Recently in All About Baking Category

If you grow any soft fruit, in the summertime there is always a need for a simple cake recipe that lets you showcase the berries (and use them up). Last year, it was this Blackcurrant Almond Cake, which I made several times before the blackbirds finished off my currants, but this Midsummer Cake from Nigel Slater is my new favourite.

He uses blueberries and peaches; not having either at hand, I made it with a box of the redcurrants from the Daily Spud, throwing in a handful of last year's blackberries that were still in the freezer. His original recipe is here. Mine, slightly adapted to fit in with the vagaries of my own kitchen and ingredients, is below. This is one of those cakes that looks unremarkable but gets compliments from everyone. Well worth adding to the repertoire.

I was away from the computer yesterday so here's my belated entry to the Twookieparty, especially as Theresa from The Green Apron is judging and offering some of her amazing preserves as prizes - I'd put in a fair effort just for her raspberry and chocolate jam, as tasted recently at the Food Bloggers Country Outing.

I've been making these Chocolate Chip Cookies from David Leite's New York Times article a lot lately, experimenting with salt levels - the original recipe has LOTS - and this is the version that I'm happiest with. I use regular salted butter in my baking so have substantially scaled back on the amount of salt called for in the original. If you are a salt fan, however, you could sprinkle a few flakes of sea salt, Maldon for preference, on top of the dough before baking.

I also cut back on the amount of chocolate, from a whopping 560g to a still substantial 400g, using a mixture of chopped up bars (70% cocoa content) and chocolate chips (50%) which adds a pleasing texture to the finished cookies. And, if you can resist, do wait for 36 hours before baking the cookies. I baked off several batches this week and the dough that had sat around for a day and a half was by far and away the tastiest of the lot. You'll have so much dough that it's well worth baking them over a few days and seeing what you think. Any excess dough, shaped into logs, freezes well (cook from frozen, for 1-2 minutes extra), or you can simply make half the recipe.

The best ever cookies? The best we've had around here for sure!

There are plenty more cookie recipes appearing on Twitter - just search for #Twookieparty or there's a direct link here.

In our house we really like pizza, especially when the parents aren't about and the cottage turns into the Sunday lunch stop for the Sister, Little Sister and Small Brother. It's easy to make the dough and sauce ahead of time, leaving the final assembly for when everybody turns up. That way they also get to choose their own toppings, which keeps everybody happy. This is how it works:

Sunday morning

With St Patrick's Day being tomorrow, one's thoughts turn to food. Specifically food of an Irish sort, which includes, naturally enough, all things potato. So when I was reading through my recently acquired copy of Margaret Bates' Talking about Cakes with an Irish and Scottish Accent, her recipe for Potato Apple Cake caught my eye. She said it was a delicacy from the orchard districts of Co Armagh but didn't give an actual recipe, describing it as two rounds of potato cake sandwiching an apple filling and cooked on the griddle.

Sounded like a challenge to me so here is my recipe for what I think is more like a tart than a cake. This is best served hot out of the oven and, surprisingly enough, the flavour of the potatoes and apples go really well together, especially with a jug of custard on the side!

Incidentally, this is a cookbook well worth searching out. According to the notes at the front, Margaret Bates was the Vice-Principal of the City of Belfast College of Domestic Science and she also wrote The Belfast Cookery Book and Talking about Puddings. Talking about Cakes was first published in 1964 and, while I'm not a fan of her over-enthusiastic use of margarine (give me Monica Sheridan and her devotion to butter any day!), there are lots of unusual recipes in this book to (re)discover.

Happy Patrick's Day - hope I'm not too late for the Daily Spud's Paddy's Day Food Parade!

It's not that I need an excuse to bake, especially if there's a cake and/or chocolate involved, but the radio was so full of International Women's Day blather today - George Hook was particularly enjoying himself with his list of "top ten females" on Newstalk! - that I just had to make something to distract myself.

That, and the fact that Little Missy was grizzling about the kitchen because she refused to have her afternoon nap. Time to make a mini woman's day cake? At least baking, especially when she can view it from the perspective of my hip, keeps her entertained although we did get lots of screwed up faces after she stuck her fingers into a bowl of cocoa and straight into her mouth. I have to say that my technique for breaking eggs with one hand could do with a little practice but at least I didn't get (much) shell into the batter.

I came across this recipe via Shauna's post the brilliant on Gluten-Free Girl blog and went straight the (gluten-full!) source at The Pioneer Woman Cooks. This is a good cake. And this is an easy cake, even if you decide to cook it in the late afternoon with a grumpy little girl in your arms who just likes to grab butter, taste cocoa and sip vanilla extract. Land the frosting on just as the Husband walks in the door and you've got yourself a guaranteed happy International Wo(Men)'s Day!

You'll find the original recipe with cup measurements plus great step-by-step photos over on The Pioneer Woman Cooks. This is my weighed out interpetation, with half the mixture of frosting. I also had to miss out on the nuts as LM wouldn't cooperate with me chopping them up. Oh, and the photo? Turns out the recipe fills my swiss roll tin and there's still enough to make a half-dozen cupcakes. Plenty for a really great cook's treat.

Sometimes, in this house, baking is not just for the bigger members of the family and, along with the Flapjacks and Shortbread, there's even a tin marked with Little Missy's name. It's currently filled with these twice-baked Banana Spelt Biscotti, which I love because they are easily made, contain no sugar and it's up to you about the kind of flour you use. These, along with LM's favourite rice cakes, are perfect afternoon snacks - and easily portable - but she is quite happy to munch on them at any stage, and especially loves a small smear of marmite on the biscotti when we're at home.

I first came across these first in New Zealand, when LM loved the Teething Biscotti, made by her Kiwi Nana from a recipe from Nicola Galloway's Cooking For Your Child. Back home, I used up some spelt flour from the storecupboard, although you could, of course, use plain flour or, as Nicola suggests, rice flour. I also added a pinch of ground cinnamon as we're all needing warming spices for this continuing wintery weather. She recommends giving them to babies aged from nine months but, as with any dietary directions, judge by your own child's abilities to deal with food.

As I only needed the egg yokes for this recipe, I used the whites to make the batch of Macaroons that you can see behind the biscotti in the picture. I'm not entirely happy with that recipe so I won't share it here but, unless you have a trustworthy Macaroon recipe, you could use the spare egg whites for meringues and they also freeze well. The biscotti, however, do sit around happily in an airtight box for a couple of weeks or you could store them into the freezer if you want to use them to relieve teething pains.

Never mind flowers and forget about going out for dinner, with Valentine's Day tomorrow, get baking for your sweetheart with this Chocolate Caramel Shortbread.

This recipe makes plenty to devour - and share - but it's so good that your biggest problem will be not eating the entire thing today. Perfect with a cup of tea and a love mug!

PS If you have to buy a Valentine's gift, then some first class Irish-made chocolates will go down a treat: my pick are Benoit Lorge's truffles, definitely the best chocolates available in Ireland.

When the weather gets tough, it's time to get baking. Just made Carmel Somers' Banana and Chocolate Cake from her Eat Good Things Every Day cookbook and it's a winner.

With Little Missy loving her banana lunches when we're out and about, the fruit bowl is kept stocked up. Sometimes, I have to admit, overstocked, so it's always good to have a selection of banana cake recipes for using up the strays.

Carmel's recipe, available in Eat Good Things Everyday, makes one x 2lb loaf or you can easily divide it between two 1lb loaf tins - one to eat and one to pass on!

The suspense was growing. There is an element of hope in cooking an upsidedown cake at the best of time but cooking one for a demonstration in front of 35 members of the Glenroe Ladies' Club was, perhaps, asking for trouble. Throw in anirregularly used gas oven - I live in a world of electricity, rarely cooking on gas - and a demonstrator who, while distracted, managed to turn the oven off instead of up (ahem) and you're adding a whole new layer of problems to the mix!

Normally I cook this cake at 180ºC, or Gas 4, but the oven was barely warmed to half that temperature by the time I was ready to put it in. What to do? Whack the oven up to Gas 8, leave the cake on top and get the nearest ladies to monitor the (hopefully) rising heat. It's always convenient to have mother and a few relatives in the audience in these situations! After I landed the cake into the slightly warmed up oven, a cousin kept an eye on the timing and I crossed my fingers.

When it was cooked, taking about 50 minutes instead of the usual 30-35, I held my breath as I turned it out. When I gingerly lifted the cooking pan away from the cake it, amazingly enough, looked fantastic despite all the messing about. Looks are one thing but the real proof is in the eating and there wasn't a crumb left to bring home. Enjoyable as it was, the evening wouldn't have been half as much fun without the cliff hanger ending!

The cake recipe is below - if you don't have an ovenproof frying pan, you can of course make this in a 25cm (10 inch) baking tin like these ones from The Kitchen Dresser.

When I was small, we had rhubarb growing in the back garden. Whatever variety it was - we had sourced the crown from some friend or relative so there were no labels - it grew gigantic stems, as thick as a baby's wrist, topped by enormous leaves that we thought looked like child-sized umbrellas. I was never a fan: it was so stringy that it had to be peeled before cooking and I was always extremely dubious about any fruit or vegetable that did such a good job of shining the inside of the saucepan in which it was cooked.

Now, all grown up, I just can't get enough of rhubarb. When in season, this Irish vegetable - yes, it's a stem vegetable rather than a fruit - is easily found at the market or supermarket if you don't have enough in your garden and it is always reasonably priced. Over the years, the stringiness that so offended me as a child seems to have disappeared. I grab it each time I see it on sale (the crowns in our garden are still unproductive) and make sure to stash enough in the freezer to keep us going even when it's not available. I love Rhubarb Jam, Rhubarb Crumble is a great favourite around here, my mother makes a great Rhubarb Tart, sometimes with added apple, and it's a great fruit to use in cakes.

This cake I put together for a bring-your-own-pudding dinner at the Writer's house recently. It's quick, easy and ever so gently scented with rosewater. Do not use too much - you don't want your cake tasting of soap! If you don't have rosewater, and it is easily found in delis or Middle Eastern shops, then you could always substitute a teaspoon of dried ginger or the rind of an orange.

As a child, autumn was one of my favourite times of year. Going back to school was much eased by the fact that there were blackberries available for eating on nearby hedges, crab apples down the fields to be gathered and plenty of field mushrooms to be picked. This year, Little Missy in her sling for our daily walks, trying to grab any bramble that comes near her, we've been keeping an eye out for plump sloes and watching as the elderberries ripen, while eating lots of blackberries.

Last weekend we visited the Galway-based Schoolfriend. A chunk of Saturday afternoon was spent picking blackberries near her house, her three-year-old holding the bowl for us as the Husband, Schoolfriend and I picked the sweet, inky berries. Her 14-month-old kept an eagle eye on proceedings from the pushchair and Little Missy enjoyed the activity as their two dogs 'helped', grabbing mouthfuls of blackberries for themselves.

Back at the house, the Husband peeled and chopped a few apples and a couple of pears from their tree outside. The fruit was popped into the oven to soften while the three-year-old and I made a simple crumble topping: a big bowl for me, small one for him so we could both get our hands messy, rubbing the butter into the flour, then mixing it with the sugar and oats. We tossed the apple/pear mixture with a little sugar, a shake of cinnamon and the blackberries, spread the crumble over and landed it into the oven, just vacated by the Schoolfriend's Shepherd's Pie. It's easy to make dinner when there are a few people involved!

My Clonmel Cousin has been getting into the gardening gifts lately - and I've been the lucky recipient, getting a cheerful pink petunia and fuschia pot for my birthday and a Christmas present of a hazel tree with a pair of blueberry bushes. We had tried blueberries in the garden previously but they're big fans of acidic soil and I don't think we added enough peat moss into the spot where we planted them. This time round, when I was planting the bushes, I landed plenty of peat moss into the hole - with good results.

Our soft fruit area is near the clothesline so most of the fruit - that's also where our gooseberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and rhubarb are planted - bypasses the kitchen, going straight into my mouth as I hang out the (mostly pink) clothes. Having been down in Ladysbridge for a week, enough blueberries survived on the bush to cook with last weekend.

While the Husband took his cousin and her husband for a walk up the Canon Sheehan Trail in the Ballyhouras, Little Missy and I minded the house (and tent: short of space, the Husband, LM and I were camping in the garden for the weekend). We also took the opportunity to pick the ripe blueberries and stir them into the batter for Oatmeal Muffins. Warm out of the oven when the walkers returned, they didn't last for long and the mixture of oats and berries made us feel very virtuous, even when we were having thirds! Must try some blackberries next time I'm making those muffins.

Update 28 August: Forgot to give the link to the original muffin recipe! Here you go - Val's Oatmeal Muffins. Just add a large handful of freshly picked (approximately 100g) blueberries - or more! - to the batter before dividing it between the muffin cases.

When we were in college, the Brother's Housemate came from a catering household. His mother used to make hundreds of superb Christmas cakes and puddings each year, cook for parties and events and, most importantly to us, make the best Caramel Squares known to students.

Living on an unbroken biscuit diet of Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers - our habitual study food (oh, the excitement when a white chocolate variety came on the market) - these were manna from heaven. Every time the Brother's Housemate was able to sneak or was given (we never knew, never asked) a box of them, we would descend on his house like a plague of biscuit-seeking locusts.

Although I'll never be able to make Caramel Squares quite as good - the circumstances will never lend themselves in exactly the same way - this recipe gets me pretty close. Very good to donate to any students you know, if you can bear to part with a few. The recipe is basically the same as the one for Tan Slice, which is handy to know if you discover at the last minute that you don't have any chocolate for the topping in the house.

I've always liked to bake. As soon as I was old enough to co-ordinate reading recipes and using a wooden spoon, I was anxious for any cake-making excuse - and most of them involved copious amounts of chocolate. Over the years there have been many good chocolate cakes, from my early attempts using chocolate-flavoured cake covering and marg to (when I started paying for my own shopping!) butter and 70% dark chocolate. This cake, however, although it may not look like much, stands head and shoulders above the rest.

I discovered it in the Green and Black's cookbook when we were in New Zealand. We had a friend who was coeliac so I was always on the look out for cakes that were suitable for her and this was a good one. Deep and dark and deliciously decadent, this was a gluten-free cake that didn't try to pretend it needed some kind of flour substitute. Neither did it need the eggs to be seperated and the whites whisked, something which - at the time I had no electric mixer or whisk - turned me off many a recipe.

This is a very quick cake to make: just melt, whisk, mix and bake. It can be served as it is with good vanilla ice cream or topped with a cloud of softly whipped cream and dusted with cocoa or grating of cacao. You can, of course, leave out the orange rind and spices but I love these flavours with the chocolate.

