Sticky Date Pudding

People go quiet when they try this pudding - it's that good. A friend asked for the recipe, which I gave her and she phoned to ask why I had left the amount of chocolate out of the recipe.... there is no chocolate in it, but it tastes as if there ought to be. This is so easy to make ahead - I usually pour the sauce carefully over the pudding ahead of time and then re-heat the whole thing as we're eating the main course. Serve it with a blob of softly whipped cream oozing over the top. This is one of the puddings I miss the most.

STICKY DATE PUDDING


Pre-heat the oven to 190c
Line a tin with baking paper.

185g stoned dates
250ml water - cook gently together until they reach a jam-like consistency (add a little more water if you need to)
Beat in the remaining ingredients and mix well:
60g butter - chopped
2 eggs
185g sugar
185g self-raising flour
1/4 tsp vanilla

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake on the centre shelf for about 25 minutes or until cooked.
You can serve the following sauce separately.

Sauce
150g brown sugar
150ml cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Put all the ingredients into a pan and boil for 5 minutes.

Best Ever Cheese Scones

BEST EVER CHEESE SCONES

2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
30g softened butter
3 1/2 cups vintage cheddar - grated
220ml milk
1/4 tsp paprika

Pre-heat the oven to 210c
Sift flour and salt. Rub in butter, then stir in 2 1/2 cups cheese.
Using a knife, cut in the milk.
Turn the dough onto a floured surface and break off large lumps with a floured knife.
Transfer lumps to a lined baking tray.
Mix the rest of the cheese with the paprika and sprinkle over the scones.
Bake about 10 minutes until puffed and golden.
Serve hottish with lots of butter.

Lemon Cake

LEMON CAKE

4 eggs
340g caster sugar
zest of 2 lemons
Whisk together till creamy, and then add
180g plain flour
100g almond meal
1/2 tbsp baking powder
160ml cream
Whisk until smooth, and then add
100g melted butter - cooled
juice of 2 lemons
Whisk again
Bake 160c - 180c until done

Icing
150g icing sugar
100g butter at room temperature
Beat together, the add
zest and juice of 1 lemon
100g cream cheese at room temperature
Beat until smooth.
Ice cake when it is cool,then dust thickly with icing sugar.

This cakes keep well and is light and delicious. You can you orange juice and zest, or lime juice and zest instead of the lemon.

Mum's Banana Cake

Mum taught me a neat trick with this cake. It is actually something I think would work really well when baking with the alternate flours you have to use when you have to avoid gluten.... because almost everything I have tasted that has been made with these flours tastes awful. Dry, crumbly - ick. I think this trick might go some way to solving that problem.

MUM'S BANANA CAKE

125g butter
175g sugar
cream these together till light and fluffy
Add
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas - mashed
Sift, then add
175g plain flour (now here's the trick! measure the flour then take away 1 tablespoon of it and in its place add 1 tablespoon of dessicated coconut)
1 tsp baking powder
50g cornflour
Now add
2 tbsp boiling milk, mixed with
1 level tsp baking soda

Bake 180c

The coconut makes the cake lighter and more moist.
This is another recipe that everyone asks for.

Yoshihiro Shimada San

We used to host International students who would come here to study English and stay with us while they did it. These people are among the bravest people on Earth. They go far from anything that is familiar to them - the customs, the weather, the language and the food. How they don't go mad is beyond mousey me. Most of the people who stayed here were just folks - some folks you like - some - not so much. Some you love. Yoshihiro Shimada San is one of those. He cooked this for us. I wish he would come back, so I could cook for him again. I know some Japanese recipes now Yoshi - please come.

YOSHI'S OKONOMIYAKI

2 cups of plain white flour
1 1/2 cups dashi stock
1 egg
1 potato - peeled and grated
grated cheese
Mix flour, stock and egg to a paste. Stir in potato and cheese.
Add your choice of any number of the following:
beef, pork, bacon or chicken - minced or sliced thinly
seafood - minced or sliced thinly
finely shredded cabbage
chopped onions
a little ginger and/or garlic
sliced mushrooms
canned sweet corn kernels

Cook in an oiled frypan. Yoshi explained this as a kind of Japanese Pizza. (this was back in the day when there were no Japanese restaurants in town and we had never eaten Japanese food - hard to imagine!)
Cook it slow because you want the inside to not be raw floury when you eat it, turn it to cook the other side.
I used to make this into small pikelet things - much easier to flip!
Serve topped with the brown sauce and Japanese mayonnaise that you can get at the supermarket

Aila's Shortcake

Aila Alice Beetham Kennedy was my mother-in-law. She was a determined, selfish, bloody minded, stroppy  old bag. She was also a fantastic story teller - though the stories were not the sort you could tell the vicar - and not because Aila would've already done that. She was funny, generous and often very kind. She described herself as a good plain cook when actually she made the best roast dinners I have ever tasted, and this fantastic shortcake. I miss her still.

AILA'S SHORTCAKE
125g butter
125g sugar
1 egg
225g plain flour
1tsp baking powder

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in the egg. Beat (slowly - you don't want to be covered in the stuff) in the flour and baking powder.
Press half the mixture into a tin lined with baking paper.
Spread with jam, apple, rhubarb, peaches - whatever.
Press the other half of the mixture out onto another sheet of baking paper, invert over the pie filling and peel off the paper.
Sprinkle the top with sugar
Bake for about 1/2 and hour until golden.

This shortcake is tender and the dough very forgiving. If you tear it, just bung it on anyway - it somehow sqwuoodges itself around in the oven and comes out perfect. Everybody will demand the recipe.