I and you can find out more about the challenge here .

Read More

Pecan and Honey Loaf

I still have some pecans to use up from the bag I bought a while ago from the sadly- no- longer Julian Graves shop. I love making loaf cakes, so this is my variation on a recipe that had walnuts in it. Had a pot of local honey in the cupboard which needed using up, so added 1 tbspn to the cake mixture and also put 1 tbspn in the icing.

190g butter
190g caster sugar
190g plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
3 eggs
1 tspn vanilla essence
1 tbspn runny honey
60g chopped nuts - pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts

Icing - icing sugar, lemon juice and 1 tbspn of honey - depends how thick you want your icing to be  as to how much icing sugar and lemon juice you use!

Preheat oven 170C/gas 3
Grease a 900g loaf tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer till white and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, and beat well after each one.

Fold in the flour gently, a bit at a time.
Add the vanilla and 1 tbspn of honey, then mix in the chopped nuts by hand.
Spoon into the tin and bake for about an hour, till risen and golden.
Cool on a wire rack, and when cold, spoon over some icing made with icing sugar, lemon juice and the other tbspn of honey.

Lovely subtle honey flavour in the background, enhanced by the icing. Good texture, moist, and think I prefer pecans to walnuts. A useful recipe to have, as it can be played around with to give new flavours.

Read More

Honey and nut cookies

Now that my son is living at home, we seem to get through an awful lot of biscuits and cakes. I thought I'd start to make my own biscuits/cookies to fill the biscuit tin, so at least I know what's in them. I love most  American cookies as well as lots of great British favourites like digestives, shortbread, bourbon etc. so thought that in the next few weeks I'd bake a mixture.

With cookies, once you've found a good basic recipe, you can adapt it in many ways. When we lived in the US, my lovely neighbour gave me lots of her family recipes, including a basic one for cookies. This is it, adapted to UK measures and ingredients.

Oven 190C/375F/gas5. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchent paper or a silicone sheet.

Basic recipe

225g soft butter

140g caster sugar
1 beaten egg yolk

2 tspn vanilla extract

280g plain flour
pinch salt

Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl with a wooden spoon, then beat in egg yolk and vanilla essence. Stir in the flour and salt. Mix together to make a ball of dough.
Now you can either make the dough into a sausage shape and wrap in clingfilm and chillfor 30 mins or so, or roll out dough and cut into shapes. Bake on the baking sheet  for 12-15 mins till golden.

This is the basis for lots of other variations. I've tried and tested many over the years, and this is one of our favourites.

Honey and nut cookies

Basic ingredients as above plus:
40g cashew nuts [not salted], macadamia nuts or pine kernels, chopped
75g more butter
85g of a set [not runny] honey
85g icing sugar

2 baking sheets prepared as above.

Make the dough as above and from it take out tablspoons of the mixture and roll into small balls.
Put half of these on a prepared baking sheet and flatten a bit. Space out well.
Spread the nuts out in a shallow dish and dip one side of the rest of the balls into the nuts. Put these on another baking sheet, nut side up and space out well.
Bake at 190C/gas5 for 10-15 mins till a light golden colour. Leave to cool on sheet for about 10 mins then put on a wire rack.
Beat the 75g butter with the icing sugar and honey till nice and creamy.
Spread this over the plain cookies and put the nut one on top.
A nice treat to have with a cuppa; the honey buttercream has a lovely flavour.

Read More

Honey and almond tart

Honey and almonds are 2 of my favourite flavours, so both in the same recipe makes it a 'must bake'. The 2 flavours make me think of a trip we had to Morocco and Moorish baking, which I love.

The base is shortcrust pastry and I use double Delia's recipe from her 'Complete Cookery Course' so I use  220g plain flour, 50g each of soft butter and lard, a pinch of salt and enough water to bind together. This makes 250g pastry.

You also need:

150g apricot puree [I used apricot preserve]
125g butter
50g caster sugar
75g honey
3 eggs + little beaten egg
50g ground almonds
100g sr flour

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease a 35x12cm loose base tart tin [I bought one from Lakeland].

Roll pastry out on floured surface and line the tart tin.

Spread a layer of apricot puree/preserve over the pastry - it's easier if you use the back of a spoon.
Cream the butter, sugar, honey and eggs together, then add the ground almonds and flour and mix gently.
Spoon into the pastry case and smooth the top.

Bake in centre of oven for about 30 mins, then lower temperature to 160C/gas 3 and cook for another 20 mins till golden.

My friend served it with cream to which she'd added a few drops of almond essence and a little bit of honey - heavenly!

Read More

Spelt and honey cakes

I've started making bread again and trying different flours. I bought some spelt last week and made a lovely loaf with it. I had some left, so made some of these little cakes for my friend, who came to have a cuppa with me yesterday. The recipe was on my bag of flour.

175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
150g spelt flour
pinch of salt
1 tspn baking powder
25g cornflour
3 tbspn milk
10tbspn honey, warmed
25g hazelnuts or pistachios, chopped

Preheat oven 180C/gas4
Grease 10 - 12 small rectangular tins, a 12 hole 'financier' tin [I bought mine in France] or a 12 hole muffin tin.