When I was small, picking blackcurrants was a big job. My Nana had several large, old bushes in the orchard under her apple trees. Every year, little fingers were pressed into service to strip the bushes of their black bounty so that she could make, or supervise the making, of the pots and pots of blackcurrant jam that were to see the household through the winter.

Although I tried a couple of blackcurrants every year, at the time I didn't much like them as they seemed too bitter to my childish taste. The jam was another matter, however. When we would call to see Nana and Grandad after school, a doorstep of bread, slathered with butter and spread with inky goodness kept us fed till suppertime.

When we bought the cottage, I was delighted to discover a threesome of blackcurrant bushes out in the back garden. We missed the harvest the first year, still living in Dublin and only at the cottage over the weekend. Last year we were in France so the blackbirds beat us to the berries so I was determined to get my share this year. Last weekend I started picking, getting well over half a kilo from the first of the bushes.

Observed with interest by Little Missy, sitting happily outside in her chair, I used Sarah Raven's technique of picking and pruning at the same time. As I cut the fruiting branches, I stripped them of the blackcurrants but rain and grumpiness from LM sent me indoors before I could finish the job. And it seems that the blackbirds noticed. When I went back outside on Wednesday, to my annoyance the remaining berries had been plucked by beak.

Fortunately I had stashed the weekend's pickings in the freezer and, although there's not enough for jam this year, I do have enough for three of these cakes, much to the Husband's delight. This is easiest made in the food processor as you can whizz up the whole almonds in the bowl first before using it to process the rest of the mixture. You could use blanched almonds but I love the brown speckled effect from the unblanched nuts and the cake is extra moist as a result.

Since Little Missy arrived on the scene, the breadmaker has been working at full tilt. The loaves aren't the most beautiful but, then again, looks aren't everything and the convenience and flavour more than make up for it. A few mornings a week, before the Husband heads out the door to work, he loads it up with the ingredients for a Fennel-Aniseed-Caraway Loaf and, as Little Missy and I snooze away, it kneads, proves, knocks back and bakes a loaf of warm, sweet-smelling bread. At least, that has been the routine.

This morning, though, I did a bit of disasterous fiddling with the mixture - thought it was too dry so added some water then figured it looked wet so put in some more flour - and left it to go on its own merry way, or so I thought. I didn't realise that the amount of mixture added up to a little more than the machine could cope with until, a few hours later, I smelled burning and caught sight of smoke pouring from under the lid.

Fortunately I was there in the house to catch it before it caused too much damage, and it was promptly switched off, plugged out and emptied outside. The bread had flowed over the sides of the internal baking tin and was burning, creating copious amounts of acrid-smelling smoke, onto the cooking element that heats the breadmaker. There'll be no upping the quanitities of ingredients in future, always presuming that I'll be able to use it again!

Here's the recipe for the Fennel-Aniseed-Caraway Loaf that we make at the moment. My midwife recommended I take the fennel, aniseed and caraway seeds in a tea to help my milk production when I started nursing Little Missy but they taste far better in bread. You don't need to be producing milk to enjoy this bread: it's especially good toasted and eaten with boiled, scrambled or fried eggs.

My breadmaker is a Cookworks Signature Stainless Steel one from Argos that I got via Gumtree and I normally use it, as below, to make a 2lb loaf. For this machine, you put the liquid in before the flour but I know some machines are different - just check the manual for your own machine.

No longer having the easy access to Arbutus Bread that was one of the perks of my job in Urru Mallow, I've gone back to baking my own. At the moment I'm on rotation between three different breads - the Seedy Spelt Bread that I mentioned a few weeks ago, a Brown Yeast Loaf that still needs a bit of work and my old favourite, the Sourdough that I mastered while in Ballymaloe.

My starter is still alive and kicking, despite having most of a year sitting and doing very little in the fridge. Luckily, I fed it during the demo I did for the Conversations on a Farmers' Market in Urru so it didn't get totally neglected.

Before I started using it again this year, I gave it a few feeds of flour and (non-chlorinated) water and it wasn't long before it was bubbling up and over the jar. Now, as you can see, it's totally back to life, producing two gorgeous loaves of Sourdough Bread from each baking.

But time's running out - lacking a fridge of sufficient size to slowly rise the dough overnight, I've been putting it into our spare room, window left open, so that it can take it's time. Now, with the onset of milder weather, I'm wondering if my sourdough window of opportunity is closing. There's no way that little fridge is going to fit two baskets of dough and it's just not worth doing one at a time. I'm just going to have to figure out another way of managing it.

Birthday cakes are, almost inevitably, chocolate-based in my family. It is undoubtedly the default option, beloved by everybody, not least by the birthday celebrants. This year, however, we were to celebrate the mother's (January) birthday on an unseasonably bright February day and - unusually - I wasn't in the mood for chocolate baking.

After a discussion with my normal cooking-partner-in-crime, the Little Sister, and inspired by the amount of citrus fruit in the shops, I went down the orange and almond road instead, making a light but very moist cake. It seemed, at the time, to be the season for lighter cooking - an idea promptly destroyed by subsequent appearances of hail, ice and snow.

With things warming up this week in North Cork, it might be time for the cake to make another outing. Being so moist, it keeps well, not that you'll have too many problems with that. To serve it as a pudding, we scattered the top of the cake with the seeds of a pomegranate and drizzled it with natural yoghurt. Pomegranates may be out of season now but orange segments wouldn't go amiss instead. The tart freshness felt like a real antidote to the necessary heaviness of most winter cooking. With there being a real stretch in the evenings, it's time to start enjoying food for spring!

I miss Arbutus bread. One of the great advantages of working in URRU Mallow was having regular access to good quality bread - I used to eat the sesame seed-encrusted brown crusts for work breakfast (you can't sell them but I think they're the nicest piece of the whole loaf), regularly bringing home spelt or rye loaves or, for a particular treat, one of the tomato and basil breads or a couple of croissants, to be heated up for the following morning's breakfast.

Now, it's a trek to get my hands on some decent bread. North Cork isn't exactly known for it's selection of bakeries and I refuse to buy or eat the chemical-infused never-goes-stale stuff that goes under the name of bread that's available. If I get to the Thursday farmers' market at Mahon Point for Arbutus bread or the bi-monthly Killavullen farmers' market where Tom's Bakery often has a stall I'm sorted but otherwise it's back to making my own again.

It's not a daily activity, by any stretch of the imagination. I normally make two large loaves at a time, cutting one in half for freezing (toast would always be a big favourite in this house), and I have a few different recipes in rotation. Despite being half-abandoned at the bottom of the fridge for the last year, my sourdough starter still has enough kick in it to keep me ticking over with sourdough loaves. Not having a fridge big enough to retard the rising overnight, these are normally most successful during the cold months of the year. Then it's time to switch over to the No-Knead Loaf or even the quick and easy Artisan Bread recipes that I've used with so much success in the past.

I'm playing around with a simple brown yeast loaf that you just mix, allow to rise in the tin (if the house is warm enough!) and then cook but my favourite bread at the moment is this version of a Spelt Loaf which I originally found in the Cornucopia cookbook. It takes minutes to mix up, is fantastic when it comes out of the oven (just try to cool it before cutting!), freezes well and - best of all - tastes amazing when toasted because of all the seeds.

Last night the Husband and I headed along to the first 2009 get together of the North Cork Organic Group, no doubt tempted by the fact that the group was concentrating on seasonal food for the meeting! The newsletter, kindly dropped in by my Rockmills Neighbour, asked for recipes and, if possible samples, of dishes using root vegetables. Inspired by the proud parsnips that I had picked up last week at the Mahon Point Farmers' Market, I decided to use them in a sweet recipe. If you can bake carrots into a cake then why not make muffins out of their sweeter sister?

An online search threw up this recipe for Parsnip Muffins on the Whole Foods Market website. Parsnips, apples, pecans and spices - it sounded like a good plan to me. And it kept sounding like a good plan until I got to the cooking stage. Somehow 20-25 minutes turned into something more like 30-35 minutes. Time was ticking away, we were supposed to be gone and I was already sick of the whole project.

In disgust, I abandoned the muffins, jumped into the car and we arrived just in time for the start of the evening at the Nano Nagle Center. There were plenty of tastings and lots of interesting food on offer, from little Potato Pancakes to a savoury Turnip Gratin. Despite Carmel Somers' inspiring ideas about turnip (she bakes slices of turnip with lots of grated ginger) is the one vegetable that I just don't seem to have any time for but the night gave me some ideas for this most ubiquitous of Irish vegetables.

And my muffins? They weren't actually so bad when I tried them after we got home, rather dense like carrot cake but well flavoured. This morning they made an entirely acceptable breakfast, heated and served with butter and honey. Here's a link to the original recipe and below you can see my adapted one - extra spices, dried cranberries, and a change in the timing. I cooked my muffins at 180°C in a fan oven.

It's baking central online at the moment - not yet at the cottage, as I'm still looking for a chance to put a belated batch of sweet mince together for the mince pies of Christmas! - but there are lots of lovely ideas out there for anyone who has a little more time.

Dan Lepard's list of seasonal and just plain helpful tips from the experts about putting mashed potato in your bread dough for a softer crumb, making oatcakes in large quantities, keeping cookie dough in the fridge for quick slicing and baking and making bread dough in advance for better flavour are a great read.

Anyone who likes baking will love the Gourmet round up of the magazine's favourite cookies since 1941. The introductory paragraphs for each decade give an overview of Gourmet through the years and there are plenty of amazing cookies to try making. I really like the look of the Apricot Chews (1966), Mocha Toffee Bars (1987) and the Pistachio Cranberry Icebox Cookies (2006) look right up my street.It's a veritable feast of divinely photographed sweet things.

I know it may be summer at the other side of the world and some of the recipes aren't exactly appropriate but Taste Magazine's Christmas guide is well worth checking out, especially for variations on the traditional - try out the Mincemeat and Apricot Streusel Squares if you're fed up with the fuss of old-school Mince Pies, I've a jar of homemade mixed peel just waiting to be turned into Spiced Shortbread and the freezer section covers a whole lot of simple cook-ahead options for the 12 days of Christmas.

Check out Arun Kapil – at full speed! – demonstrating how to make Green Saffron's Aromatic Mince Pies, with oodles of apples, lots of spices and even a splash of rose water in the pastry for last Monday's Afternoon Show. The video and recipe are all here on RTE.ie/food.

On the times that I've seen it – not having a television, I watch online from the RTÉ website – I've been enjoying Bake, Rachel Allen's new food show. As you may have noticed, I do very much enjoy baking and am always on the look out for new recipes. Her new book is crammed full of great things to try – I've already got lots of pages marked for revisiting – but only had a chance to try out one of the recipes so far. A jar of peanut butter in the house meant that Rachel's Peanut Butter Blondies were crying out for a test run but I almost balked when I read that the recipe only made 12 small squares.

If I'm baking, I want there to be plenty for sharing around and so never make less than a swiss roll tin's worth, which – depending on the density of what I've baked – can be cut into 24 to 30 pieces. So I doubled the recipe but I couldn't leave it alone at just that! I used dark instead of white chocolate, added toasted walnuts to up the nutty quotient and, because I thought that.the mixture was much too thick, threw in an extra egg (have chickens, will use eggs). If you don't over cook them, they turn out nicely dense and nutty with surprise hits of chocolate all over the place. At the cottage, we especially like them warmed and eaten with some ice cream but they don't suffer too much from being eaten with a coffee or hot chocolate in work either. Well worth trying – but you definitely need more than 12 small squares.

I came across a post on Rose Levy Beranbaum's baking blog about her baking essentials and it got me thinking. This is her list on the left in bold, with my additions on the right.

A hand-held mixer – which I have and use regularly, although I do love and use my KitchenAid a lot too!
A weighing scale – after years of using regular scales, I have become an electronic devotee. It's small, it's slim, it takes up no room on my worktop and I can use it to measure everything, normally in the pan that I will mix or melt it in (saves on washing up too) in either grams, ounces, fluid ounces or mililitres. I don't know how I lasted so long without it.
A set of measuring cups – essential if you do a lot of cooking from American or New Zealand/Australian recipes. Remember that those cup sizes are different, however.
A cup for measuring liquids – I normally use my electronic scales but I do find my pyrex jug very useful for any ingredients that need to get melted in the microwave.
A set of measuring spoons – always in use.
A sifter or strainer – I have the one that I bought about ten years ago, a green plastic thing that has seen me through many house moves and refuses to die.
A 9 inch by 2 inch cake pan – I'm not entirely sure what she's talking about here. I have a 9-inch springform tin that I use for all cakes.
A 10 cup fluted tube pan – I have one of these but I rarely use it. I've found that it's too easy to overbake a cake in the pan, especially if you are stuck with a fan oven, as I am.
Two wire cooling racks – I can and have managed with one, using the grill tray from the cooker or a cooker shelf if a second one is necesary. These days, since joining my Dublin and cottage kitchens together, I've two for those days that I get fits of baking and one is just not enough.
An instant read thermometer such as a Thermapen or CDN – not yet and I'm not bothered.
A silicone spatula reserved for baking – I had two lovely red spatulas and used them all the time but since one broke I'm doing fine with just the small little one that's left.
A baking spray containing flour – not something I find necessary when I can just dip my hand in the bag and sprinkle.
A reliable recipe – always! Sometimes this cook is not entirely reliable, though...

And, if you're as into making Flapjacks and tray bakes as I am, you need at least two 23 x 30cm/9 x 12in Swiss roll tins. Mine are ancient battered old things that I picked up for a couple of quid years ago in Dunnes or Tesco. They have been used so much at this stage that the patina of age that has developed does duty as a non-stick layer but it's always best to do a considerable amount of greasing if you're cooking anything that might stick in them.

With this list to hand, I think I could certainly start going through my kitchen cupboards and seeing what excess I do have in there. But everybody needs some antique rabbit and tortoise jelly moulds, don't they?

After I had been busily extolling the virtues of slices and bars available in New Zealand cafés while at work last week, my German Colleague asked if I had a recipe for Lemon Bars. Tan Slice and Ginger Crunch are things that I bake regularly but I had to admit that I had never tried to make the ubiquitous Lemon Slice as a lot of recipes involved separating eggs (I'm a lazy cook, I don't do separated eggs given half a chance or another recipe) or condensed milk or too many lemons at a time when I didn't have them.

