Today is a very special day in my house as a parcel arrived containing the new Nigel Slater cookbook - Tender: v1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch. I can't comment on this book yet as I am saving it for a quiet moment when I have the house to myself and I can spend some serious alone time with Nigel. To say that I love him would be an understatement. I have all bar one of his cookbooks (I'm missing the 30 Minute Cook - Christmas present alert for Mr Jen!!). As I begin to fill the third bookshelf with cookbooks I thought I should do a quick count and found I was up to 67. I then remembered the 3 sitting by my bed for nighttime reading so I have hit the big 7-0 - I'm so glad that Nigel saw it in with me! Anyway, I thought it might be worth reviewing a few on my blog. As I baked some cookies for my always hungry pregnant friend the other day, I thought I'd start with the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.
The Hummingbird Bakery itself is in London and was opened by Tarek Malouf (the book's author) to bring some American style cakes -in particular cupcakes - to the UK. I was drawn to the book as I'm becoming a keen baker and slightly lacking in baking books (Christmas present alert No.2) and have been relying on my "How to be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson for most of my baking needs. The Hummingbird book comes with an endorsement from Gwyneth Paltrow on the front which seemed a little strange as no matter how many trips around Spain she takes for TV, I'll never believe that skinny Gwyneth is a real cake lover. The book contains 16 cupcake recipes plus other recipes for cakes, pies, brownies, muffins and cookies including American classics like Key Lime Pie and Pumpkin Pie. Overall there is a good mix and some interesting ideas that I'm looking forward to trying, especially the Green Tea cupcakes and the peanut butter cookies.
I decided to test some staple recipes first - the vanilla cupcakes, the brownies and an oat and raisin cookies. I found the cupcakes a bit on the sweet side, like many of the recipes in the book, they are very heavy on sugar. I would recommend Nigella's fairy cake recipe instead which gives a far more buttery result which I prefer. http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=13670. I found the same problem with the brownies - far too sweet. Again, Nigella's recipe which is higher in butter and eggs and lower in sugar is much more to my taste.
I have baked the Oat and Raisin Cookies (pictured above) three times now. The first time I followed the recipe to the word and found them far too sweet with not enough oats and far too many raisins. I've adapted the recipe a couple of times (doubling the oats and reducing the raisins and sugar quantities) and when I made them for my pregnant friend I used spelt flour as she can't eat wheat. I also make them into thicker cookies than prescribed in the original recipe as I feel that the egg content makes them kind of "cakey" anyway. Given that everything I've tried so far has been too sweet for me, I don't think this has been my most succcessful purchase but as I always tend to adapt recipes to suit my taste I'm sure I'll end up trying a good few more of the recipes so I'll report back....
Oat and Raisin Spelt Cookies (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf)
Ingredients - makes about 20 cookies
270g Butter at room temperatire
200g Dark Brown Sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
350g Spelt Flour (you can just use plain wheat flour instead)
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
200g Rolled Oats
150g Raisins
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
1: Mix the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (I used my electric hand blender - it would take longer by hand)
2: Add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla
3: Mix the flour, salt, bicarb, cinnamon and oats in a separate bowl and then add to the butter mixture and stir in the raisins
4: Arrange the cookie dough in equal amounts on baking trays that have been lined with greaseproof paper
5: Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown and firm. Turn onto a wire rack to cool
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