10 mins prep. time
20 mins cooking time
180°C (375°F) / Gas Mark 4

What you need:

• 175g oats
• 75g golden syrup
• 125g soft light brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup
• Anything else you want your flapjack to contain (nuts, fruit etc.)

Melt the butter and sugar in a saucepan on low heat.  Add the golden syrup and heat until well mixed.

Remove the mixture from the heat and add the oats.  You can use plain oats or mixed oats.  I used 4 sachets (which is conveniently 175g) of microwave porridge with dried blackcurrants.  Add any other bits for taste.
Mix well and spread evenly in a deep tray.

After 20-25 minutes in the oven you are ready to eat.

Time: relatively quick in comparison to most pizza bases - 3 hours

What you need:

• 1 3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
  
• 1 1/4 teaspoons sugar
  
• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  
• 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
  
• Olive oil
  

I know that meany dough recipes tell you to put the flour in the bowl, make a well and put the yeast in the well.  How many of you have done that for the yeast not to work and then you've wasted most of your ingredients.  Well, I'm going to ask you to trust me......

Sprinkle the yeast and the sugar over 1 1/4 cups of warm water.  I don't know the temperature I use....I tend to boil the kettle, make a cup of tea and use the water from the kettle.  Wait about 10 minutes.  If the yeast is now creamy in colour, tad-da it has worked.  If not then just throw away and start again.....only yeast, sugar and water wasted.

Mix together the flour and salt.  Add this to the yeast-sugar-water mixture. Use your hands to bring it into a rough ball.  Cover the bowl with a wet tea-towel for 5 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface knead your dough for about 5 minutes.  If it starts to get a bit dry and crumbly, add water a tablespoon at a time.  If it is too sticky then just sprinkle some flour on top and work into the dough.
Put a little olive oil into a bowl and distribute around the bowl.  Place your dough ball into the bowl and roll around to cover the surface with oil.
Cover the bowl with cling film and leave for 40 minutes.

After 40 minutes the dough should have doubled.  If not just wait a while longer (afterall we already know that our yeast is fine).  Divide the dough into four and make into balls.  Put the dough balls on a floured surface and cover with a damp tea-towel for 2 hours, or until they have doubled in size.

You can now shape it, top it, bake it!

15 mins prep. time
25 mins cooking time
190°C (375°F) / Gas Mark 5

What you need (cake):

• 175g self raising flour
• 125g butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee
• 2 eggs

What you need (icing):

• 1 teaspoon instant coffee
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 75g butter
• 175g icing sugar

Preheat the oven and lightly oil and line the base of two cake tins (18cm) with grease-proof paper.

Beat the egg and sugar together until creamy.  Dissolve the coffee in two tablespoons of hot water and allow to cool.  Once cooled mix the coffee in with the egg and sugar.  Whilst beating the mixture slowly add in sifted flour.
Divide the mixture between the two tins and cook for 20-25 minutes.

Whilst the cake is in the oven, make your icing. 
Blend the coffee and cocoa powder with some hot water to form a stiff paste.  Beat in the butter and icing sugar.

Once the cake has come out of the oven and left for 5 minutes to cool, sandwich the two section together with some of the icing.  Spread the remaining icing on top of the cake, I also melted some chocolate and drizzled that on top.

40 mins prep. time
20 mins cooking time
200°C (400°F) / Gas Mark 6

What you need:

• 100g unsalted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 225g plain flour
• pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 leek (trimmed and chopped)
• 25g unsalted butter
• 8 unsmoked streaky bacon (diced)
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• 150ml double cream
• salt and pepper

You are going to need a muffin tin (7.5cm, 12 hole).  If you have a metal tin use some of the butter to lightly grease it.

Sift the flour, pinch of salt and paprika in a bowl and rub in the butter (100g) until it looks like breadcrumbs.  Add a little water until the dough starts to stick together and is knead-able.  Unfortunately this is where it can go terribly wrong.  You don't what it too gooey, but at the same time you don't want it too dry so tat you can't knead it.

Divide what you've just made, the pastry, in half and roll out 1 of the half.  Roll it out to about 0.5cm thick and using a cookie cutter (9cm) cut out 6 rounds.  Then roll out these rounds to 12cm.  Repeat this with the other half of pastry and place the 12cm rounds in the muffin tin and chill for 30 minutes.

While you're waiting preheat the oven and start to make the filling.
Melt the butter with the oil in a frying pan.  Add the leak and cook, stirring frequently.  Remove the leak and add the bacon to the frying pan and cook until crisp.  Remove from the heat.
Whisk the eggs and cream together and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Stir in the bacon and the leeks and set aside.

