Shirl's Stovies

Not s true Stovie recipe which should be made with just potatoes, salt and butter, but it's a mixture of my Mother's and John's methods. Don't be put off by the idea or by the picture. It's nicer than it seems. It's not exactly slimming and definitely not for anyone on a low salt diet.

Ingredients:
3 large poatatoes
25g/8oz sausages
6 rashers of bacon
2 stock cubes (I use 1 red and 1 vegetable)
salt to taste

Instructions:
Cut potatoes into small pieces and place in a pot with a small amount of water. Cut sausages and bacon into small pieces and cook in the pot with the potatoes. Boil stirring frequently and checking the pot does not dry out until potatoes boil down into the water to make a gooey miuxture.

Carrot Cake

Cake
Ingredients:
225g/8 oz wholemeal flour
225g/8 oz soft brown sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
Half a cup melted butter or oil
4 eggs
Half cup chopped walnuts (optional)
400g/14 oz finely grated carrot
Zest of an orange

Instructions
Mix together dry ingredients and then add the walnuts and carrots, mixing well. Beat the eggs and add the butter (or oil) and mix well. Pour the mixture into two, one pound rectangular loaf tins or one, two pound loaf tin. A nine inch round cake tin can also be used. Bake for an hour in a pre-heated oven at 180°C
Cool before icing.

Icing
Ingredients:
225g/8oz icing sugar
85g/3 oz cream cheese
One teaspoon vanilla essence (extract)
85g/3 oz butter or marg

Instructions:
Beat the ingredients together and decorate the top and the side with the icing.

Scottish Macaroon Bars

Ingredients:
1 or two medium potato(s)
Icing sugar
Bar cooking chocolate
Desiccated coconut.

Instructions:
Cook potato(s) , mash and allow to cool . Mix the potatoes with enough icing sugar to make the mixture firm. Roll out to ½ inch (about 12mm) thick and cut into bars.

Coating:
Melt chocolate slowly. I used to use a glass bowl in a pot of hot water, but now I find it easier to use the microwave for around a minute, depending on quantity, checking frequently. Toast coconut on tray at 180°C, until golden brown. Coat the bars with melted chocolate then toss in toasted coconut.

Cool in the fridge before eating.

Puff Candy

Ingredients
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbls golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda


Instructions
Bring sugar and syrup to boil in a pan, stirring all the time. Boil for 8 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in bicarb quickly. Pour into a well greased tin and cool. Break up when cool and store in an airtight jar.

Marshmallow Krispie Squares

Ingredients
225g/8oz marshmallows
½ tsp vanilla essence
85g/3oz marg or butter
170g/6oz Rice Krispies

Instructions
Melt marshmallows and marg. Add vanilla essence and Rice Krispies. Mix and cool in tray. Cut into squares.

Biscuits

Plain biscuits
Ingredients
225g/8oz self-raising flour
115g/4oz caster sugar
140g/5oz hard marg or butter
pinch salt
beaten egg to mix

Instructions
Rub marg/butter into flour and add sugar. Mix to a stiff dough with egg. Knead until smooth then chill in a plastic bag in the fridge for 30 minutes. Roll out thin, cut place on baking trays and prick.

Spiced biscuits
Add 1½ level tsp spice (eg. mixed spice, cinnamon or nutmeg) with flour.

Coconut
Add 55g/2oz coconut with sugar and ½ tsp vanilla essence with the egg.

Choclate flake
Add 55g/2oz grated or chopped plain chocolate with the sugar.


Bake at 180°C for 12-15 minutes

Apple Scone

Picture to follow

Ingredients
1 medium cooking apple
225g/8oz self-raising flour
½ tsp salt
1 level tsp baking powder
55g/2oz marg or butter
55g/2oz caster sugar
Approximately 1 tbsp milk

For glaze
a little milk
25g/1oz demerara sugar

Instructions
Peel, core and chop apple. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Rub marg/butter into flour. Then add sugar and apple. Mix to soft but not sticky dough with milk. Roll into a round 200mm/8inches wide. Brush with milk adns sprinkle on demerara sugar.

Bake at 200°C for 20-25 minutes.

Boiled Fruit Cake

Ingredients for boiling

340g/12oz marg or butter
2 cups milk
2 cups soft brown sugar

250g sultanas
4 tsp mixed spice

Instructions
Boil all ingredients for 5 minutes then leave to cool.

Other Ingredients
4 beaten eggs
4 cups plain flour with 2 heaped teaspoons baking powder or
4 cups self-raising flour

Instructions
Gently stir eggs into boiled mixture then add flour (and baking powder) and mix.

Place in a greased large square tin and bake for approximately 1 hour 10 minutes at 150ºC, until skewer comes out clean.

Cool for 5 or 10 minutes before removing from tin.

Will keep fairly well and can be frozen.

Karen's special chocolate-crunchy-nut-cornflake-cake

Ingredients
A dessert spoon of butter
Three tablespoons of golden syrup
Two table spoons of sugar
One tablespoon of cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate.


Instructions
Chuck butter in a big saucepan. Add golden syrup, sugar and cocoa powder. Bring the ingredients to the boil and simmer for about 5 mins but stir it all the time and be careful not to let it burn.

Turn off the heat, add the crunchy-nut cornflakes and mix well. Press the mixture into a greased swiss-roll tin and leave to one side to set for approximately 3 seconds before you dive in.

Karen's tip
Do not try to taste the mixture until it has cooled because boiling syrup hurts

Deb’s Pickled Truffles

Ingredients

Some cream
lot’s of dark rum
a blob of butter
lot’s of dark rum
dark choccie (chopped, grated)
whatever you cookie types do with it
lot’s + lot’s of dark rum …
oh and some sugar

Instructions
Chuck most of it in a saucepan and then add the choccie a bit later .. eerr and about 45 minutes later just give up, find the bottle of rum, a glass, put some ice in the glass followed by a generous helping of the dark rum. Finally add some coke … and that’s it. Forget the gloop in the saucepan ... sit back and enjoy what’s in the glass.

Womble's foolproof pancakes

Ingredients
3 oz plain flour
3 fl oz water
2 fl oz milk
1 egg
and for yorkies
add 1 pinch salt

Instructions

Whisk the egg into the water & milk, and then gently whisk in the flour until the lumps have gone. You don't need to let it settle.
Using a slope-sided (and preferably non-stick) frying pan, melt about a heaped teaspoon of butter or margarine over a high heat. Let it sizzle but not burn, and wait until it stops sizzling. Then pour in your mixture and spread it round the pan. Do not attempt to turn it until all the liquid has gone from the top of the pancake.
If you're using a slope-sided pan, you can toss it easily. It's harder with a straight sided pan, but slave gets round it by using two pans, and heating them both up, and then at turning time he puts the second pan upside down on top of the first and then flips the whole lot over.

For yorkshire puds, pre-heat the oven to 230'
Using one of those cake tins that makes 12 fairy cakes, put a small amount of lard in each hollow.
Bung it in the oven for 3-5 mins to get really hot, then bring it out and pour in the mix, and chuck 'em back in the oven for about 20 mins.

Rock Cakes

Ingredients

225g/8oz self-raising flour or plain flour with 2 tsp baking powder
110g/4oz sugar110g/4oz soft marg or softened block marg
110g/4oz sultanas
1 egg

Instructions

Sift flour (and baking powder if used) into a bowl. Add sugar and marg. Mix until mixture resembles breadbrumbs. Add sultanas and egg. Mix again adding a very small amount of milk as necessary to make a sticky consistency. Spoon aproximately twelve mounds onto a baking tray and bake for about 12 minutes at 200 - 220C