Notes about Recipes in this book

• Cherry Bakewell

  • eliza on December 09, 2019

    This tart was very sweet, a bit too sweet for me. While it was quite nice, I think I will stick with the BBC bakewell cake which is much simpler to make.

  • Mayandbill on August 21, 2021

    Worked well with gluten free flour. I reduced the sugar in both the base and the filling by about 10%. Very good!

• Chunky apple and marmalade cake

  • eliza on May 03, 2019

    I loved this cake; I did make a lot of changes, however. I made this cake to use up some leftover mincemeat and substituted that for the marmalade and the sultanas by weight. I also made a half recipe. I loved the chunks of apple in the finished cake. Like the other reviewer, I found it was fully cooked in less time; 25 minutes at 350 fan for my half recipe. Mine was a little on the sweet side since my mincemeat was probably sweeter than marmalade. Froze well.

  • eeeve on October 21, 2016

    A nice autumn cake, really fresh tasting and moist, a lot like an English fruit cake, but better! Love the chunky apple pieces. Thought it would come out overly sweet, but that wasn't the case. Cake has a very dark colour due to the dark muscovado sugar. Mine was done after an hour already (not the hour and a quarter as stated).

• Coconut, carrot and apricot cake

  • eliza on April 05, 2019

    This is a really nice cake. I used butter instead of coconut fat; the resulting cake was tasty and moist. Will definitely make this again.

• St Clements shortbread biscuits

  • sharifah on March 06, 2014

    I made these biscuits to pair with the Apple Snow dessert, and it goes very well with it. It was a difficult dough to work with as it was quite soft and wet. I'm not sure why HFW said to add a squeeze of lemon juice once the dough has come together, as it was a soft and wet dough already, prior to adding the lemon juice. But I did as he said! Also took longer to cook than he said. My biscuits took half an hour, and I did lower the temp by 20C for my fan oven. I'd make this again but I'd ignore the addition of lemon juice.

  • eeeve on November 10, 2014

    Absolutely lovely! I made the lavender and lemon version and they didn't last long at all. Would recommend to double the quantities. Also agree with previous review about not needing the additional lemon juice to bring the dough together. Apart from that, favourite shortbread recipe so far.

• Apple snow

  • sharifah on March 06, 2014

    This was relatively easy to make, and loved by my guests. I didn't put the apple puree through the sieve, and because of that my apple snow didn't look as smooth as HFW's in the photo, and I had little green 'lumps' through the mousse. Still tasted delicious though. You need to get over the fact that it looks like baby food. Quite important to slice the apples very, very thinly so it breaks down into a puree, hence skipping the sieving part. I paired it with the St Clements biscuits, goes very well as you definitely need the crunch against the mousse. Will make this again.

• Sausage and lentil hotpot with prunes

  • eeeve on September 15, 2017

    A great winter dish, comfort food indeed! Made this on the hob, not in the oven, and in about half the time that was stated (we were hungry and quite impatient). Added some chopped tomatoes (garden glut), and didn't season, though that didn't seem to be a problem as the dish tasted great already with the prunes imparting a subtle fruity flavour.

  • cbrowne91 on August 06, 2017

    Made vegan using vegan sausages (Linda McCartney). I was unsure about this recipe until I tasted it - its amazing comfort food, the prunes go fantastically!

  • Clog on March 07, 2023

    Simple to put togeether, very tasty and satisfying. I made it with brown lentils, and can seee it would work with many different types.

• Plum crumble with honey and rosemary

  • eeeve on September 12, 2021

    Used a mix of 3/4 plums and 1/4 blackberries. Didn't bother cooking the plums down, just packed everything into a pie dish, sprinkled with lavender and sugar, followed by crumble (subbed ground flax seed for ground almonds). Took much longer to cook than stated (maybe 45 minutes), but came out loooooovely. Will definitely make again.

• Grilled orange, carrot and halloumi

  • Kirstin_the_Kiwi on December 12, 2017

    Yum even though i forgot to buy the halloumi ??

  • e_ballad on January 07, 2018

    Loving each individual component, I thought this was going to be a winner. I think the grilled orange was a step too far, as I think the tangy ‘brightness’ of fresh orange would work better than its intensified sweetness when grilled.

• Apricot and almond granola

  • e_ballad on December 09, 2019

    An excellent granola recipe.

• Fruity fridge flapjacks

  • e_ballad on November 05, 2021

    I'm not sure why this didn't work, but these completely fell apart & needed significant changes in the ingredient quantities of the 'dry' ingredients to render them as even resembling 'bars'. Maybe it was due to different sized bananas or perhaps the dried fruit is 'drier' in the UK compared with what we have available in Australia. Sadly, by the end of my tinkering, these were not especially tasty & were soundly rejected by the kids.

• Date and banana thickie

  • e_ballad on November 21, 2017

    We found this to be too sweet with the number of dates. Will drop by 1/3 for personal preference.

• Haw'sin' sauce

  • etcjm on September 16, 2019

    My goodness this better be good when we taste in a few weeks/months. A bit different but the amount you get for what's involved I don't think is worth it. Could have made ten pots of jam in the time I messed on. Trouble is we'll eat it easily in one sitting. Not happy, can you guess!

• Parsnips with plum sauce

  • Clog on September 28, 2022

    We found that the sauce complements the parsnips very well.

• Savoy cabbage with apple and caraway

  • Pimlicocook on January 31, 2024

    Made with pear rather than apple. Really quick (in pressure cooker), simple and nice. I ate it as a main - cleaning out the fridge! - but really it's a lovely side dish. Will make again.