Chocolate cake

A basic recipe for a simple but very tasty chocolate cake, with chocolate butter cream icing, and chocolate chunks on the top.  Yum.
What could be better as the winter nights draw in but a cup of tea and a slice of cake?
Chocolate cake
serves 12
The cake:
150g / 6oz unsalted butter
150g / 6oz caster sugar
150g / 6oz [...]

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Green Tomato Chutney

I was standing in my garden looking at a collection of tiny, stubbornly green tomatoes in despair last week.  Surely all this time and effort cannot have come to this, I thought mournfully.  Ok, well not that much effort, but there was a good deal of fretting, peering through foggy plastic propagation tray lids, trying [...]

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Raspberry jam

Needless to say my own diminuitive haul was not quite enough for a whole jar, so we went to a pick-your-own farm in Essex near Him Indoors‘ Mum’s house to pick enough raspberries for an afternoon’s jam making activities.
Raspberry jam
makes about 10 jars
1kg raspberries
1kg preserving sugar (the kind without pectin, raspberries have enough pectin in [...]

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Pancakes

Why do we traditionally eat these only once a year, when they’re so fabulously delicious and easy to make? Here, totally out of season, is a nice easy pancake recipe.
Pancakes
makes around 6

100g / 4oz plain flour
2 eggs
300ml / half a pint of milk
butter for frying.
Toppings:
lemon
sugar
Him Indoors’s additional topping suggestion: hot golden syrup
Beat the eggs and [...]

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Peace on Earth biscuits

Named I guess because if everybody had some, there would be.
Peace on Earth biscuits
Makes 12
125g / 4oz margarine
125g / 4oz caster sugar
1 dessert spoon golden syrup
half tsp bicarbonate of soda in 1tsp of milk
170g / 6oz self-raising flour
75g / 3oz raisins and glace cherries, or chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 160°C / 375°F / Gas [...]

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