Monday morning, after four eggs arrived back from the girls and I realised, post-cold recovery, that I had a bowl of lemons in the house, I decided to try out Julie Biuso's recipe for Sticky Lemon Slice. This fitted all the criteria – easy to make, uses up plenty of eggs from my stash and I had enough lemons, although next time I may add an extra lemon-worth of zest. If you're cooking this in a fan oven, I would recommend that you cook it about 20°C lower than the regular oven temperature as mine was a little dried out on top and I would have preferred more luscious lemon-ness. Also, if you have some of the topping left over as I did, pour it into a couple of expresso cups, and sit them in a bain-marie in the same oven for approximately 20 minutes until set – it makes a fantastic cheat's desert, especially served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

When I get time to surf the net - not so often these days with freelancing and URRU keeping me busy - I love to go through my list of favourite food bloggers and magazines, reading their entries, picking up tips for things to try, places to visit and recipes to make. I have a list of recipes continually on the go, an odd assortment of things that I've picked up in my internet wanderings - Olive Oil Cookies from Mark Bittman in The New York Times, Lemon Potatoes from Organically Cooked, Salt-Kissed Buttermilk Cake from 101 Cookbooks, Chow's Salted Caramel Frosting, Baked Celeriac with Rosemary, Parmesan & Marsala from Taste - all of which are still on my "must try" list.

Val's recipe for Oatmeal Muffins was on that list for a while but, after several successful Sunday morning muffin bakes for weekend guests, it has made the leap to the "must keep" category. They only take a few minutes to throw together, are ready in minutes, and, as Val says, are perfect for freezing. Visitors are hugely impressed (make sure they volunteer to do the washing up afterwards!) and, most importantly of all, the muffins taste great when buttered while still warm, maybe with a smidgen of Raspberry Jam from Mallow Irish Country Market on the side or, if you're really lucky, some of my mother's Blackcurrant Jam. For the sake of speed and efficiency in the mornings, I've stuck to Val's cup measurements, apart from the butter and brown sugar, which I find easier in ounces.

When I was a little girl, one day during our summer holidays in Youghal, I caught sight of a Ladybird book called Learnabout...Cooking. I remember wanting to ask my mother to buy it for me but she had already left the shop. Fortunately, her youngest sister, at that stage still unmarried and able to come on our extended three-generation two-week holidays by the sea, whisked it off to the cash desk and I walked proudly home with my first cookery book under my arm.

Now my copy, one book amongst hundreds, is tattered and food-stained. Chocolate Mousse was a particular favourite for years, I remember, as was the Lemon Surprise Pudding. I never really got to grips with the Scotch Eggs, though, and Cheese Baked Potatoes – because of my fixation against spuds – were totally out but I definitely remember assembling that classic of the Seventies, Cheese and Pineapple Hedgehog, with tinned pineapple and rubbery, orange cheddar. One recipe that I have returned to over and over again - and which, at this stage, doesn't even resemble the original – is Flapjacks.

I've tried many other recipes for Flapjacks in the past – these Chocolate Flapjacks are undoubtedly fantastic – but this is the one I'm currently happiest with and make most often. It can be made as simple or as complex as you like. Some days I just make simple Honey Flapjacks, as in the picture, leaving out all the nuts, seeds and dried fruit, and substituting honey for the golden syrup. Other times it depends on what's on my baking trolley. I've tried a mixture of jumbo and regular oatmeal sometimes and varied the type of of sugar (light and dark brown sugars, raw sugar, demerera) I use. The first four ingredients are necessary: the rest can be played around with. Almonds and cranberries, cashews and dried pineapple are all combinations I've tried in the past but I keep coming back to the hazelnut and apricot variation. Have fun with it – as long as you keep the proportions the same, the recipe is endlessly forgiving.

With lighter, warmer mornings (theoretically, at least), porridge is long gone from the mornings and this granola-style muesli is a big favourite in our house. I got the recipe from the Husband's mother while we were in New Zealand in January. She's been working with people who have ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and this (now slightly altered!) was on one of the recipe sheets that she hands out.

It's easy to mix a big batch - just make sure that you have a couple of baking trays large enough to cook it in your oven - and don't forget it. It's all too easy to leave it burn and then it gets very bitter. After it has thoroughly cooled down, I keep it in a large kilner jar, often mixing it half-and-half with plain oats at breakfast time. It is also really good served with fresh fruit and yoghurt.

The Sweet Treats still continue, although I spend more time making rather than writing about them these days. Last week's offering was Butterscotch Almond Shortbread, which is like Tan Slice but not quite as buttery! I already got one request for the recipe, from the Teenage Workmate, so here it is. Next time, however, I think I might go for a slightly thicker shortbread base.

I’m not much of a fruitcake fan but Tea Brack is an altogether different story. Because the fruit is soaked overnight it avoids the dryness that can often spoil a fruitcake, cuts into gorgeous thick slices and responds particularly well to being generously buttered and served with large pots of tea. The English Engineers, this time without Bridie, came to visit for the weekend so - as I had recently discovered that I had a stash of dried fruit, particularly golden raisins - I brewed up some tea on Thursday night, left the fruit to soak in quite a leisurely manner until Friday lunchtime, when I discovered that I needed to be in Cork at 6pm. The brack was promptly thrown together in a most hasty manner so that it would be cooked before I had to leave the house.

Despite the hurry, it worked out well. I made double the mixture - two large 2lb loaves - and, the Engineers now on the plane home, there is just one half of the last brack left. I had intended to use a drop of whiskey to intensify the flavours but my search in our cellar (the unfinished gap under the stairs where we land all bottles of alcohol) showed that the Husband had imbibed the last of the Jameson during the last cold spell so I had to settle instead for the Ballyvoddy Damson Gin that I made last October, which added an extra note of fruityness to proceedings.

Working Saturdays means that any weekend entertaining needs to be planned and organised well in advance, especially when it comes to Saturday night barbeques at the cottage. The Naas Cousin was coming to stay so I grabbed the opportunity to get a few of the cousins together. There wasn't anything complex on offer: free-range chicken drumsticks marinaded for a little while in my thrown together barbeque sauce (mix enough tomato ketchup, wholegrain mustard, cider vinegar, soy sauce and seasonings to coat the chicken. Allow to stand. Throw on barbeque.), some decent meaty sausages, homemade mini-beef burgers and an assortment of roasted vegetables (red and yellow peppers, spring onions, large mushrooms with garlic butter and lemon, sweetcorn with smoked garlic salt). The Husband normally does the cooking outside while I look after the prep in the kitchen as there are always a couple of salads to assemble. This time it was a Pasta and Flageolet Bean Salad with Sundried Tomato Dressing alongside a Green Salad with Blue Cheese, Nectarines and Savoury Seeds, dressed with Sweet Blackberry Vinaigrette.

The Naas Cousin arrived well armed with hummus, vine leaves and wine to kick off the evening and, inspired by my perusal of Piri Piri Starfish, I had made Tessa Kiros' Caramel Cake a few days beforehand for an easy pudding. The Little Sister came armed with pineapples for dusting with vanilla sugar and caramelising over a dying barbeque to accompany the damp, dense cake. To go totally for a sweet overdose, we served the cake and caramelised pineapple with caramel sauce (from Murphy's Book of Sweet Things) and - at this stage I had run out of cream! - dollops of natural yoghurt. The post-barbeque sweet feast was further enlivened by another contribution from the Little Sister - Vodka Chilli Chocolates from Green and Black's cookbook. She didn't tell us that she hadn't gotten around to deseeding all the chillis until a bit later...

When making the Caramel Cake, I didn't have any cream in the house - again! - so I give you my less rich version of Tessa's recipe, which uses extra milk instead of the cream. This keeps exceptionally well but make sure you don't pull the caramel off the heat too soon. If it has been cooked until it is a lovely dark chestnut colour then it will have notes of bitterness to offset the sweetness all around.

Totally forgot Anzac Day - which was on Saturday - this year. In case anyone else is also in the same boat, but still wanting to mark the date with some baking, here is my tried-tested-and-true Anzac Biscuit recipe.

Lacking my once-easy access to a variety of shops, providing me with a large assortment of ingredients to play with, these days I tend to concentrate on the products available in Urru and have also become a habitué of my local health food shops. After finding some cacao nibs in The Granary (Mallow) and picking up a bag of buckwheat flour from Horan's Health Store in Fermoy, I decided to make a batch of Alice Medrich's Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies that had come to my attention through 101 Cookbooks.

I've written about Heidi, her site and her cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, here before. Both the blog and the book are things I keep turning to, again and again, for sweet and savoury inspiration, especially after I pick up something new from the health shop. With the addition of some dark chocolate chips - I wanted to balance the bitterness of the cacao nibs - these turned into Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies, rich and nutty from the buckwheat, crunchy with cacao nibs and sweetened by the chocolate. The flavour of the buckwheat is particularly pronounced on the day that you bake the cookies, mellowing nicely in the days that follow - making these great to fill the going-to-work tin.

I have a suspicion that these cookies will also be great sandwiched with vanilla ice cream, and I've a tub of Murphy's awaiting attention in the freezer at this very moment. I didn't get a score this week from the Polish Colleague but the Mallow Workmate said that they were her favourite of all the things I've brought to work so far (8/10).

Always read the recipe before starting, always read the recipe. That's an instruction that's been drummed into me for years, whether in Home Ec class, while studying in Ballymaloe, or just from experience on many occasions of getting half-way through baking something only to discover that an essential item was missing.

Now, it seems, I read the ingredient list - but forget to look at the method. When I looked at this recipe (originally for a Date and Peach Slice) I figured that I'd just use apricots instead of peaches but I neglected to notice the direction to prepare a 9 inch square tin. Do I have a 9 inch square tin? Not at all. That's why this week's slice ended up turning into a cake (I did have an 8 inch round tin) which, try as you may, is rather difficult to cut into enough evenly shaped pieces for morning coffee to get you through the week!

That said, it was a fantastically moist and well-flavoured cake, flecked with a mixture of reconstituted and dried fruit and well worth the trouble. Next time, I think I'll try to double the mixture to fit in my swiss-roll tin. The score from the Polish Colleague? 7/10 this time.

For those of you who are, like me, without television - or simply without Irish television - you can watch Trish Deseine's first programme, Trish's Paris Kitchen, online from the RTÉ website. Although the first show includes lunchtime cooking classes at L'Atelier des Chefs, a visit to Clotilde's favourite cookware store, E. Dehillerin, and several recipes, it never quite lifts off and is curiously flat. In the meantime - I've been resisting temptation for way too long! - I've Trish's chocolate cookbook on order. I think it was the thought of these Oatmeal and Dark Chocolate Cookies...or maybe it was the Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie?

Sometimes you start with one particular recipe and end up going off on a slightly different tangent. That's what happened with these Chocolate Hazelnut Squares. After a comment by Sarah on my Lemon Traybake, I wandered over to Val's Kitchen and took a look at the Hazelnut Caramel Slice that she made from a Rachel Allen recipe, dug out the book and started baking.

But the day was getting late, I was also making dinner at the same time (may as well do all the day's washing up together!) and tastings of the raw base mixture - a brownie-style batter - were great so I decided to stop there. Rather than adding the caramel and chocolate layers, I roasted and chopped 125g of hazelnuts (being of a naturally lazy bent, I don’t bother de-skinning them), pressed them into the chocolate base and left it at that.

Val's look amazing but when you're taking something to work, you don't want to be facing something so rich every day! I've started making these Sweet Treats a week before I post the recipe so I can get an idea of how they last. This recipe is very quick, can be made in one medium-sized saucepan and sits quite happily in a tin - Husband permitting - for the week. My Polish Colleague gave them eight out of ten!

Since I first wrote about the McDonnell's Good Food Cookbooks I have had several emails asking for recipes that people remember from their childhood or enjoyed years ago but have since lost. The latest request, from Renee who wants to make the cake for a family occasion, is for the Tea Brack recipe from the first cookbook. This is one of our family favourites, a much used recipe, but - as I well remember from frustrated occasions searching for it - annoyingly filed under the name Irish Tea Brack in the Irish Tea Time Favourites chapter, just across the page from Gingerbread.

It is a very simple cake to make. Just soak your fruit the night before you want to bake it - you could always replace some of the tea with whiskey for added interest - and it multiplies up very well. I well remember soaking vast bowls of dried fruit to make four or six loaves at a time as it keeps very well in the old biscuit tin that was always filled with some kind of fruitcake for the after school cup of tea. It is particularly good, cut into thin slices and spread with lots of salty butter. Back in the days when I didn't like fruitcake, I did love this and Boiled Fruit Cake from the same book as the liquid used in both recipes ensured that the dried fruit was properly re-hydrated, the slices crammed full of plump and luscious sultanas, raisins and currants, with maybe the occasional cherry thrown in for good measure.

Along with substituting butter for the marg used in the original recipe, I will give both the imperial and metric measurements as they appear in the cookbook. I haven't cooked this in a fan oven so would be interested to know what kind of temperature/cooking times other people use.

I think my mother has one of her legendary Pavlovas already in the works for the aftermath of the Easter family lunch but, if you're not going to be as lucky, these Chocolate Hazelnut Mini-Puds, adapted from a Nigella recipe, are well worth trying.

This mixture makes eight - serving our family of seven, with one left over to fight for - but it's a very easy thing to halve the recipe if you are serving less people. You do not want to over cook these mini-puddings so the easiest way to make them is to melt the butter and dark chocolate just before lunch, leave to cool then combine with the rest of the pre-weighed ingredients as everyone relaxes after the lamb (it's Easter - it has to be lamb!), sticking it into the oven while the table is cleared and the obligatory pot of post-lunch tea is made. And please do serve with the recommended jug of pouring cream - the combination of cold cream, gooey chocolate interior, crunchy hazelnuts (and, in the spirit of keeping this simple, I don't worry about peeling them) and crusty sponge is truly worth enjoying in concentrated silence.

After the success of last week's Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares, I decided to move on to something lighter and more fruity for this week's sweet treat. I'm have been reading Annie Bell's Gorgeous Cakes recently - the Mallow library is coming up trumps for brilliant cookbooks - and I have plenty of recipes bookmarked to try. Annie is not afraid of using her kitchen appliances and, after finally getting a kitchen to call my own, I now have both food processor (one of the first birthday gifts from the not-yet-Husband - he knew how to set up things for future baking happiness!) and KitchenAid mixer out and at my disposal. This recipe uses the food processor, taking minutes to put together although, if I were in my NZ kitchen appliance-less days, it would also be manageable with a wooden spoon, although I have to say that I avoided any creaming recipes for the whole year I was living there. I'm sure it would also work with any mixer at your disposal.

Moist and crunchy when fresh, getting steadily damper although no less tasty as it sits in the tin, this Lemon Traybake got a resounding thumbs up from my main testers - the Husband and the Polish Colleague. Now to figure out next week's recipe!

