CookBookie

Tunis Cake

I am able to track the search terms people enter in search engines that land them on this site. It has become obvious that many, many people are looking for a recipe for Tunis Cake, which I list on this site in my description of a cookbook my husband and son brought back for me from a trip to the UK.

At first I thought maybe I could find a link to the recipe online, and create a connection here for it. But, no luck, I couldn't find any at all online for Tunis Cake. Now I know why one person emailed me and asked me to copy out the recipe and email it to them. They were in a time crunch and couldn't find a recipe for it anywhere.

So, I thought I'd contact the publisher of the cookbook in question, and ask if I may publish the recipe here, with a link to their own web site so readers can easily buy the book if they want to, and see what else the publisher has to offer. They have generously given me permission.

From the book A Taste of Heligan: The Best From The Bakery, by Tina Bishop and Paul Drye, published by Truran Books Ltd.

Tunis Cake Recipe

"This delicate sponge cake is traditionally served at Christmas and is one of my favourites because, during the winter, I have more time and like to decorate it with perfect little marzipan fruits. As with some other recipes, good quality chocolate is essential. (TB)"

Makes 10--12 portions

For the cake
225 g/8 oz self-raising flour
170 g/6 oz softened butter
170 g/6 oz caster sugar
110 g/4 oz ground almonds
1 lemon (juice and grated rind)
3 eggs

For the topping
plenty of good quality chocolate
6 marzipan fruits (see recipe on opposite page) [I'm not including it here, you can make your own from any marzipan recipe I'd think.]

First make the cake. Place the butter and sugar into a food mixer and beat until pale. Add the eggs, flour, lemon juice, lemon rind and ground almonds, mixing thoroughly. Place the mixture into a 20 cms/8 in greased and floured tin and bake in a pre-heated oven at 150 degree C/300 degree F/gas 2 for one hour or until springy in the middle when pressed. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To decorate the cake, wrap some greaseproof paper around the sides of the cake, standing proud of the top, secure this with a piece of string. This forms a well into which you can pour the melted chocolate. Remove the greaseproof and you'll find that the chocolate shouldn't have run down the sides. Ideally, you  should have one centimetre of chocolate -- yes, really! leave to set and place the marzipan fruits on the top to finish.

British Bonus

A few weeks ago I sent my husband to England to buy me some books and Thornton's chocolate. While he was there, of course, he also did some work for the company that employs him. Actually, I sent him for the chocolate, and assembled the list of books after he left, and faxed it to him at his hotel in London.

The chocolate wasn't as good as the last batch from England. Might have been because it got sort of mashed in his suitcase on the way home. But I did get five new cookbooks, which I'll enjoy longer than the chocolate anyway.

The only two he could find in the bookstoes from a page full of faxed titles I got off Amazon.com's UK website were: Just Like Mother Used To Make, by Tom Norrington-Davies, and Tea-time Recipes by Jane Pettigrew. They are both good looking, substantial hardcovers. I'll list some of the recipes below.

One of our sons also happened to be in England at the same time, so they joined up to visit my husband's relatives in Cornwall. They brought me two cookbooks from there: The Pasty Book, by Hettie Merrick, and A Taste of Heligan: the best from the bakery, by Tina Bishop and Paul Drye. My final delicious morsel came, I think from Cornwall, but it might have been London, chosen by my son: Celtic Cookbook: Traditional Recipes From The Six Celtic Nations, by Helen Smith-Twiddy.

I have a thing about British cookbooks. Don't know quite why. Might be because I love the names of the recipes, might be because I love baking, and they have interesting and delicious recipes for baked goodies and desserts.

Here are a few recipe titles from my new cookbooks from the UK trip:

  Cornish Splits, Poverty Pudding, Moonshiners' Pudding, (lots of different pubbings) Woodcock With Whiskey Sauce, Fruit Bonnag, Fish Gazey Pie, Roast Chicken With Sage and Onion Stuffing, Jugged Kippers, Rowanberry Liqueur, Mead, Onion Nettle And Cheese Bake, Cornish Pork and Cider, Sultana and Treacle Bread.

  Figgy Pudding, Coconut Ice, Tunis Cake (The Tunis Cake recipe is in my Recipe category on this site), Bitter Chocolate Syllabub with Hazelnut Praline, Summer Pudding, Rose Petal and Peach Cheesecake, Raspberry Fool with Cat's Tongues, Fiery Chocolate Fudge Cake, Gingerbread Women, Cheese Scones.

The Pasty Book:

Pasty Pastry, Pasty Fillings (several variations), lots of information about pasties.

   Apricot Swiss Roll, Blackberry Tea Bread, Sussex Apple Cake, Grantham Gingerbreads, Norfolk Tart, Dolce Torinese, Cherry Bakewells, Cut and Come Again Cake, Bara Brith, Welsh Seed Cake, Welsh Lardy Cake, Boiled Whiskey Cake, Gypsy Creams, Pratie Cake, Boxty Bread, Chocolate Digestives.

  Millionaire's Shortbread, Mash, A Simple Rice Salad, Risi e Bisi, Chocolate Biscuit Cake, Salmon Fishcakes, Pub Chicken, Eton Mess, Lemon Cotswold, Poor Knights of Windsor, Bread and Butter Pudding, Rhubarb Crumble, Chicken and Dumplings in Broth.

   

It's Baking Next Door

Well, I've been cooking up COOKBOOK-L's new home at TypePad next door to where CookBookie lives. I decided COOKBOOK-L needs its own space, so it gets a blog of its own. Yesterday evening and today I've been assembling and tweaking it.

It will have its own URL http://www.cookbook-l.com moved to its new blog site in a few days. Meanwhile, it can be accessed via its TypePad address http://noodlefactory.typepad.com/cookbookl.

I started COOKBOOK-L a few years ago when I was a semi-newbie online. Besides just loving cookbooks and wanting a nice place to play, I planned to use it as a low key marketing vehicle for my book, the Zondervan Family Cookbook, and to sell cookbooks I'd bought from someone closing down their cookbook newsletter.

But, one of my early subscribers, a very nice guy, wanted to help cookbook lovers who didn't have a lot of money buy lots of books. He offered a substantial discount for just about any cookbook available from wholesalers. I couldn't compete with his discounted books, at least not and make any profit, and I couldn't ask him not to do it. It was a special project for him, and he was very generous and sincere. So, I still have those books in my basement, in closed plastic boxes, keeping very fresh and new. Want some?

Meanwhile, COOKBOOK-L continues as a special place to talk cookbooks with others, share information, and buy and sell a bit on Market Day (Wednesday). There are now, as of this minute, 279 cookbook enjoying subscribers on the list. When you subscribe, there will be 280.

Ingredients

The new Cookbookie will contain things cookbookish.

That will include my findings from surfing the web stoves and shelves.

Add my comments about cooking, cookbooks, my cookbooks in particular, and anything remotely related to cookbooks.

It may also contain the innards of the website I'm thinking of moving here, COOKBOOK-L.COM, which is about my email discussion list COOKBOOK-L.

And, then the info about other cookbook related lists as well.

And lots and lots of cookbook related links.

it's a new recipe, I'm learning how to cook a blog.

Come back often for a taste of what's on the stove.