Take your pastry out of the fridge and put baking paper into the pastry cups.  Put baking beans on top of the baking paper, to hold it down, if you don't have any rice works fine.  Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven after 10 minutes and carefully remove the baking paper and baking beans.  Divide the filling between the cups and bake for a further 10 minutes until the tartlets are golden.  Leave to cool and transfer to a wire rack.

Enjoy!

20 mins prep. time
40 mins cooking time180°C (375°F) / Gas Mark 4

What you need:

• 2 eggs
• 100g caster sygar
• 200g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (heaped)
• 2 limes (grated rind)
• pinch of salt
• 40g shelled pistachios (chopped)
• 25g hazelnuts (chopped)

Whisk the sugar and eggs until pale and frothy.  Slowly add the flour and mix well with a wooden spoon.  Add the baking powder and lime rind.  Mix well.

On a lightly floured surface knead the soft dough.  Slowly add your chopped hazelnuts and pistachios while kneading.  Shape the dough into a log and flatten slightly.

Place your log on a greased baking tray and place in the oven until golden (this takes about 40 minutes).

Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

When you would like a taste, cut into thick slices and grill until crispy.

20 mins prep. time
15 mins cooking time
180°C (375°F) / Gas Mark 4

What you need:

• 100g butter
• 50g icing sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 125g self-raising flour
• 25g cornflour
• blackberries

Preheat your oven.

Beat the butter and icing sugar together until the mixture is pale and creamy.  Gradually beat in the egg yolks and vanilla essence.  Slowly beat in the self-raising flour and cornflour until the mixture is smooth.

Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a star nozzle.  Pipe a double thickness of circles of the mixture in cup cake cases.  In the centre place a blackberry or two.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden.  Leave to cool and dust with some icing sugar.

What you need:

• 375g plain flour
• 275ml warm water
• 4 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 sachet yeast

I usually make my own bread from scratch.  However, I was given a breadmaker and it would be rude to not try it out.

I put in the water and oil in first (wet ingredients first), then sprinkle the flour on top of the water to form a seal.  I then put in the salt and sugar.  I created a small well in the dry ingredients and poured my yeast into the well.

Now for the easiest bit, select bread from the menu (there are a number of options, including scone, cake and french), press the start button and let it do it's thing!  My breadmaker has a little timer on it and it takes about 3 hours....I'm sure it doesn't take that long without the bread maker, but this is for ease.

3 min prep. time
3 min cooking time

What you need:

• 1 egg
• 4 tablespoons self raising flour
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
• chocolate chips (optional)

I was craving chocolate cake and decided to make this little gem.  I have no idea where I learnt this recipe, but is one that was clearly worth memorising.  Add it come in nice easy steps.

Firstly put all the dry ingredients in the mug you choose to make your cake in and mix well.  Add the egg and mix well making sure that there are no pockets of dry ingredients - usually flour gets missed in the bottom of the mug.  
Now add all your wet ingredients and mix well until you can no longer see any butter blobs.
Put your mug in the microwave at the highest setting for 3 minutes.  Watching the magic happen is my favourite thing to do, especially as you begin to thing "I can't eat all of that".

After the bing, you should be able to pour the cake out of the mug, if it get stuck just get a knife to the edges.  Goes well with custard or cream.

30 mins prep time
30 mins cooking time
180°C (375°F) / Gas Mark 4

What you need:

• Apples
• Blackberries
• 100 g butter
• 2 cups plain flour
• caster sugar

Preheat your oven.

As you can see I actually didn't go about measuring how many apples and blackberries I used.  I went picking that day and filled a box with berries and carried back as many apples as I could.

Many people remove the skins from their apples when they do this, I didn't.  I cored and quartered the apples.  I then put them in a saucepan on a low heat.  After ten minutes I added the berries and sprinkled caster sugar generously on top.

I personally like things crunchy and not so mushy, so when the fruit mix reached a consistency I like I removed from the heat and let it cool.

Whilst the fruit was cooling, I made the crumble.
Add the flour to the butter and mix together, preferably with your fingers, until it resembles breadcrumbs.

I then poured my fruit mix into a baking dish, sprinkled the crumble on top and then sprinkled some more sugar.  I put the crumble into the oven and waited until it was golden on top.

I made up some custard and scoffed i down after dinner....scrummy!

Makes 24.
20 mins prep. time
37 mins cooking time180°C (350°F)/Gas Mark 4

What you need:

• 140g ground almonds
• 115g butter (unsalted)
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 140g plain flour
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar

Beat the butter and the sugar together until the mixture is creamy.  Add the almonds, vanilla essence and flour.  Mix the mixture into a dough.

Roll the dough into balls of a desired size - I like bite size - and place them on a baking tray which has been covered in grease-proof paper.  Put the balls in the oven for 35 minutes.

Once you've taken them out of the oven, sprinkle them with icing sugar and place in the oven for another 2 minutes.

Allow to cool and eat away!