Cooking recipe books

I've done this recipe for a long time and it's always a success. Usually I use my mother's tube cake tin but the batter is always so much that it spills onto the bottom of the oven. This time I decided to use another tin.  My springform tin has a non-straight bottom, giving the cake a neat top feature, and it has a hole in the middle like my mother's tube tin so I decided to use it instead. It gives the cake a neat top but as the bottom is also round, it looks a bit weird. The top should have been the bottom and the bottom the top as the swirl feature looks better on the top.  The fact that I forgot to tap the tin on the counter to remove the air between the batter and make the middle uniform hasn't helped either. The cake has wonky sides... It has redeemed itself by having a perfectly marbled inside and a delicious flavour! Serves: 12 slices. Ingredients: 250g sugar 125g butter 5 eggs 320g plain flour 3.5 tsp baking powder 1 tsp vanilla extract 4 tbsp cacao powder...

Cantuccini are almond and aniseed biscuits from the Tuscany region in Italy. The recipe is from I talian-style cooking: the recipes of the Italian traditional cooking .   The biscuits are delicious and will keep for ages! Serves:  about 100 biscuits. Ingredients: 300g plain flour 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda 200g sugar 100g sweet almonds, whole (blanched  or with skin) zest of 1 orange 6 star anise, powdered pinch of salt 2 eggs 50ml milk 1 egg yolk Method: Sift the flour into a bowl and add the bicarbonate of soda.  Make a well in the center and add the sugar, pinch of salt, orange zest, aniseed powder and almonds. Break 2 eggs into it and mix well, adding a little milk if the mixture is too dry. I added 50ml milk. Divide the dough in 3 parts and form 3 strings as thick as 2 fingers together and place them in a non-stick baking tray. I had to break the strings to fit on the trays. Brush the strings with egg yolk. Bake in a 190°C oven for 15 min, then r...

Another pizza! I tried a flavour I haven't done before. It's an excellent combination: caramelised onions and Gorgonzola. Delicious! This time, however, I decided to use pizza flour. The pizza dough was easier to work with and the pizza base was crispier. I would definitely recommend using pizza flour instead of white bread flour. Serves:  1 medium sized pizzas (30 cm diameter) - 1 person. Ingredients: For the base ( quantities are for 2 x medium pizzas ) : 250g pizza flour ½ tsp salt ¾ tsp fast action dried yeast 1 tbsp olive oil 150ml hand-hot water For the topping  ( quantities are per medium pizza ) : 1 red onion, halved and sliced 2 tbsp sugar 30ml balsamic vinegar 150g chestnut mushrooms, sliced 100g Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled basil leaves to taste olive oil to taste Equipment:  1 pizza tray - 30 cm diameter. Method: Make the dough for the pizza base: Combine the flour, salt and yeast in a bowl. Do not put the salt on top of the yeast as that will kill it, ins...

Another traditional Portuguese recipe, this time with octopus. I love octopus! It was the first time I made this recipe. I bungled up a few recipes to come up with my ingredient's quantities. Serves: 4 persons. Ingredients:  2.24kg fresh octopus 1 onion, cut in half 4 bay leaves 1 tbsp nigella seeds 1 tbsp black peppercorns 7 garlic cloves, crushed with a knife 700g new potatoes, skin on and washed salt & pepper to taste olive oil to taste parsley to taste, chopped Method: Cook the octopus in a pressure cooker with the onion, 2 bay leaves, nigella seeds, peppercorns and 2 garlic cloves . In my Instant Pot it takes 10 min. When the octopus is done, I was left with 679g octopus. Octopus is expensive considering how much you are left with after cooking! Cut the tentacles off the octopus, the head in half and the body in 4 pieces. I used the head and the body for another recipe but this can all the cooked together and feed the number of persons mentioned above. Steam the potatoes ...