Nowadays, with a little breathing space and a (slightly) more regular routine, I'm on a mission to expand my cooking horizons and explore the years of stored up recipes. I finally have all my cookbooks in one house, albeit still scattered between the kitchen shelf, a corner of the table in the living room, piled up next to the computer, along the sides of the stairs and filling the recently-built shelves upstairs in what is supposed to be my office (these days it's still too cold to heat more than the main living room!).

So, surrounded by cookbooks, I try to use new recipes, especially on my days working from home when I fill the tins so that there's something nice to take to work for the Husband, myself and my workmates. I spent a while stuck in a Flapjack rut, but, that now mastered, I've moved on. The criteria are simple - whatever it is has to be quick to make, good to eat with my morning cup of coffee in work and, very important this, happy to sit in the tin for about a week. Here's the latest try-out, adapted from Sue Lawrence's On Baking.

There's always a new one, isn't there? No sooner have you mastered Bittman's No-Knead Bread and played around with jars of starter for your own Sourdough than another intriguing bread recipe comes along. I discovered this one through the NZ FoodLovers Forum, found the recipe, and discovered the book that it comes from - Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Francois - here.

Last Monday I mixed up the dough, cooked my first loaf on Tuesday evening and ate nearly half of the misshapen bread warm out of the oven. There was another, slightly larger, loaf cooked on Saturday and I made some little bread rolls to be filled with one-egg French Omelettes for supper today. Over time the flavour develops more of a sour tang - once I make more space in my fridge (there's still a very useful jar of sourdough starter in there!) I'm looking forward to keeping some dough for a longer time and seeing how it progresses.

As usual, I've played around with the recipe. I had some of Shipton Mill's textured, seed-speckled Organic Three Malt and Sunflower Flour in the house so used it in combination with some strong flour and it worked well. Next time I'll try to restrain myself and actually follow their instructions. I don't have a pizza stone, though, so I just bake the bread on the tray it has been relaxing on for the last 40 minutes. Still haven't gotten around to slashing it before baking either! I've written up the recipe with my own adaptations below but I I think there just might be a book purchase coming up...

Watch Zoë and Jeff demonstrate their Five Minute Bread technique here and read more on on Zoë's own blog at Zoë Bakes.

I was on RTÉ Radio 1's Mooney programme yesterday talking about baking and breadmaking - if you're interested, you can listen here (I'm on after the 4pm news!) and here are some links to recipes that I either mentioned, or intended on mentioning, during the show.

My ever-popular Chocolate Brownies
Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies
Lemon & Pistachio Yoghurt Cake

And, for those breadmakers out there, here is a recipe for a simple Brown Soda Bread and - if you're getting more adventurous! - you could try Mark Bittman's No Knead Bread or even experiment with some Sourdough Bread.

Black Forrest Gateau was one of the joys of a '70s childhood. With its layers of chocolate cake, punctuated by cream and tinned cherries, then decorated with chocolate curls, it always stood proud on desert trolleys of the era during the infrequent times my family went out for dinner. My attempts at assembling my own variation on, what was for the time, perfection, were made with the assistance of a small cookbook that purported to show you how to cook everything possibly needed for Christmas well ahead of time and freeze it. I took this all very seriously and well remember myself piping trays of cream rosettes for freezing (and forgetting) in advance of the festive season. That Gateau wasn't too bad but a recent attempt to bring the cake into the 21st Century was even more successful.

I started with Tessa Kiros' recipe for Moist Chocolate Cake in Falling Cloudberries (incidentally, watch out for her new book - Piri Piri Starfish: Portugal Found - due out soon), made it with Griotka cherry liqueur, still sitting around since my Berlin trip, and served it in slices with cream and dollops of the most divine sour cherry preserve. This deconstructed effort is a lot easier to make than the old BFG, no filling or decorating necessary, just slice - thinly, this is a rich, moist cake - and add your cream/cherry accompaniments.

Chocolate Chippies are big in New Zealand. Also known as chocolate chip cookies, none of the Husband's family gatherings are complete without a box - or several - of these small addictive biscuits, made by the Husband's Mother or Sisters. When we were in Nelson in January, I spent time going through the Husband's Mother's great collection of recipe notebooks, taking down details of dishes I have enjoyed in the past - especially Gracie's Brown Rice and Chickpea Salad and the Chocolate Chippies.

With this summer a non-starter for barbeques, the salad hasn't been made yet, but the KitchenAid has been put into use several times in recent weeks for the Chocolate Chippies. I love the texture that the condensed milk gives these cookies and they're also happy to sit around - a handful abandoned in the biscuit tin a couple of weeks ago were fine when rediscovered - although they don't normally get a chance. The first time I made these we had the Small Brother staying over and, with the constant urging of the Husband, they got through a large chunk of that batch while they were cooling in the kitchen. The still-molten chocolate chips made for an easy discovery of the culprits.

Last weekend, the discovery of a bag of dried cranberries when I moved my baking trolley (the Husband was installing a washing machine into that corner!) gave me inspiration for these orange-flavoured Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies, using that Chocolate Chippies recipe. I also used dark, unrefined Muscovado sugar to give them a richer molasses flavour. Start to finish, they only take about half-an-hour to make and cook. Just remember to take the butter out of the fridge a while beforehand so that it is easy to cream.

I have a confession to make: I've just bought myself a shiny, glossy red KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer! The workhorse of many an American kitchen and beloved by cooks like Nigel and Nigella, I've been lusting after one of these babies for quite a while. I first fell in love with one I saw in the Cork branch of Meadows and Byrne a few years ago but, after peeking at the price tag, never thought there was going to be a chance that it would ever be sitting in my kitchen. Then we got married. And one of the lovely things about having a celebration of your relationship is that people give you gifts. So, several of those gifts, in the handbag of a rather giddy girl, made their way to Brown Thomas a couple of weeks ago. Although my hopes were initially dashed as they had sold out of red mixers - and, having set my heart on a red one, who would want an almond-coloured one instead? - the helpful staff ordered one in and gave me a call when it arrived. The poor Husband got the job of carrying the heavy box, all rapidly-getting-heavier 22lbs of it, home, having been promised future riches of cakes, cookies and breads, and it sat, in its box, in the hall of our Dublin flat - no space for mixers - until this weekend when I finally got to take it down to the cottage.

We barely got in the door before the KitchenAid, together with its shiny stainless steel bowl, dough hook, flat beater and a wire whisk, was taken out from its wrapping and I was finally able to admire it! Looking wasn't all I did with it, and over the weekend I made a Passion Fruit Cake (perfect with an afternoon cup of tea or coffee on a rainy Irish summer's afternoon), finally got the chance to try out the Husband's family's recipe for Chocolate Chippies, a loaf of bread - I just had to try out the dough hook - and some small bread rolls, which I baked in my Baker's Edge for maximum crust. It now sits proudly on the table in the baking corner of my cottage kitchen, below the flour cupboard and right next to the weighing scales. I've been revisiting my cookbooks with new eyes, no longer ignoring or skimming past recipes that involve creaming sugar and butter or whisking egg whites! Although it is also useful for kneading dough, if I'm making just a plain loaf of bread, I think I'll stick to the very successful No-Knead Bread recipe - because of its slow rise, it's got a lot more flavour than any normal homemade bread.

To read more from some fellow KitchenAid converts, check out David Lebovitz's article on the KitchenAid factory, other bloggers' joy at the arrival of their mixers, and some KitchenAid-friendly recipes.

The No-Knead Bread recipe from Mark Bittman - aka the New York Times' Minimalist - is one of those recipes that has taken on a life of its own. Published in the newspaper in 2006, it still keeps cropping up on other people's blogs and, finally - it was on my list of recipes-to-try for ages - I've gotten around to making it.

The first time I used this recipe was three days before our wedding. Awake at 4am one morning, I thought it was a good time to start the 18-hour proving (it sure beat writing wedding preparation lists!) so I threw the ingredients into a bowl and forgot about it until 6pm that evening. We were on our way to the airport to collect the Husband's Cousin, so it got a quick shaping and was abandoned while we whizzed down to Cork, collected the HC, and brought him home. While they brought the bags into the house, I ran ahead to turn on the cooker and start preheating my cast iron casserole - I don't think the bread came out of the oven until midnight but it was certainly worth waiting for. It had a gorgeous, crackly crust, (although somewhat over-floured by yours truly, panicking after trying to shape the wet, shaggy dough) and firm, chewy crumb. We ate it the following morning for breakfast and I was looking forward to trying it toasted - until I landed almost the entire loaf in a sink full of washing-up water as we raced around, getting ready to leave for another airport trip!

Friday night, after we arrived at the cottage, I started the bread mixture, this time substituting one cup of rye flour for one of strong flour. As I wandered off to nearby Longueville House for an indulgent, and prolonged, lunch with the Kerryman's mother, the Husband had to step into the breach for the final shaping although I did make it home for the cooking. This time round, I kept it safe from the sink, we enjoyed the loaf over three meals and it is fabulous toasted, especially when rubbed with a clove of garlic and drizzled with a little olive oil.

For the recipe, I'll refer you to the New York Times. I cook it in my 29cm oval cast iron casserole and these are the proportions that I use:
2 cups strong flour
1 cup rye flour
1 sachet instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt

Update 31/07/07: For a great step-by-step picture guide of how to make this bread go here and Clotilde has adapted the recipe for the metric world over on Chocolate and Zucchini - but, I have to reiterate this, be very careful when you're transferring the dough to the pan to the cooker. It is VERY HOT (last weekend's lovely oven-shelf-shaped blister on my arm is now finally healing after lavish amounts of aloe vera).

A recent request for the Gingerbread recipe from the first of Paula Daly's McDonnell's Good Food Cook Books brought back a host of memories. This was a cake that was often made at home, first by my mother and then, when I was allowed to get stuck into more complicated recipes, by me, standing on top of a chair to stir the sweet, sticky mixture (and sneaking tastes whenever I could!).

Although I still love Gingerbread I hadn't made it for a while and hadn't used this particular recipe in years. Although, unlike the loaf I made last year, there is no syrup drizzled over it when it comes out of the oven, this is still a lovely damp, moist Gingerbread, especially when you wrap it up and store it for a day or two before cutting it - if you can wait that long!

With this recipe, as with anything involving melting ingredients, I find it easiest to put the saucepan on the scales, measuring the ingredients as I add them. Makes life a little easier rather than trying to wrestle golden syrup or molasses into the measuring pan and then into the saucepan. The only changes that I made to the recipe was to substitute one of the teaspoons of ground ginger with cinnamon, use honey instead of golden syrup and molasses instead of treacle. And, of course, use butter instead of margarine.

One of the many interesting things about food blogging is tracing the movement of ideas and recipes around the widespread world of bloggers. Since the first time I read about Mark Bittman's No-Knead Bread - currently on my (very long!) list of recipes to try - in the New York Times it has travelled far and wide. You'll also find Peabody's Cranberry Orange Cookies a-wandering around other people's blogs, as is Donna Hay's Self Frosting Cupcake recipe, which first surfaced on Niki's Baking Sheet and then moved out into the wider world.

The Baker's Edge baking pan is one of those things that's been wandering around the blogging world for the last while. My interest was piqued when it popped up on Chocolate and Zucchini last year. Beautifully photographed, as always, by Clotilde (she also has a savoury recipe here), I loved its curvy snake-like shape and was intrigued with the idea of a baking pan - it was originally designed for brownies - that was designed to distribute heat equally so that there wouldn't be such a difference between edge and centre pieces. And then I promptly forgot about the Baker's Edge - until it started cropping up other blogs. A few months later, I've become the proud owner of what may be the only Baker's Edge in Ireland!

Solidly constructed from non-stick cast-aluminium, it came with a leaflet of recipes (cup measurements only) as well as a dinky little red spatula which helps to smooth cookie dough around the turns in the pan as well as being invaluable when it comes to dividing up brownies and getting them out of the dish. Unfortunately my Baker's Edge has become a victim of our current peripatetic lifestyle. Living in Dublin during the week and the country cottage at weekends means that it, much like my digital camera, always seems to be in the wrong residence when I want to bake! I still don't feel like I've given it a proper try-out but I have been experimenting with David Lebovitz's Friendship Bars, trying to convert the ingredients for Chef Emily's Signature Cookie Bars into metric and playing with a great recipe for Coconut Blondies (which is how I discovered the thermostat for my Dublin oven is screwy) that I got from the Connoisseur.

I'll just warn any potential purchasers that if they, like me, have a fan oven - nothing else seems to exist in Ireland any more, come back NZ cooker, all is forgiven - to be extra careful when cooking in this pan as it is all too easy to overcook things. I'm fiddling around with a few different recipes at the moment and hope to post them soon. In the mean time, you can read about why the Baker's Edge came about and creator Matt Griffin's efforts to bring it into the market, and browse through some recipes here.

Inspired by my perusal of Heidi Swanson's superb cookbook Super Natural Cooking, I've been motivated to start baking with more esoteric - to me, at least - grains and foods. I'm all stocked up on my favourite quinoa to try out some of her recipes (you'll find plenty more online at 101 Cookbooks), millet, amaranth, linseed and - in the move - rediscovered some Letheringsett Watermill Organic Spelt Flour from our trip to Norfolk. Subtitled "Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into your Cooking", it's a perfect read if you're interested in cooking with whole foods and wanting to learn more about what is available and what can be done with it. And, unlike the educational but boring-looking Fresh and Wild Cookbook, it looks amazing.

One of the things I really like about Super Natural Cooking is the way that Heidi encourages you to substitute whole grains for what you would use normally. Quinoa instead of orzo, pearl barley for risotto rice, tef flour in a quiche crust instead of wheat flour. Little steps to help you integrate all these new foods in your diet without feeling like you're having to completely change your recipes and ways of cooking. In that spirit, while making some Shortbread to fill the tins, I decided to finally use some of my spelt flour. This was encouraged by the bag almost falling out of my baking cupboard as I reached for the sugar. When your ingredients start to fight back it is definitely a sign that you need to actually use them!

To complement the nutty taste of the spelt, I added a quarter-teaspoonful of dried lavender flowers, bought in a Moroccan supermarket last year. Be very careful while you measure these out - too much and your Lavender Spelt Shortbread can easily taste like the scrapings from little-old-lady dressing table.

Being a big fan of porridge - especially good with Muscovado sugar and natural yoghurt on a cold morning in the cottage - I always have a bag of oats in the house and they often find their way into my baking. I regularly make batches of Anzac Biscuits and Oaty Apricot Biscuits to keep the tins filled. I've also been known to make my own Granola, using Tessa Kiros' recipe in Apples for Jam as a starting point, throw a few handfuls into Brown Soda Bread, and have been experimenting with variations of Bill Granger's Muesli Bars. But, of all the oaty dishes that I make, this one for Chocolate Flapjacks is a true favourite. It originally came from Green and Black's decadent book of chocolate recipes but has gone through a few changes since with the addition of coconut, dates and seeds. Although there's lots of butter in it (not to mention the golden syrup and sugar!), it's still a slightly healthy snack and has been known to get me though many an evening's post-work yoga class.

