Baking

• Cookies

• Absurdly Easy Chocolate

• Black Forest Gateau

• Tiramisu

• Dad's Brown Bread

Cookies

This cookie recipe can be adapted to suit pretty much any flavour. The dough should be rather stiff and dry - this is good, as the drier it is the crisper the cookies will be - Paula

Makes ~36 cookies

3 oz butter softened

3 oz caster sugar

3 oz brown sugar (I use Demerara)

1 large egg

6 oz self-rising flour

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

Flavouring of choice (see below)

Preheat oven to 190C. Line a baking tin with baking parchment or well greased greaseproof paper.

Cream together the butter and sugars till well mixed. Add the egg to the mixture and sift in the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well. The mix should be rather stiff and dry at this stage. Add the flavouring of your choice and mix again. Drop teaspoon full amounts of dough onto the baking sheet and bake for 10-13 mins till golden. Allow to cool on the tin for 1 min before removing to a wire rack (the one from the grill pan will do fine if you have nothing else - just make sure it's clean) Allow the biscuits to cool fully before packing into an airtight container for storage (if you haven't eaten them all at this stage.

Chocolate - Add 1 tblsp cocoa powder and 1 tblsp drinking powder to the flour

Chocolate chip - add 4 oz chocolate chips (same for any other type of "chips" - I have used butterscotch chips, peanut butter chips and baby M&M's which I got in the US)

Chocolate chip with nuts - add 2 oz each chocolate chips and chopped nuts

Lemon - Add juice of ½ and rind of 1 lemon

Lime and white chocolate - Add rind and juice of 1 lime and 4 oz white chocolate chips

Rum and raising - Soak 3 oz raisins in 2 tblsp warmed rum for at least 1 hour before adding to mixture

Vanilla - Add a few drops of vanilla essence and/or replace the caster sugar with vanilla sugar. To make vanilla sugar place 2 vanilla pods in a bag/box of caster sugar and leave sit for at least 1 week before using.

The variations are endless. It's up to you to decide what your favourites are. Always remember though, the end mixture should be quite dry.

Absurdly Easy Chocolate

Not only is this recipe easy, it also happens to be vegan (no animal products

used). Cake Courtesy of Tom Boutell - Waider

1 ½ cup flour

1 cup sugar

3 tbsp cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

½ tbsp salt

6 t tbsp oil

1 tbsp vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup cold water

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients. Stir until smooth. Bake at 350

degrees for 40 minutes.

Eat.

Black Forest Gateau

Originally from "Nan Nestor". It has since been modified and taken on a distinctly Coleman character. Thanks to Mum for the good tips on "The Science of making Sponge". Basically (I'll get my notes later) - James

6 eggs

6oz caster sugar

6oz flour & cocoa/coco mix

75/100ml water (recommendation from Brenda Costigan's book)

Black cherries or grapes

cherry/cranberry/blackcurrant/apple juice

kirsch/red jamacian rum/bacardi/sherry/wine/cider?

Whipped cream.

Grated chocolate.

Turn on the damn oven. 180 degrees. (I keep on forgetting to do this at this stage.)

Separate the yolks from the whites.

Mix the yolks, sugar, flour & cocoa and water and beat (with a whisk). Really beat the ____ out of it. Get it nice and creamy. When you rub a finger in it and it holds the streak for just a second you're done. (thanks Mum)

Now beat up the egg whites until they're stiff. Fold the eggwhites gently into the other mix and transfer to the baking trays. Into the oven rapido super quick but treat the sponge gently.

Be paranoid and don't open the oven too soon. Don't BANG the oven door - the sponge doesn't like it.

It could be done in 20 minutes, but for 6:6:6 IN TWO BREAD-LOAF TINS it took 35/40 minutes to bake. Less time if the sponge is split into smaller/flatter cakes.

Slice a knife into the sponge. If it comes out clean it's done.

Assembly of Black Forest Gateau:

Seed the grapes and stone the cherries. Mmmmm. Lick each one. (just kidding!) Nice juice :-P''''

Chop the sponge in three thin slices.

Lay the bottom slice on the tray the cake will be served on. This tray is best flat, without edges. (edges interfere with slicing and attachment of grated chocolate).

Pour juice and kirsch/red jamacian rum/bacardi on the sponge. I like to get it really moist ... but this makes sure the slices will never be able to stand up by themselves.