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs slowly, beating between each addition.
Fold in the spelt flour, the salt and the cornflour. Add the milk and mix till smooth.
Divide into the tins and bake for 20 mins, till golden and firm.
When cool, drizzle each cake with a tbspn of warm honey and sprinkle with the nuts.

You can make a loaf cake in a 900g tin instead of small cakes. The spelt give the cakes a slight nutty taste which goes well with the nuts in the topping. There are so many types of honey to choose from; I used a heather honey from my local farm shop. I'll certainly make this recipe again, but as a large cake. Another quick and easy cake to make.

Read More

Honey cake

Honey cakes are supposed to be some of the oldest cakes in history. It's not something I've ever made, so wanted to try this recipe, from an old cookery book called 'The complete book of baking' inherited from Mum. The recipe says that it's best made a week before you need it! It also uses rye flour, which I couldn't find in my local supermarket, but did find in Waitrose. No fat or sugar in the cake so it must be good for you!!

175ml honey - acacia if possible
3 eggs, beaten
300g rye flour
1 tspn cinnamon
120g ground almonds or hazelnuts
2 tbspn dark run [opt]
1/2 tspn bicarb. of soda
1 tbspn milk
almond halves to decorate

Preheat oven 175C/gas 4
Grease a deep 30x20 tin [12x8"]

Warm the honey in the jar in a pan of hot water then pour into a bowl and whisk till frothy and thick.
Beat in the eggs and gradually add the flour.
Mix the spices and nuts together and stir in the rum [if using] and add to the honey and egg mixture.
Dissolve the bicarb. into the milk and beat into the mixture.
Leave bowl covered overnight - it makes a lighter cake [?].
Spoon into the tin and arrange the almonds on the top.
Bake for 30 - 35 mins - cover top if it's getting too brown as it will taste bitter.
Cool in the tin and cut into pieces. Store for a week in an airtight tin before eating!

I made this cake last week, and we tried a piece with our cuppa as soon as it cooled. Lovely honey flavour but not really any taste of the rum. Tried a piece again yesterday, a week later as the recipe suggested, and the flavour has really changed and the rum flavour is pleasant but not strong. Perhaps you could use juice instead of the rum - will try it out. The cake has a nice texture, moist, and the nuts add another dimension to the flavour. A good cake and one I'll make again, with some slight changes.

Read More

Low fat raisin and honey loaf

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.

Read More

Honey, raisin and carrot cake

As part of our 'trying to lose weight', I thought I'd make a healthier cake! Sounds logical to me! At the end, I decided to ice it with orange flavoured glace icing - not so healthy!
The original recipe is from an old copy of 'Woman's Weekly' magazine, but I've adapted it several times, so I think of it as my recipe now!

3 medium carrots
85g raisins
85g honey
1 tspn vanilla essence
3 eggs
125ml rapeseed oil [or any vegetable oil]
125g sr flour
125g wholemeal sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
1 heaped tspn cinnamon - if you like it, as I do!
25g soft brown sugar
2-3 tbspn milk

heat oven to 170C/325F/gas4

Grease and base line a 20cm springform cake tin.
Grate the carrots - not too finely.
Put the eggs, honey, vanilla and oil in a bowl and beat together.
Then put the flours, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar in another bowl and mix them together.
Add the flour mixture to the egg one and mix it all together well.
Stir in the carrots and raisins and add some milk to make it a nice soft mixture.
Put into the tin and bake for 45-50 mins, middle shelf.

I just mixed the icing sugar with some orange juice to make a thickish icing.

              The cake has a nice cinnamon flavour - not too much, just there in the background.

Read More

Honey and caramel slices

Another chance to use my Wilton traybake tin!

My dil asked me to make something for her friends to have with a cuppa. I fancied making something decadent, ok then, calorific, and adapted this recipe from an Aussie woman's magazine. Had also bought a jar of local honey from a lovely local garden centre, which has a shop selling all kinds of goodies. 
Makes about 20 slices, depending on how big you cut them!

Base:
200g butter, diced
310g plain flour
115g caster sugar
2 egg yolks

Topping:
2 x 400g tins condensed milk
100g butter, diced
115g honey

preheat oven 180C/350F/gas4
Lightly grease a baking tin 28x18 cm and line with baking parchment.

For the base:
Put everything into a food processor except for the egg yolks and blitz till like breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks and about 2 tbspns cold water and blitz again to make a pastry ball.
Cut the pastry in half and roll out one half to fit in the base of the tin. Bake it for 12-15 mins till golden and firm when you touch it.
Wrap the other half of the pastry in clingfilm and put it in the fridge to get cold.

For the filling:
Mix the condensed milk and butter in a solid-based pan and melt the butter over a gentle heat.
Then on a medium heat let the mixture thicken for 5-8 mins, stirring all the time.
Take off the heat and add the honey. Mix together well and leave to cool.
Spread it out onto the pastry base.
Grate the rest of the pastry over the top of the caramel mixture then bake for 20-30 mins till the cake is golden coloured.
Let it cool in the tin before cutting it into slices.

Read More