A baked cheesecake is one of those dishes that I've been meaning to make for a long, long time. So, when I saw that it was the theme of Hey Hey it's Donna Day #10, as hosted over on Culinary Concoctions by Peabody, nothing was going to stop me from participating. I had also fully intended to get involved with HHDD #10, soufflés, as well but that kind of fell by the wayside when we had to start flat hunting in Dublin again. Spending your evenings getting frustrated with trying to find somewhere to live and the calmness necessary for soufflé cooking just don't seem to go hand in hand.

This time around, though, when the announcement of the HHDD theme and the presence of a frozen packet of cream cheese in my needing-to-be-emptied freezer co-incided it was obviously A Sign. While poking around in the freezer, I also discovered a substantial amount of chicken that also needed to be used up so I had a chat with the Connoisseur and volunteered to host the latest episode of bookclub at mine before we downsize and everyone has to sit on the kitchen counter.

Let me tell you, my baked cheesecake was not an easy task. Of course, this was not helped by my devil-may-care, I'm-too-lazy-to-go-to-the-shop-again substitutions. The fact that I was also working from about three recipes didn't help either! I started off with Nigella's Chocolate Cheesecake and, because of a(nother) freezer discovery of a bag of frozen raspberries and my love of this sweet and tart combination, decided to make a Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake.

When I couldn't find any digestives (graham crackers) for the base - none in Dunnes, what is the world coming to? - I decided to use Hob Nobs instead. Because I was after a thicker base than Nigella likes, I wandered over to Nigel's Kitchen Diaries for quantities, while still following Nigella's method. No custard powder? No stress. Just leave it out. Can't be bothered to separate eggs? Throw another couple in instead of just the yokes. Just short of the cream cheese needed? Sure, it'll be grand. And then there was crème fraîche instead of sour cream, blending the whole lot in the food processor instead of using the mixer (down at the cottage!) and a mis-wrapped tin that leaked. I also forgot to put the raspberries into the tin before the filling so they sat on top, rather than being buried, as I had intended, as a tart little surprise in the depths of the cheesecake.

It cracked, it broke, it had to be disguised by a quickly sieved layer of cocoa. Oh, my mistakes were legion. But, and this is always the killer when you produce a dish and tell people that it's not quite what you had intended but hopefully it is ok, it went down so well that I'm now going to give you my own lackadaisical recipe. If you want to cook the proper version, just go here.

One warning: do not, under any circumstances, make this if you're about to have guests over that night. It's something that very definitely is a make ahead desert. As a matter of fact, I made both this and the main course, a Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons, the night before dinner. It certainly makes having friends over a lot easier and, being lazy by nature, I take any short-cuts I can!

Since returning from New Zealand we've been spending most weekends down at the cottage, the Boyfriend inventing new and more ingenious ways to catch the rabbits (score so far - Boyfriend: nil, rabbits: merrily increasing by the day) and me pottering around in the kitchen, baking cakes and slices to fill the tins. It's a great opportunity to try out recipes that I've been hoarding away from other blogs and websites (does everyone else have a word document on their desktop which they update regularly with recipes that take their eye?) as well as working my way through the piles of cookbooks currently on my desk, including Bill Granger's latest, Cook with Jamie, the Rose Bakery cookbook, Sophie Conran's Pies and Cook by Thomasina Miers. Bakingsheet is a rich source of recipes and Nic's Mexican Chocolate Loaf Cake, albeit without the orange rind and made in a round tin, was a successful gift for our hosts in Cobh last weekend even though I felt that my cinnamon was past its freshest date. A Maya Gold-flavoured variation of Thomasina Miers's chocolate cake, baked in a Bundt cake tin from my NZ kitchen which I manage to cram into our luggage this time, was a success with one sister - who liked its fudgyness - and a failure with the other, for being too rich! Sometimes you just can't win.

Being out in the country with limited shopping opportunities available locally (hence the stale cinnamon), recipes are often a triumph of available ingredients over specified ingredients and many days find me scrabbling through my collection of recipe books in the cottage for something I can make with what's at my disposal. No butter for the Mexican Chocolate Loaf Cake? The recipe is quite muffin-like so I used sunflower oil instead. Wanting to make muffins for a family gathering? Allyson Gofton's Great New Zealand Baking Book stepped into the breach with chocolate chips substituted for the berries in her Chocolate Berry Muffins.

With my electric hand mixer living in Dublin at the moment, I'm also used to figuring out ways around the instructions "cream the butter and sugar together". There were alterations and substitutions aplenty when I decided to make shortbread using Jamie Oliver's recipe in one of my Christmas pressies, Cook With Jamie. Instead of creaming, I used my pastry blender to rub the butter into the flour and used extra flour instead of the cornflour that had suddenly gone amiss. Still, the end result more than justified the means - not as short as it would have been if I had used the cornflour or some rice flour, but its buttery goodness more than knocks the spots off any bought biscuits. Just what's needed for dunking in hot chocolate on cold Friday nights when we arrive down from Dublin.

PS - Happy Valentine's Day!

Being a big fan of cranberries, I decided to turn some of the fresh ones currently in the shops into desert for our annual Christmas bookclub dinner last week. For the last few months I've been experimenting with Clotilde's versatile Gâteau au Yaourt or Yoghurt Cake, making different flavoured versions, including an All Spice Upside Down Plum Cake for dinner with my uncle, aunt and cousins in the cottage and, when the Boyfriend was hosting his Arabic class at our flat, a Middle Eastern-inspired Pine Nut, Orange and Rose Water Cake.

This time round, after catching sight of Nigella's Cranberry Upside Down Cake in her How to be a Domestic Goddess cookbook, I decided to adapt her recipe for my own purposes. The cranberries became extra Christmassy when flavoured with port and the cake batter that Nigella uses was replaced by a simple cinnamon-scented yoghurt cake. Although I didn't quite manage to get the cake out of the tin with all cranberries intact, it still - served warm with plenty of pouring cream - tasted good, the tangy yoghurt base complementing the tart cranberry topping, the seasonal jewel-like berries glistening with rich caramel. And, at a time of the year when stodge seems to rule, it is good to have a decently light desert in your repertoire. Merry Christmas everyone!

We are nearly through our first apple season at the cottage - the few that have been too small to pick are still grimly clinging on to the tree through November wind and rain, while the fallen ones are being enjoyed by our still-prolific rabbit population and I've got a stash for myself upstairs in the spare room.

My granddad, who had a small orchard beside his house, tried many different ways of storing apples, especially cooking apples, through the winter but they often disintegrated into a soup of rotten apples in the bottom of the wooden boxes he used come spring. I'm starting my own system of trials this year, lovingly hand-picking unblemished apples and hauling enamel bowlfuls upstairs to carefully arrange in a single layer on the slatted shelves of the wardrobe.

Storing aside, I've been cooking with the apples every weekend and Barbara's version of Taste Magazine's Cinnamon Apple Cake was a well-timed entry on Winos and Foodies. I've been making this in a double mixture for an after-lunch pudding, so you get more cake to apple ratio - plenty of soakage for lashings of hot custard - and using Muscovado sugar to deepen the flavour. If you've a vanilla pod lying around, do as my little sister did last weekend and scrape the seeds into the custard to give your traditional Bird's Custard Powder - necessary for all family meals! - a bit of an oomph.

Cookies, especially chocolate chip ones, are always a winner. But, when they also contain the nutty goodness of oatmeal and you get your hands on them, fresh from the oven so that the chocolate is still warm and melted, they are a treat indeed. A recipe that caught my eye recently on one of my regular wanders around Nic's bakingsheet blog (her buttermilk pancakes are a regular weekend breakfast favourite) was this one, for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Frog Commissary Cookbook.

I packed my hand mixer for a recent long weekend at the cottage - I was intending to make Barbara's Cinnamon Apple Cake with apples from our own tree - and I decided to use it to mix up a batch of these cookies before an old school and college friend called over with her new baby. It looks like the hand mixer may become a permanent part of my cottage-going luggage in the future. Life is really a whole lot easier when you don't have to cream ingredients by hand! On Friday I cooked half of the dough and the cookies were very popular, especially with a Boyfriend working hard on ridding the half-acre behind the cottage of nettles. The School Friend turned up with a loaf of homemade brown bread so she took home a stack for her own husband in return.

Nic says that these are the kind of cookies that everyone should have in their repertoire and I would agree. The dough is easy to make and happy to sit in the fridge for a few days. I cooked the second half on Monday, and had them out of the oven just before my cousin arrived but make sure you add a few minutes to the cookie baking time if you cooking them direct from the fridge. They have the right amount of chewiness and crispness, decadent chocolate balanced with (slightly) healthy oatmeal. These are the kind of cookies that don't sit around for long and no one ever manages to stop at one, or even two or, sometimes, three... For my adaptation of the recipe below, I used Muscovado sugar as I love the depth it gives to baked goods and I converted (in a somewhat random way) the American cup measurements to imperial. Perfect cooking for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

As a child, I was an avid cookbook reader and collector. Of course, growing up in a small town in the middle of the countryside, there weren't too many opportunities to actually buy many new cookbooks so the few that I did have were well-treasured. One of my most loved books, judging by the ingredient-encrusted pages, was a cookbook devoted to chocolate. Although the book itself has long since disappeared, it did leave a legacy behind - my beloved Chocolate Brownies recipe.

It's always the mark of a good recipe when you forget about it for a while, only to be reminded by a friend, family member or an event that it's time to dig it out again and these Chocolate Brownies have been part of my life for nearly twenty years now. While in college, my housemates and I occasionally used to have groups of up to 20 people over for dinner. For those nights, the brownies were a great prepare-ahead desert for lots of people, delicious served with whipped cream or, like Ice Cream Ireland, with a ball of vanilla ice cream and some chocolate sauce drizzled over.

These are not brownies for purists, the ones on the outside of the tin being rather more cakey than many Americans would like - although do make sure that you don't overcook them. Every oven is different (the temperature I give below is for a fan oven) so use your own judgement as to whether they are cooked or not. I use cocoa instead of chocolate and, although you may balk at first, these brownies are not complete without the nutty textural contrast that you get from the walnuts. Do use real butter, there's just no point in substituting anything else, and try to get your hands on good quality real vanilla extract instead of the horrible stuff that passes itself off as "vanilla essence" in the supermarkets. Apologies for the old imperial measurements but I've never made these in metric!

The night before the Boyfriends' birthday last week, I made up a double batch - it's the reason why I always have two swiss roll tins in every kitchen I put together - which, when piled high and with stuck liberally with candles, made an easily transportable and servable pub birthday cake. Any leftovers keep happily for a few days in an air-tight tin but they don't normally get to stay there for too long!

My friend the Film Critic had a birthday last week and so I took it into my head, late last Tuesday night, to make him a birthday cake. Wanting something simple - and that I already had the ingredients for in the house - I decided on a straightforward Gâteau au Yaourt, which seems to be a French national dish. I first came across this cake on Clotilde's Chocolate & Zucchini blog and, subsequently, it also cropped up in Christelle Le Ru's Simply Irresistible French Desserts and also as a Frenchwoman's contribution to the Moneystown school's charity cookbook. It was evidentially time to try it out.

What originally caught my eye was the fact that you tipped a tub of yoghurt into a bowl and then simply used the pot to measure out the rest of the ingredients. How easy - and how flexible - is that? We always have a big tub of natural yoghurt in the house so the main ingredient was already at hand and the others - eggs, sugar, sunflower oil, flour and baking powder - are also pantry staples. As my tub of natural yoghurt was, at 500ml, much too big I decided to use a 250ml NZ cup as my measuring tool, scaling everything else appropriately. I didn't want the cake to be too plain so I added some lemon zest, pistachio nuts, vanilla and muscovado sugar to the mixture. I was also going to ice it with lemon glacé icing (just a mixture of lemon juice and icing sugar) until I discovered what little icing sugar was in the house. Already half ways through making the icing, I instead used the mixture as a lemony syrup to pour over the hot cake so that it soaked through, leaving a bittersweet crust on top.

Mixed in minutes and in the oven a few seconds later, the eventual Lemon and Pistachio Yogurt Cake was a resounding success. It had a tasty piquancy from the yoghurt, which was heightened by the addition of both lemon rind and juice. I got rather distracted while preparing the pistachios - so difficult to shell them and not eat them! - so rather less that I would have liked made it into the cake. As Clotilde said, this is a great any-time-of-the-day cake but I must confess that my favourite way of eating it is to crumble a slice over some ripe nectarines, sliced into a bowl, and top with a dollop of natural yoghurt. Sweet and soft, fruity and creamy all together. I eat it for breakfast...

Ever since I saw Feast@Home by New Zealand food writer Julie Le Clerk I've been wanting to make the cake on the cover - a Chocolate Ripple Sliver Cake. But, every time I've re-read the recipe, I've realised afresh that I simply can't make it without an electric handheld mixer.

Now, I know that it's possible to cream sugar and butter together by hand, that eggs and sugar can be whipped to a light froth without an electric mixer, and that it's possible to beat egg whites into stiff peaks with just a hand whisk - but have you ever done it? Do you know how much it makes your hand and arm ache? And how damn LONG it takes?! The last time that I made a cake involving the creaming method - an Avoca chocolate cake when I was catering the Writer's hen party - my arm nearly fell off and I had to get the Boyfriend out of bed early on a Saturday morning to help mix. I don't think he was best impressed. So, ever since then, I've been taking the long path around any recipes that entail using an electric mixer. But I knew that I'd have to get one someday - there were just too many recipes in my must-cook files that were getting ignored otherwise.

So, last Thursday when I decided that I simply HAD to make Julie Le Clerc's Chocolate Ripple Sliver Cake for Friday night's dinner, I had no time to make a well-considered purchase, instead legging it into cheap household goods store Argos and picked up the Kenwood HM310 Deluxe Handmixer. I don't quite know what's deluxe about it, but - although the engine didn't sound too happy about mixing the chocolate part of the cake - it was still capable of doing the job.

While standing around the kitchen, beating the eggs/sugar mixture and waiting for it to turn "thick and pale" - it took so long, even with the electric mixer, that I would probably still be beating if I had tried to make it by hand - my mind and my eyes were roaming. I couldn't resist adding some freshly grated nutmeg, to compliment the cream cheese topping, and, given that I love the flavour of orange with dark chocolate, the zest of an orange got thrown in there too.