Lay out grapes/cherries on top of the sponge.

Spread a thin layer of cream on top to help the next layer stick.

Lay the next layer of sponge on top of this, soak with juice, pile with grapes and spread with cream as before.

Repeat again but don't put any cream right on the top. If you want to be really fancy heat some juice and thicken it with some cornflour or arrowroot. Pour this syrup on top to make the cherries really Shiny.

The compulsory ASCII barfic diagram:

____________________________ -syrup on top for shine (usually omitted)

cCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCc -layer of cherries only (grapes okay too)

cCSSJSSJSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSCc

cCSSJSSJSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSCc

cCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCc -layer of cream

cCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCc -layer of grapes/cherries

cCSSJSSJSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSCc -layer of juice/rum-soaked sponge

cCSSJSSJSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSCc

cCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCc

cCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCGCc

cCSSJSSJSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSCc

cCSSJSSJSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSSJSCc

-------------------------------------------

Cream (C) is slathered around the outside.

Grated chocolate (c) is stuck to that all around the edge.

Tiramisu

No! put me down! roughly translated from the Italian as "Pick me up" - "Tira mi su" due to the caffeine and alcohol content :) Full credit for this excellent dish must go to Lucia and the Italian nation in general - James

Strong coffee (~2 bowls made with a heaped spoon (table) of coffee)

~80g siucra (that'd be sugar)

Finger biscuits/Sponge trifle 200g, 2pkts

Cocoa powder

2 eggs - 2yolks, 1white used

Mascarpone cheese 1pk

2 spoon bacardi rum

Mix siucra and 2 yolks. Beat really hard + for long time until it goes a light colour. Your arm should be falling off now, don't worry >;) there's more beating to come. Add mascarpone and bacardi and mix in.

Beat egg-white hard (again! :( ) until stiff. Have fun persuading your fork to stand up! - If it doesn't say 'ahhh - this forks too thin' and give up :).

Mix above mixtures together to give you some creamy gunk. N.B. fold gently together, do NOT beat.

Mix big spoon of coffee with a bowl of boiling water. Don't SCALD yourself! We don't want any dead flesh in this dish, it's meant to be Vegetarian remember! (not that I can see anything vegtablike about coffee, cake, cheese, eggs, sugar or bacardi!)

Soak each biscuit in the coffee before layering in bottom of dish. Again: don't scald! Only a silly person :) would also dunk their fingers into the boiling coffee! :O if you're using the cake you'd better skip this pre-soak, you don't really want it to disintegrate before it gets to the intended bowl.

When you have a layer use more coffee to soak biscuits/cake thoroughly - they should be squishy to touch (ugh!). Now cover this layer with about half the creamy gunk and smooth it out.

After another layer of soaked biscuits and cream leave in the fridge to recover a while. Sprinkle with the cocoa sometime.

Force yourself and some hapless friends to eat the horrible stuff! :)

The compulsory ASCII barfic diagram:

|_________________________| -sprinkling of coco on top

|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|

|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC| -layer of creamy gunk

|BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB|

|BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB| -layer of coffee-soaked biscuits

|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|

|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|

|BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB|

|BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB|

+------------------------------------+

Dad's Brown Bread

This recipe is actually courtesy of my Dad. It is one of the easiest bread recipes to make, and the results are wonderful. It freezes really well too, so instead of actually making it myself I take the lazy option and just raid the freezer most times I'm home - Paula

Makes 4 loaves

Preparation time: 75 mins

4 oz bran

4 oz kibbled wheat (optional)

12 oz plain white flour (sieved)

2 lb brown flour (stoneground)

3 tsp salt (level tsps)

3 tsp bread Soda (heaped tsps)

1 tbsp black molasses or brown sugar (heaped tbsp)

3 pts buttermilk (less if not using kibbled wheat or if required drier)

Sesame seeds (optional)

Mix all ingredients (except sesame seeds) together in a food mixer. Put into four two-pound bread tins. Sprinkle top of mixture with sesame seeds if using and level off.

Place in oven and bake for 15min @ 230^oC then 45min @ 200^oC in a standard oven - 15min @ 220^oC +then 35min @ 190^oC in a fan oven. Turn out of tins and allow to cool on a wire rack prior to use.