Courgette, Sultana and Pistachio Loaf

I managed to make one more recipe from Honey and Co: The Baking Book, before the library demanded it back from me. It was down to a choice between this courgette loaf and a carrot cake, and the courgette loaf won because I had all the ingredients already (allowing for a couple of substitutions).

I used sultanas instead of golden raisins, and orange zest instead of lemon, neither of which were going to have a major affect on the flavour of the cake. I also chopped the pistachios roughly, as I dislike whole nuts in cakes.

I didn't really encounter any problems while making the cake, although both the loaf recipes I've made from the book have almost filled my 2lb loaf tin, leaving me worried (needlessly, fortunately) about cake batter ending up on the floor of the oven.

This cake was moist and dense but not too heavy. The pistachios, sultanas and flecks of green from the courgettes made it quite colourful, and the chewy sultanas and crunchy pistachios gave some variations in texture while eating. However, once again, it was the spices used that made this cake something special - star anise and ginger, combined with the citrus zest, gave a really unusual sharp and peppery flavour, which was balanced nicely by the sweetness of the sultanas.

Fig, Orange and Star Anise Tea Loaf

This recipe comes from Ruby Tandoh's first book 'Crumb' which has just been published. Ruby was a finalist in last year's Great British Bake Off TV programme, and now writes a regular baking column for the Guardian newspaper, which appears in the Saturday 'Cook' section. This extract of recipes was published recently in their Weekend magazine.

I'm not totally enamoured of her style, and she's certainly no replacement for the much missed Dan Lepard, but the odd recipe catches my eye, and this was one of them. I think it was the unusual mix of flavours, something that Dan specialised in, that attracted me, and the use of dried figs, which I love, but rarely see recipes for.

In the event, I didn't have enough figs in the store cupboard, so used 2/3 figs and 1/3 dried pears, but I don't think this affected the final flavour much, as figs have a very strong flavour whereas pears are quite bland when used in a cake.

This is a tea loaf which doesn't use any fat, but I think it would have benefitted from adding some. The blend of flavours worked really well (Ruby describes the flavour as "floral, citrus, liquorice, spice and caramel, and yet not definitely any one of those things"), and the fragrance was amazing, but the loaf was let down by the texture of the crumb. It was quite dense and stodgy, although the dried figs kept the overall texture moist enough.

I'll definitely be trying this combination of ingredients in a cake batter soon, in a bid to improve the eating quality!

Star Anise Chocolate Brownies

The wonderful thing about brownies is that, if you regularly bake with chocolate, you always have the ingredients to hand to make a batch. They are so quickly made, too, that I find them the most useful 'cake tin filler'.

It also means, that if you see a new recipe in your weekend newspaper, you can get straight into cooking, without having to add ingredients to your next shopping list, by which time you will have either thrown out the newspaper or forgotten that you were enthusiastic about the recipe.

This recipe for Star Anise Chocolate Brownies was in yesterday's Guardian Weekend magazine - part of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's series on cooking with spices. (The meat dishes look good too!). I have to admit that, in my haste, I didn't read the instructions carefully, and overcooked the brownies, but that's a mistake that won't be repeated. I also thought that the tin size used was too large for the amount of batter - I will use a 7"(18cm) tin next time, as I like my brownies to be a little deeper.

As I know I overcooked them, I can't comment on the texture, but I think the flavour is possibly an acquired taste. The star anise and orange zest blended into something which was completely different to either flavour on it's own. I think if you like baking with Green and Black's Maya Gold Chocolate, you will like these.