This was one of the first times I've had a suitably decadent recipe to make the most of the 1kg bar of Fairtrade dark chocolate (60% cocoa solids) that I got from the Connoisseur's Italian boyfriend who works in Amnesty and it was fantastic. It's amazing chocolate and is available from Amnesty's Freedom Café at 48 Fleet Street in Dublin's Temple Bar - a great place for a cup of (Fairtrade) coffee and panini, incidentally.

And the cake? Julie isn't joking - it is seriously rich. I easily got 16 slices out of it and we served with ice cream, strawberries and blackberries on the side, the Tax Advisor's contribution to last week's dinner. What little was left over after desert disappeared between that night's drinking and breakfast the next morning. It's always a good sign of a cake when there's nothing but crumbs left the following day. This is also a flourless cake so is perfect - given that you make sure your cream cheese is gluten free and, as far as I know, the Philadelphia brand is - you can happily serve it to all your coeliac and gluten-intolerant friends.

I've often intended to but never quite got round to getting involved in Sugar High Friday. It's a reoccurring blog event that was originally, once-upon-a-long-time-ago, started by Domestic Goddess Jennifer. This round is being hosted by Ruth, who is physically situated in Toronto - virtually at Once Upon A Feast and the theme she has picked for this month is ginger. I love this spice in all its incarnations, ground and used in a delicious little Ginger Gem, chunks of crystallised ginger studing a moist, sticky slab of Gingerbread or - at the other end of the spectrum - slices of the fresh root simmered in a savory chicken stock for soup.

Ginger is well loved in New Zealand and that's very evident in any café or bakery that you go into. One of the (many) things that I love about NZ is the easy availability of great sweet treats to have with a cup of coffee - things like Tan Slice, shortbread, Millionaire Squares, countless oaty slices, amazing looking cookies and, one of my all time favourites, Ginger Crunch. Six months back in Ireland and suffering from a Ginger Crunch deficit, I decided that this was going to be my contribution to the latest round of SHF.

I'm not sure where this recipe for Ginger Crunch came from as it is an amalgamation of several different versions - I'm sure it has its roots somewhere, at some stage, in the New Zealand classic Edmonds Cookery Book. Wanting to to make it particularly gingery I added at two teaspoons of ground ginger to the base, along with some chopped crystallised ginger. Just perfect with a cup of coffee on a Sugar High Friday afternoon.

Being back in Ireland now, I nearly forgot all about Anzac Day this year on 25 April and it wasn't until a few days later that I got round to making the traditional batch of Anzac Biscuits for the Boyfriend. Although late for the day itself, this baking stint was perfectly timed for the weekend as we're about to embark on a camping trip - the first one of the year (we hope to remember the sleeping bags this time!) - and it's good to have some oaty biscuits to stave off starvation, or "for morale," as the Boyfriend puts it.

While assembling the biscuits for cooking last night, I was a little distracted by simultaneously trying to get my own supper ready (Mushrooms in Milk again, on top of some thick slices of Blazing Salads' Multigrain Rye Sourdough bread - yummy) and so I nearly forgot to add the sugar to the mixture - and it wouldn't be the first time, either. With toast and mushrooms almost ready and demanding my attention, I just grabbed the first bag of sugar that came to hand which happened to be the fabulously rich Dark Muscavado Traidcraft Fairtrade sugar. I'll never go back. The molasses flavoured muscavado gave the Anzac Biscuits a much deeper, almost treacly, flavour than the normal plain white crystals, a taste well worth repeating.

Incidentally, I always double my original recipe to make about three dozen biscuits. It's no extra work and it is well worth it to have a stash somewhere in the house (or tent) for nibbling on when the mood (or the Boyfriend) strikes.

As I finished up at work on Friday, I suddenly, as I looked out into the showery evening, got a yearning for gingerbread. No fancy stuff, I just wanted a damp and aromatically spicy loaf, the sort of teabread that would go perfectly with a cup of tea on a weather-swept Saturday. When I was younger, this kind of longing would be easily satisfied with a squashed loaf in a packet that said "Jamaica Gingerbread" but now, with a well-stocked baking cupboard, spur-of-the-moment cooking decisions aren't too much of a problem.

During my slow month-by-month perusal of Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries (I'm reading it in real time) I had come across a reference to an afternoon's baking involving a Double Ginger Cake. A quick search of the Observer website threw up the recipe but it wasn't quite the one that I was looking for. What I wanted was a cake involving the darkness of treacle or molasses rather than the lighter flavoured golden syrup that Nigel used. Plus he used stem ginger in syrup and, well stocked as I am, I don't have any of that on hand. But the recipe below that - David Herbert's Ginger Cake - was something that hit the spot. I jiggled around with the amount of golden syrup that he used in the recipe, adding some sturdy blackstrap molasses instead. Rather than mixed spice, I added my own mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg and freshly ground peppercorns and, as I had picked up a packet of lovely sugar-encrusted crystallised ginger chunks last weekend while in Nenagh's Country Choice, a small handful were chopped up and added to the cake batter to add a little texture.

This is a cake which takes more time in the oven than it does to put together and perfect for Friday night when I didn't have much time to devote to it. With one eye on the clock, I landed the Gingerbread into the oven while getting ready for a gig at Whelans of Wexford Street - Joey Burns of Calexico was playing. I took a break from applying eye-shadow to ladle the ginger syrup over the cake and resisted the temptation to break into the loaf as I headed out the door. At 2am that night it tasted good, but not as great as it did on Saturday afternoon with a steaming hot cup of tea. I love it when a plan comes together.

Last week the Boyfriend decided that it was time to move on from making bagels which, though gorgeous, are very time-consuming to something a little faster. As we both take our lunches to work, we're going through a lot of brown bread at the moment (mostly McCambridge's...especially nicely nutty when toasted) so he decided to make a couple of loaves of my Brown Soda Bread. After a few minutes hovering and being more hindrance than help, I decided to leave him to it. I curled up on the couch in the living room with a book as he worked away in the adjacent kitchen - close enough to help if asked but far away so that I wouldn't be interfering!

All went smoothly and I just arrived back at the cooker to see him put the loaves in the oven. Normally I sprinkle them with sesame seeds but these looked like they were topped with sunflower seeds. Curious, I thought, asking the Boyfriend what he had put on the loaves. "Sesame seeds," he said defensively, "like it said in the recipe. YOUR recipe." I did a double take - had I just bought a packet of absolutely enormous sesame seeds? - but no, looking through the oven door they were definitely sunflower seeds. And so they proved. The Boyfriend, after looking at sesame seeds in the list of ingredients, had grabbed the first bag of seeds from the baking cupboard that started with S. I'm glad he didn't make the same mistake between bread soda/bicarbonate of soda and baking powder! As it turned out, the sunflower seed-topped loaves were so good that I've now started sprinkling both seeds on top of the loaves before I put them into the oven. And, after Sunday's trip to Avoca, I might even be adding poppy seeds to the flour along with the normal pumpkin seeds to make some Multi-Seed Brown Soda Bread.

Having missed the first Winos and Foodies Hay Hay, It's Donna Day - and you all know about my love of Donna Hay! - I had every intention of making a real effort for the second episode in what looks like becoming a long-running series of worldwide bake-ins. Glutton Rabbit at Pearl of the Orient chose Macaroons for Hay Hay, It's Donna Day #2 but I'm not a huge macaroon fan. Besides, I was down home and the Little Sister took one look at the recipe that I'd printed off from Pearl of the Orient and went "ugh! There's coconut in it." I have memories of making coconut macaroons when I was a child and they were never a great success - unlike anything involving chocolate. Then I remembered a recipe for Chocolate Almond Macaroons that I had come across in Taste: Baking with Flavour by Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs. Although the book is back in New Zealand, there's still the internet and the Cuisine website came up trumps with just the recipe that I had noted in the cookbook.

As it was my mother's birthday on Saturday, the kitchen was rather busy. I had decided to cook Beef and Red Wine Pie for dinner so that had to go on first, Little Sister was across the table putting the finishing touches to her Squidgy Chocolate Cake (one of Delia's classics) and trying to barricade Mum from the room, the Other Sister was in and out getting my father to bend the door of her car back into place (it's not easy owning a '95 Fiesta in Cork these days), the Boyfriend was reporting on the goings on while the Little Brother teased the dogs and kicked a football around the kitchen. As a result, these macaroons got too little attention and I never got a chance to make the chocolate ganache filling. Between Pie and Cake they were completely overshadowed and I didn't even get to remove them from the baking tray until Sunday. Thrown into a lunchbox they made the trip from near Charleville to Dublin that afternoon. There, without any distractions (or the filling), I discovered that these macaroons were curiously moreish. They're not much to look at - resembling nothing so much as regularly shaped, although lighter brown, cow pats - but the combination of crisp crust and soft, slightly nutty, interior is a winner. The Boyfriend discovered this at the same time, only in a more intense way, and I now have discovered that he's eaten about three to every one I eat.

Although not the flop that I initially thought, I do think that these macaroons could be made better by adding some grated chocolate and a handful of flaked almonds when folding the dry ingredients into the egg whites. And maybe some orange zest - I even brought my zester home with me at the weekend to try out this theory! Alas, juggling everything else meant that these only got made with half my attention. Still, thanks to Glutton Rabbit for giving me the idea to dig out that recipe although I don't know if there was much use of "creativity and cooking skills" in this angle of the world. Still, not everything always works out, especially in the cooking department! I wonder how everybody else got on?

I was home down the country last weekend and, when I was investigating the fridge, I discovered a chunk of almond paste. It had originally been made by my Little (in age, not so in height) Sister to cover the Christmas Cake and the leftovers got abandoned in the fridge. I couldn't pass it by - I must admit I love almond paste. When I was a child, I'd take a piece of Christmas Cake just for the almond icing and try to trade the cake part off against someone else's icing. Many's the Christmas Cake, much to my mother's annoyance, that was denuded of its tasty almond coating ever before the royal icing came near it!

I remember standing by my mother as she did her Christmas baking, perched on a chair so that I could reach the worktop, all wrapped up in an apron that was much too big for me. Maybe that's when I realised that, if you make the sweet things, then no one can give out to you (too much) for eating it! So the Christmas Cake became my job and I often made a little too much almond paste so that I could have a stash of it in the fridge for myself...or, perhaps, try out other recipes that involved almond paste.

One such recipe culled from a Woman's Realm or Women's Weekly of many years ago was from an article on festive dishes from other countries and was for a Dutch Christmas ring, known as Kerstkrans. It was not a difficult recipe - almond paste, encased in puff pastry, glazed with apricot jam and decorated with cherries - but it was a delicious treat, especially hot out of the oven.

Although the leftover almond paste wasn't really enough for a Kerstkrans, I decided not to waste it. Mum had puff pastry in the freezer and, while laying out the sausage of almond paste on the rolled out pastry, I decided to add some orange zest to lift the flavour of the almonds. I imported my trusty citrus zester, purchased from Judith Cullen at her cookery evening in Christchurch, from New Zealand and - despite not doing much cooking recently - have used it every time I've been down home. The fact that it's so easy to zest oranges, lemons and limes, makes you add the peel to many dishes, Cranberry Sauce, for instance. Here, I intensified the orange flavour by glazing the Kerstkrans (although it was more of a January Crescent than a Christmas Ring!) with Bonne Maman's Bitter Orange Marmalade.

While not the best looking Kerstkrans that I've ever made - or the most faithful to the original recipe! - this was a perfect with a cup of coffee in the afternoon. Light flaky pastry encased nutty almond paste, which was complimented by the intense flavour of the orange zest while the marmalade made the slices suitably sticky.

But it was the name given to it by the Little Sister which really topped things off. "Oh, you've made Baby Jesus in His Blanket", she said when she saw the Kerstkrans laid out on the table. It turned out that she'd been looking through my old stack of Home & Freezer Digests ("the only women's magazine that specialises in the needs of the freezer owner" - I used to buy them when I was in my teens) where she came across a picture of Stollen, the traditional German bread-like cake which is also filled with almond paste. In the description, it said that the shape of the cake was meant to represent the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. Therefore, in the Little Sister's world, my Kerstkrans became Baby Jesus in His Blanket. Not the worst name! So, without further ado, let me present the recipe for Caroline's Kerstkrans aka Baby Jesus in His Blanket.

One of the kitchen items that I regretted having to leave in New Zealand were my gem irons. Gem irons - cast-iron baking tins, divided into a dozen small curved spaces and used to make the light spicy little loaves called Ginger Gems - seem to be indigenous to New Zealand. I had never come across this cooking implement, or the accompanying recipes, in any other country. The first few times I saw the irons at the market I hadn't a clue what they were, despite the Boyfriend's mother telling me all about what I thought were called Ginger Jams and jam irons one day. It took me a wee while to get used to the Kiwi accent!

It wasn't until I came across an article in Catherine Bell's Dish magazine that everything fell into place. With the help of the photo in the magazine I realised what the old cast iron implements at the market were. It also helped me to make the translation from jam to gem and suddenly everything was clear. So, hearing that these were one of the Boyfriend's father's favourites, I set out on a search for the irons - which, at the very time I discovered how to use them, seemed to disappear from the market. I persevered, though, and eventually managed to get my hand on a pair of lighter and more modern aluminium gem irons. Then I had to find a recipe...

While I lived in New Zealand my equipment was limited. I had no food processor, blender or mixer (although I did manage to get my hands on a Breadmaker!) so all recipes were carefully read and assessed to ensure that they were possible to make with what I did have. Dishes which involved beating egg whites to stiff peaks were ignored as were any soups which had to go near a blender. Any recipe which started off "cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy" were similarly skipped over. I've never liked developing my upper arm muscles through beating butter and sugar with a wooden spoon. And, I can tell you from experience, it takes AGES for them to get to the appropriate creamed stage. But all the recipes I found for Ginger Gems involved the creaming step so that plan, despite the presence of the gem irons, got put on the long finger for a while.

While on a trip to the Boyfriend's family bach at Lake Rotoiti, though, I came across a recipe notebook that had belonged to his paternal grandmother, a wonderful cook and baker by all accounts. Her recipe for Ginger Gems was in the notebook and, to my delight, it involved melting rather than creaming. I had fun trying to figure out some of her measurements - she mixed dessertspoons with table and teaspoons - and the method was idiosyncratic to say the least, but a few test cases later I had success.

Although Ginger Gems, served warm with butter, really belong to the era where everyone stopped for afternoon tea at 4pm, they're still good as a light desert. If you have a gem iron - and if anyone comes across one in Ireland, please do let me know! - they're something that can be mixed and baked in about half an hour. A couple of warm Gems, placed on either side of a ball of decent vanilla ice-cream and drizzled over with still-hot caramel sauce take them firmly out of the tea time bracket. A New Zealand classic, just slightly updated.

I put a recipe for Irish Brown Soda Bread on this site several months ago after the first time I cooked it and since then it has become part of our staple diet. Of course, the more I cook a recipe, the more I end up fiddling with it so here is my latest variation.

The first change to my basic recipe was when my mother said that she always uses self-raising flour instead of plain flour as it ensures a good rise. It also enabled me to simplify the recipe, reducing the bread soda and cutting out the cream of tartar completely. The Boyfriend being a fan of pumpkin seeds, we had some in the house so I threw in a handful and was very pleased with the result. They add a lot of texture to the bread and are particularly nice when toasted. I’ve also added some wholegrain oats, for a bit of variation! The first recipe will still work, of course, but this is a simpler and, I must admit, an even better one.

Looking at Sunday's entry about flatbreads and focaccia, I just realised what was missing - I forgot to write up my focaccia recipe! What I give here is just the basic recipe but there are countless variations. You can always add different herbs or some crushed garlic, top the dough with caramelised onions or roasted peppers or, indeed, stuff it with cheese and bacon for a ready-made sandwich.

When the dough is ready for removal from the Breadmaker, I often knead in some cooked red onion - you can see it in the photo. It's pure laziness that has me using the microwave but it is just as easy to do on the stovetop if you prefer. All I do is cut the onion into eighths and cook it with 1½ tablespoons olive oil, covered, for about 10 minutes on medium until soft. I then drain the oil and use it to drizzle over the top of the focaccia before it goes into the oven.

Instead of, or in addition to, water, I've also used whey from my attempts at cheesemaking and I do think this contributes to a more tasty bread. Waste not, want not. Am I sounding like a Fifties housewife yet?!

Although I was a late entrant to Samantha's Blog by Mail 2, she very kindly let me get involved and I sent off my package to Deborah in the USA on Wednesday. Figuring out what to put in it was a lot of fun and I eventually settled on a mixture of homemade goodies and local foodstuffs. I just hope that the postal service doesn't let me down and that it gets to Deborah before anything starts growing mould.

As Deborah is originally from New Zealand I thought that she might appreciate a taste of home. Every Kiwi bakery and café seems to have rows of delicious homemade sweet slices or tray bakes - Caramel Shortbread, Fudge Squares, Ginger Crunch, Citrus Slice, Chocolate Brownies - but my current favourite is Tan Slice. It is basically Caramel Shortbread (aka Millionaire or Wellington Square) but with extra shortbread on top, instead of chocolate, and is not at all difficult to make. It was incredibly more-ish - I even caught the Boyfriend having a pre-breakfast piece - and, judging by the speed at which this disappeared from the pantry, the Housemates also enjoyed it. In fact, there wasn't even anything left when I went to take a photo of it!

A handful of Spicy Chocolate Biscotti was one of the other treats that I put into Deborah's package. Ever since having Chocolate and Chilli Biscotti at Underground I've been wanting to try making these and, biscotti weighing hardly anything in terms of postage, this was the ideal opportunity. I used my trusty Aji chilli powder and ground cinnamon and, as I like something to contrast with the hard texture of the biscotti, I also added some Bournville Chocolate Balls that I had lying around but you could use any chopped up dark chocolate. These chocolate bites keep well in an airtight container, the spiciness improving with age, and I love them in the afternoon with a cup of strong coffee. They're also a good, rather more sophisticated, alternative to the soft, rich, intensely buttery Tan Slice.

My local Oxfam Fair Trade shop here in Christchurch has started stocking Fair Trade spices, including ground ginger, cinnamon - ground and sticks, whole cloves, whole and ground black peppercorns and chilli powder, all from Sri Lanka. I've only bought the black peppercorns so far - they're really pungent, after they spent a night in my handbag it all smells of pepper! Each little package comes with a little flyer giving information on the origins of the spice and some ideas of how to make the most of it in cooking.

The Oxfam Fair Trade shop also stocks many other Fair Trade products including Thai jasmine rice - not my beloved basmati, alas - tea, chocolate, coffee (beans and ground as well as, I was interested to see, an instant version), hot chocolate and a huge variety of handicrafts. All prices are very reasonable, my peppercorns were only $2.95, for instance - a small price to pay for a clear conscience.

Find out more about Fair Trade here.
Oxfam Ireland have their website, including information on where your local shop is situated, here.

It's been years since I ate porridge regularly for breakfast. Lumpy and overboiled, it was always a one of the foods that I hated as a child - unless it was made in the Aga at Oldcastletown by my grandfather. Put into the bottom oven the previous night, his porridge was one of the highlights if we stayed overnight. I went through a porridge phase at college as it was cheap and seemed to be filling. It was then that I discovered how digestible oats actually are, as I would end up being hungry about half way through my first lecture.

Since then the only reason I've had porridge oats in the house is to make Anzac Biscuits, Oaty Apricot Biscuits or to experiment with a few more Flapjack recipes until a few weeks ago when we met a couple of the Boyfriend's friends for early brunch on a Sunday morning. It being rather earlier than my normal Sunday rising time, I decided that I was too delicate for the more robust items on the menu (Eggs Hollandaise, Savoury Muffins, a fried breakfast) and instead went for the Porridge with Boysenberries and Greek Yoghurt. What arrived was a creamy concoction spiked with sunflower seeds, coloured a delicate pink from the boysenberries, and topped with a great dollop of Greek yoghurt. A most delicious and comforting bowlful.

I had no sooner scraped the bowl clean, than I was thinking of variations to try at home. Sunflower seeds seem to prevent hunger pangs from settling in too soon so they would have to be added. Toasted walnuts, cinnamon, Greek yoghurt and maple syrup, perhaps? Obviously frozen boysenberries would have to be purchased for my own experiments and what about chopped dried apricots, yoghurt and toasted flaked almonds?

Porridge is a true weekend breakfast as I have neither the time nor inclination to go fiddling around with pots and pans in the morning before work. Not to mention cleaning of the porridge pot, never an altogether pleasant job. I use a small red cast-iron saucepan for the cooking, which is a good defence against letting the porridge burn. Make life easier for yourself by always soaking the pot in cold water immediately after you serve your porridge. The variations are endless although I must admit to a weakness for the chopped dried apricots, yoghurt and toasted flaked almonds combination, especially when the apricots are stirred through the porridge and the yoghurt is floated on top beneath the almonds. Every mouthful thus brings a taste and texture contrast between the hot porridge, cold yoghurt, sweet apricots and crunchy almonds. Yummy!

My mother makes the best scones. There's always a carton of cream souring in the fridge to add lightness to the eventual product, which, when I come home, are often piled high on the wire rack to cool, large, golden and flecked with sultanas. They're the kind of scones that you can't resist eating warm from the oven, with plenty of melting butter. Travelling back to Dublin after the weekend there's often a bag of them stuffed into my bag. A couple for eating on the train and several more to be toasted and enjoyed at a slightly later date.

Because Mum is the queen of the scones, it's never something that I've had to be good at. As a result, perhaps, I've never had her hand for lightness either. Recently, reading Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, I came across a recipe for Date Scones which captured my imagination at once. On the next available baking opportunity I made up a batch but, to my sorrow, they remained rather flat and hard. It has to be said that they were very tasty though and, not one to let a failure stand in the way of experimentation, I attempted a second batch - this time with another scone recipe - at the weekend.

Although my Date Scones didn't rise as much as my mother's versions - I really must quiz her about her recipe! - they were much more successful that the first lot. Rather than cut them into neat circular scones, I just put the whole piece of dough onto the baking tin and cut it into rough squares before landing the whole thing in the oven. I really must stress that the nutmeg needs to be freshly grated. It's not difficult to buy a whole nutmeg and grate it yourself and the taste and scent are incomparable to that of a regular packet of ground nutmeg, complementing the dates remarkably well.

Although a little sweet, these Date Scones are also fabulous with slices of good mature cheddar cheese. The crumbly Dubliner was my budget cheese of choice in Ireland and Mainland's Vintage is a good substitute in New Zealand.

As I'm still buying about two kilos of apples a week - I never can resist those markets - I decided, after my success with the French Apple Cake, that it was time to chance an Irish version. I turned to Clare Connery's Irish Cooking for inspiration and took her version of White Soda Bread as my base.

My idea was to use the White Soda Bread to sandwich a filling of sweetened and spiced apple slices. I'm not sure where it came from but maybe the traditional Irish cooking in Maura Laverty's Never No More gave me ideas!

It must be admitted that this Irish Apple Cake was a fairly stodgy offering but it didn't sit around for too long. A chunk of it heated up in the microwave and served with a heaped spoonful of Greek yoghurt made a rib-sticking treat for afternoon tea. A liberal hand with the sugar when you're sweetening the chopped apple is the key. I also brushed the top of the cake with milk and sprinkled it with another couple of spoonfuls of sugar making for a lovely crunchy caramelised top.

Maybe cake is too grand a word for it. It's like the sort of feed you'd take out to a field-full of men harvesting the hay or silage. Plenty of ballast for hard work!

Ginger is big business in New Zealand. Whether it's the pieces of Ginger Crunch available in every café and bakery, gingernut biscuits beloved by the Boyfriend's parents, the many brands of commonly available ginger beer (not in the least bit like the insipid ginger ale mixer common in Irish bars) - the best of which is always a hotly debated topic of contention in the Boyfriend's household - or Ginger Bear sweets (like gummy bears, but with a ginger kick) it seems like the Kiwis just can't get enough ginger.

To keep up with this ginger fascination, I started thinking about making gingerbread. It was something I used to make often as a child, especially when I was working my way, recipe by recipe, through the first Stork Cookery Book. Without that book to guide me, I discovered that Nigella had a recipe for a rather unique Chocolate Gingerbread in her latest book, Feast. So, never being one to pass up a new variation on an old favourite, I tried this recipe. I have to say I wasn't too impressed. Rather than gingerbread, it tasted of liquorice - not a favourite flavour of mine. The Boyfriend, however, loved it and, after he took a couple of pieces to work everyday that week, there wasn't much left over.

I did like the recipe, however. It was a one-pot cake, all made in the one saucepan, therefore cutting down on dirty dishes - always a consideration when baking! So I decided to have another try. This time I substituted extra flour for the cocoa and chopped crystallised ginger for the chocolate chips and forgot about the icing completely. I'm not sure the Boyfriend liked it as much but this gingerbread variation was the one that I fell in love with. As dark and moist as the nicest of my childhood experiments but with the added extra kick from the embedded chunks of crystallised ginger. Gingerbread is a good keeper too so I've been able to nibble away at chunks of it all week. Just one tip - if you're going to make the version with the crystallised ginger make sure you cut it up small and it's worth tossing it in flour to make sure it doesn't fall to the bottom of the mixture like mine did!

We're coming to the end of the true apple season here - although I'm sure we're still going to see plenty of apples in the shops - but the Apple Man at the St Albans Market has finished up his selling for the year. He and his partner were picking and selling almost 1,000 kilos of apples a week between the stall at their farm gate, St Albans Market on Saturdays and the bigger Riccarton Market on Sundays. He told me, on one of our many chats as the Boyfriend circled the market for the third time, that they grow lots of different varieties at their farm near Oxford. Therefore, unlike the big commercial orchards, the apples cannot be picked all at the same time and put into cold storage until the time comes to sell them. Instead they work on a more gradual picking and selling programme so that the apples that you buy from him at the market are often only picked earlier that week. As he bid me farewell, he said that he will be back in March with some early ripening apples. Something to watch out for - if I'm here!

In the last few weeks, before he ended up, he was selling big three kilo bags of Braeburns so there was always a hurry on to get the previous week's bag eaten before the weekend came around. I had been doing some research into American food writer Patricia Wells, who lives and writes about Paris and Provence, and discovered a recipe for what she calls The Apple Lady's Apple Cake in The Paris Cookbook.

It's a simple recipe - just make a cinnamon (my addition) and vanilla-scented batter, throw in the apples, cook for a while, top with a sugary mixture and then finish back in the oven - but its taste belies its simplicity. It can be whipped up in ten minutes and, if you use good, crisp eating apples, the short cooking time means that they still have a bite in them by the time the Apple Cake makes it to your plate.

One of the birthday presents that came from a thoughtful friend in Ireland was a very welcome book of Irish Cooking by Clare Connery. While this was a book that I might not have ever noticed in bookshops in Ireland, having several Irish cookery books already, here in New Zealand it is a pure treasure. With a subtitle of Over 100 Traditional Irish Recipes it's not likely that I'm going to run out of recipes to test any time soon. Leafing through it, the first thing that struck me were the recipes for Brown and White Soda Bread - instant nostalgia for the kitchens of my childhood where my mother, grandmother and aunts were always baking and there was much discussion over the best recipe for soda bread. Not that they ever used anything as prosaic as a weighing scales. It was always a handful of this and a drop of that.

I haven't tasted Brown Soda Bread since I left Ireland and so, while making Clare Connery's Ham and Pea Soup for supper, decided that this would be an ideal accompaniment. I found buttermilk, much to my amazement, at our small local supermarket and, in the absence of what Connery calls soda bread flour (I didn't know such a thing even existed in Ireland) made up the leavening difference with cream of tartar and bread soda, also known as bicarbonate of soda. After working with yeast breads for so long, the recipe was simplicity itself. Put all dry ingredients into a bowl, add buttermilk, mix, dump in tin and land in the oven. Despite me using what I thought was almost too much buttermilk, there were no problems.

Not knowing how much it would rise, I was loath to put the entire mixture into the tin which was looking rather full, so shaped the excess into a wee round loaf and cooked that on an enamelled pan. I certainly have some traditionalist leanings but, to subvert them, I scattered the top of the bread, not with some extra wholemeal flour as in the recipe, but with a handful of sesame seeds - not something which would have been readily available in the Ireland of my childhood.

The end result was something I would be happy to lay before my mother and aunts. While there was a slightly damp patch in the centre, this wasn't enough to cause problems and the brown soda bread went down a treat with the soup. The heretical sesame seeds, while not very noticeable on the fresh bread, came into their own when it was toasted for lunch the following day. I think this is a recipe that I'll be coming back to in the future, especially as you don't need to measure the ingredients - one cup of white flour to two of wholemeal and one of buttermilk and you're sorted. I'll dispense with the weighing scales yet!

I've been temping lately and Friday was my last day of work in a lovely office so I decided to make some queencakes aka buns aka muffins aka cupcakes aka fairycakes (take your pick!) to bring in for morning tea. The cookbook that I would normally turn to in this kind of situation would be Nigella's Domestic Goddess but, in the absence of that, I had to rely on the internet throwing up one of her recipes. Fortunately it didn't take too long before discovering a recipe for Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes. It's a variation on her recipe for Chocolate Orange Cake which uses a jar of marmalade as one of the main ingredients. It's a cake that, despite the off-putting marmalade, is fantastic - all dark and chocolaty, with an intense orange flavour, and I've often made it in the past. During my online wanders I also discovered something called Black-Bottom Cupcakes from Chez Panisse pastry chef David Lebovitz on the Leite's Culinaria website so took down the details for those too. Just as well, as there wasn't a jar of cherry jam to be had in Pack'N'Save supermarket for love nor money so I got some cream cheese instead and determined to make the Black-Bottom Cupcakes (although, personally, I still call 'em queencakes).

I came home and got stuck into the recipe in double quick time. They're pretty simple to make - a rich chocolate muffin mix on the (black) bottom with a tangy cream cheese topping. But I wasn't altogether happy with the results (top photo) - my cream cheese topping bubbled all over the top and didn't look anything as good as Mr Lebovitz's creations. Still, looks might not have been that important if the taste was ok but I made the mistake of having one hot from the oven and, as a result, could only taste heat. The following morning I had to reconsider my too-hasty judgement as the Black-Bottom Queencakes proved that looks aren't everything and that the juxtaposition of intense chocolate base and the light, almost cheesecake-type topping was a sure-fire winner.

That night, though, things weren't looking good. I was lucky, it being Thursday, I had a date with the Boyfriend to hit the late night shopping at Northlands Shopping Centre. When we arrived there I realised that Countdown, not being a bare basics supermarket like Pack'N'Save, just might have cherry jam - and it did. So I came home from the shopping centre and made another batch of queencakes, this time Nigella's Chocolate Cherry ones (middle photo). It was getting late by the time I finished up but they had to be iced so I spoke to family in Ireland on the phone as I worked - no point in wasting time!

In the end I took some of both types into work and I didn't hear any complaints. The Chocolate Cherry Queencakes transformed a jar of cherry jam into something perfect for morning tea, or even desert. They lasted well in an airtight container for a few days, getting slightly moister, in a good way, as time went on. Black-Bottom Queencakes weren't as good at keeping - but they didn't need to be. The next time I make these I don't think I'll fill the bun cases as much and hopefully I'll manage to get some better looking Black-Bottoms!

The name Donna Hay is not an unfamiliar one on the Irish side of the world but in Australia and New Zealand she's more than just a writer of minimalist cookery books, she's a cooking brand in herself. The Donna Hay Magazine, like Cuisine, comes out every two months and it truly is a lavish production. Beautifully styled, impeccably photographed, what Ms Hay is selling are not mere recipes but a lifestyle. She truly is the Martha Stewart of the Antipodes.

In this month's edition, for instance, there's an article on the Great Outdoors - late autumn camping in the perfect wood with the perfect campfire dishes and perfect photogenic family - a feature on Mother's Day, treating "Mum to the things she loves for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea" (perfect photogenic family #2 with supportive Dad seen taking an active part in the kitchen); a rustic layout for a variety of savoury pies, complete with old, well used chopping boards, dishes and serving spoons - the walls and doors in the background even look authentically battered, peeling paint and all. But, wade through all the fictional set-ups, and there are some fantastic recipes to be found.

I know it's not long since I was extolling the virtues of Anzac Biscuits but Donna Hay has provided me with an addition to my range of quick, easy biscuits that will sit happily in a sealed container until we get around to eating them or taking them to work for lunch. Leafing my way through the Great Outdoors article I discovered a recipe for Oaty Apricot Biscuits which are made in a similar easy way as the Anzac Biscuits, and their ingredients contain some of my favourite things - oats, apricots, ground almonds and even maple syrup. They had to be tried! These Oaty Apricot Biscuits have a more chewy texture than the Anzac Biscuits - oaty, undoubtedly, but enlivened with the chunks of chopped dried apricot distributed throughout - plus they are happy to sit in a box until needed. I think this is a recipe that I'll be sticking with. I wonder what would happen if I put chocolate chips into the mix?

Since the day itself I've cooked Anzac Biscuits a couple of times. They seem to be the kind of biscuit that doesn't really know how to go off, getting slightly more chewy after the first day they're baked but none the less tasty for that. Quick and easy to put together, involving no specialist equipment (by which, at the moment, I mean an electric mixer or food processor), the reward of having a wire tray-load of Anzac Biscuits cooling far outweighs the effort of making them. With their mixture of oats and coconut they're a great pick-me-up for that mid-afternoon slump and are a perfect addition to lunchboxes. So simple, so easy, and with a long shelf life - what more could you want in a biscuit?

Walnuts in New Zealand are fantastic. Not only can you buy the boutique, high-quality nuts that are widely grown in this country - there's even a Christchurch-based grower and processor that glories in the name A Cracker of a Nut - but even the imports are of a far better quality than we normally see in Ireland.

I buy most of my baking needs from loose bins at the supermarket - what I describe as a way of seeing what you need and then buying too much of it! Still, there are advantages in almost always having supplies in the house for those times that I feel like putting wooden spoon to bowl. It is from these bins that I buy walnuts so, whether it's the high turnover or just better quality imports, the nuts I buy are never rancid - something that was the bane of my life with pre-packaged walnuts in Ireland. As a result I've come to realise that walnuts in this country are reliable, tasty and versatile.

I have always used walnuts in my recipe for Chocolate Brownies but now I'm starting to branch out and use them in other ways. The other day I had a yearning for a pecan pie but thought that it would be interesting to try making it with walnuts. In my continuing efforts to find tasty uses for my bottle of real maple syrup I also decided to substitute maple syrup for the corn syrup used in pecan pie recipes. Also, because I love the combination, I threw in some cinnamon. Despite me taking a short cut and not pre-cooking the pastry tart case before I added the filling, with the result that the case leaked, the end result left little to be desired (apart, maybe, from keeping all its filling internally the next time!). The tart had the authentic stickyness that I love in pecan pies but the combination of crunchy walnuts, sweet maple syrup and spicy cinnamon was a good twist on an old favourite.

It's feijoa season! And what, you may ask, are feijoas? The first time I saw apple and feijoa juice for sale, not long after I arrived in New Zealand, I had no idea what it was. But, when the Boyfriend - apparently a feijoa fan - ordered it I made sure that I got a taste. It was a pleasantly refreshing drink with a strong flavour of apple but there were tropical undertones that I did not recognise. The hallmark of the feijoa, apparently, which has its own unique taste.

Intrigued, I did a little bit of research on feijoas and discovered that they're not indigenous to New Zealand but instead were brought here in from South American in the 1920s. The trees thrived and now New Zealand, along with California, is one of the few places that the fruit are grown commercially.

After I realised that autumn was the season for fresh feijoas, I've been keeping an eye out for them and, last weekend, I was intrigued to discover some green, egg-shaped fruits in the St Albans Market - they looked like small hairless kiwi fruit, although a different colour. I inquired of the stall owner as to what they were and discovered that these actually were the legendary feijoas. Priced at NZ$3 per kilo bag, I wasn't going home without them so I handed over my money and headed back to the wee house. The Boyfriend was very excited when I told him what I'd bought and he tackled several immediately. You eat feijoas just the same way you do kiwi fruit - or boiled eggs - cutting them in half and using a teaspoon to dig out the flesh.

I have to say that I wasn't hugely impressed with my first feijoa but since then, and seeing as we had a large bag to get through, I started to like them. They have a curious flavour, which is difficult to describe, although the American name for them - pineapple guava - does go some way towards summing up what the taste.

Last night I was having a few friends for dinner so I decided on crumble as the desert of choice. It's one of my favourite things to cook when people are coming round as it is one of those dishes that can be prepared in advance. All you have to do before sitting down to the main course is put the crumble on top of the fruit and land it in the oven. Normally I'm a big fan of Plum and Apple Crumble but, it being feijoa season and all, I decided to make a Feijoa and Apple Crumble. It turns out that feijoas - which can be bitter if unripe - take very well to crumble cooking. The flavour was much more developed by the heat and they married exceptionally well with the Brayburn apples that they were mixed with. It might be difficult find the feijoas for this exact recipe elsewhere in the world so I won't mind too much if you feel the need to substitute plums.

Yesterday - 25 April - was Anzac Day. Now, in the days before I got myself the Kiwi Boyfriend, I mainly knew the word Anzac from some recipe for Anzac Biscuits that I had cooked when I was a kid. But I have been educated since then and now know that Anzac Day commemorates the date in 1915 when forces from this side of the world, fighting as part of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (hence the name Anzac) landed on the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula. The Gallipoli expedition has gone down in history as one of the most ill-fated campaigns of World War I. It had to be abandoned after nine months but, by that stage, almost one-third of the New Zealanders taking part had been killed.

The Anzac Biscuits of my childhood were devised by the women at home to send to their soldiers in Gallipoli. The biscuits - a mixture of oats, coconut, flour, butter and golden syrup - had to survive a long sea voyage (no airmail in those days!) hence the lack of eggs in the mixture. Despite their wartime origins, they're really very edible as I re-discovered last year. I intended on making the biscuits as a surprise for my Boyfriend who, in Ireland, had to work through what would normally be a bank holiday for him. A halt was put to my plans when I discovered that my local Tesco - never very well supplied - had run out of the desiccated coconut that I needed. There must have been more New Zealand and Australian people living in the area than I had realised! About two weeks later, when they finally got around to restocking, I was finally able to buy the coconut and make the biscuits. They might have been slightly out of date at that stage but they weren't any less tasty for the fact.

So, as this year's Anzac Day rolled around, and with me living in one of the countries particularly involved, I decided to revisit last year's recipe - until I realised that it couldn't be found. I know that I discovered the original on the internet but it seemed to be hiding this time round. I did, however, find this recipe on the New Zealand schools social studies site and, with a few tweaks, it turned out just fine although not up to the standard of the Boyfriend's mother's biscuits, of course. I must get after her for the family recipe!

It's always the way, isn't it? You go to the supermarket and get a lovely bunch of yellow bananas. You eat one that day, take some to work for lunch the day after and even slice one on top of your muesli for breakfast. Then you forget about their existence. It's a fact of life that any fruit sitting around in the fruit bowl for more than three days becomes invisible - until it changes colour. Then the left-over bananas are no longer enticingly yellow but a kind of off-putting mottled browny black. There's nothing to do but compost them or throw them in the bin. But wait. Maybe there's another alternative?

There was a time here in New Zealand when I didn't have many recipe books. I still don't - but at least I've photocopies of the recipes I'm likely to use, courtesy of Christchurch's amazing library. Back in the dark days I pored over recipes on bags and boxes of ingredients. Sometimes these were rubbish, but not always, and one day I discovered this recipe for Chocolate Chip Banana Cake on the back of my Cadbury's Bournville Chocolate Chips box. I tasted a similar cake, warm from the oven, years ago at some food festival in Dublin's RDS. It's fragrant moist banana-ness, enriched with melting chocolate, was what I wanted to recreate here and it truly was a success. It didn't last long that first night and I've made it several acclaimed times since. The only problem is that I only have the cup measurements - if you have a set, use them. If not, get them. They will come in handy.

Wednesday, if I'm at home, is my day for baking and yesterday I decided that I needed to make some muffins. I have a little book called Marvellous Muffins by Robyn Martin for a couple of weeks now (another Trademe purchase!) but it's just been lazily sitting around the kitchen, not contributing to my life in any way. I took it down yesterday and leafed through it, trying to decide what kind of muffin sounded most appealing - and what I had the ingredients in the cupboard for!

My eye alighted on a recipe for Ginger Gem Muffins - but I wasn't in a very gingery mood. The recipe also needed golden syrup, not available in my pantry, but what I did have was a bottle of precious maple syrup, a present from my Canadian friend here in Christchurch. From that thought it was the work of mere seconds to decide to substitute the golden syrup with maple syrup and the ginger with cinnamon. But, when I was in the middle of making the muffins, I discovered that, come hell or high water, there was just no way I could get the top off the maple syrup bottle and so had to use an inferior "maple-flavoured" syrup instead.

The end results did suffer for the stuck bottle top. Instead of that deliciously rich depth that you get from maple syrup I could only taste cinnamon. Not that the muffins were inedible, in fact there's only a couple left, but they didn't turn out the way that I had hoped. Next time I'll have to put the Boyfriend's strength into action and defeat that bottle!

Note to self: a handful of pecans wouldn't go amiss the next time either.

There's more than one way to make the best of your time. And perhaps writing about Hot Cross Buns as they (hopefully!) rise in your kitchen may be winning in the multi-tasking stakes at the moment. Not very New Zealand, you may say, but no! These are extra special Kiwi Hot Cross Buns with Chocolate Chips.

Now, I've always been a fan of the Hot Cross Bun, especially when it's toasted so that you can add the extra treat of melted butter to the warm, spicy yummyness, but Chocolate Chip HCBs I had not come across before arriving in New Zealand. And now they're everywhere! I just have to wander into or past a bakery (of which there are many) to see an advertisement for HCBs - plain (as if you could ever call a HCB 'plain') or with chocolate chips.

A taste test at Baker's Delight in Northlands shopping centre while waiting to collect some of their dense Cape Seed rolls (ideal for packed lunches) convinced me that these were indeed a good idea and so I pressed our new breadmaker into service this morning. Not being lazy, you understand, just intrigued to see what it can do. So far it's doing good. I carefully measured the ingredients into the pan, in sequence as told, just adding a ¼ cup chocolate chips with the sultanas, and set it running.

An hour and a half later, three beeps told me we were ready to rock so I took the dough out of the machine, kneaded it for a few minutes - not that it needed it but old habits die hard - and divided it into slightly over the dozen pieces as recommended by the manual. Well, you can't be following instructions blindly all the time. I put my fourteen buns lovingly on to two trays and set them to rise, which is the stage we're at now.

This is the first time I've ever made a bread-type thing in our rather cold house and I'm not sure how long they're going to need to rise. The recipe, which says leave for 30 minutes, seems a little optimistic so we'll see how we go. In the meantime, here's the recipe. Bear in mind that my breadmaker has a capacity of 1½ lbs and your own breadmaker might even come with a handy recipe that you can use yourself.

For those of you without breadmakers, I often made HCBs by hand in my mother's kitchen without any problems. If I had the recipe I'd give it here but, alas, I'm far from the advantages of having all my tried and tested cookbooks to hand so you'll just have to do with my breadmaker one. Oh, and don't forget, all the measurements in New Zealand are in what seems to me, terribly inconvenient cups. Still, you'll find no end of conversion tables available on the internet.