Category: Favourites

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 164

A fluffy pineapple cake baked upside-down like a Tarte Tatin, with lovely buttery caramel on top. It can also be made with other fruit, such as pears, peaches or apples.

This recipe is another one of my surprising finds in Linda’s book. It is very easy to make with ingredients that are always in my fridge or store cupboard. Yet it tastes fantastic and looks so impressive!

I tried a gluten-free version, using 115g plain gluten-free flour (from Doves Farm) and 1 tsp. baking powder. The result was a soft and fluffy batter- just perfect!

I also reduced the amount of butter to 80g (and I think that in this recipe, it has to be butter and not margarine to give the cake this lovely buttery caramel flavour), and only used 80g of brown sugar for the caramel and 60g caster sugar for the batter. As the batter was quite dry, I also added 3 tbsp milk.

In my first attempt, I used a ceramic pie dish for this cake but found out that the dish does not get hot enough at the bottom to produce the caramel and to bake the dough sufficiently in the baking time. I think the pie dish’s bottom was too thick to let the heat come through well.
As I loved the cake so much, I turned to the internet (no shops open due to the corona restricitions) and found a heavy baking tin- perfect for making upside-down cake.

I also used tinned pears (as suggested by Linda) but could taste the “tin taste” in the cake. For this recipe, you should definitely use fresh fruit- the extra trouble in slicing and peeling the fruit will be well worth in the end.
A cake I will certainly make again!

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 68

A creamy pâté full of flavour- an interesting spread for crackers or toast and great as a dipp with raw vegetables.

I was always reluctant to buy stilton and found the flavour too strong. Now with my project of trying all the recipes in Linda’s book, I felt obliged to also try out the Stilton Pâté. Lucky me 🙂 I was so surprised by the taste of the pâté and just loved it. As did my husband who has also never been keen on Stilton. A new family favourite!

Variations: To make a lighter (but admittedly less creamy) version, replace the cream cheese by plain yoghurt or half yoghurt half quark.

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 69

A great invention of British cooking, and quite unknown in German kitchens. Do people know what they miss?
During my time as an exchange student in England, I learned to love yorkshire pudding but got the impression that they are very difficult to make. After trying to make them at home, I was convinced of the opposite. My family loves yorkshire pudding, too- either with gravy as part of a Sunday lunch or as a sweet treet with some golden syrup poured over them.
What is special about this recipe is that it uses just one egg for making up to 9 individual yorkshire puddings- and they still rise beautifully and taste great.
Instead of using vegetable suet to cover the tin, you can also use vegetable oil.

Gluten-Free: I tried making gluten-free Yorkshire Pudding, using 50g potato flour and 65g rice flour. They tasted good but only rose to about 2/3 the size I would have expected. Maybe the batter needs to be beaten more thoroughly? Or should I try replacing the rice flour by corn flour? Will try next time.

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 97

Halfed eggs, filled with a creamy curry and mayo paste.

When I was growing up, curried eggs were to be found during many family dinners or lunch parties in summer as part of a buffet. And there never were enough curried eggs- they were always the first to disappear. Today, curried eggs seem to have a reputation of being “typically 80s” and have vanished from our tables. On a party with colleagues, my friend got a serving plate (an original from the 80s!) with little cups to hold curried eggs. The plate was meant as a joke and a sign of very bad taste. But I must say I envy her a bit and would love one of those plates to serve all those delicious variations of stuffed or curried eggs to be found in Linda’s book. Either, they were very fashionable when she wrote her book (80s! Coincidence??) or she liked them a lot . Or both. Either way, they taste great and when I tried them out on my family, they were the first to vanish 🙂

Other variations in “Home Cooking”: Devilled Eggs (p. 63) and Stuffed Curried Eggs (p. 68)

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 109

A lovely Greek oven-bake with aubergines, TVP mince sauce, topped with white sauce and cheese.

I made this dish when my parents, sister, brother and sister-in-law came to visit. It was just perfect and all of us enjoyed it so much that despite of making a lot, we hardly had any leftovers. The tomato and TVP mince sauce was full of flavour and simmering the TVP mince with red wine gave it an almost meat-like taste. My father was so surprised that it was vegetarian!

Another great advantage of this recipe is that you can prepare all ingredients in advance and layer them in the oven-dish, ready to bake. Store in the fridge until you want to bake it and just pop in the oven. You then have plenty of time to prepare a salad and boil some potatoes or pasta (tagliatelle are great here!) and to chat with your guest 🙂

We had this with a green salad and some potatoes from my cousin’s farm where we helped with harvesting last autumn.
A perfect meal!!

Serves 3-4.

Variations: I find it unnecessary to peel the aubergines and would recommend slicing them as they are. This gives a bit more texture and flavour and keeps the vitamins in as well.
Adding 1/2 tin (or more) of chopped tomatoes to the mince sauce adds a lovely tomato touch to the sauce and makes sure there is enough of this delicious sauce for everybody 🙂

Gluten-Free: Use Gluten-free flour (rice flour worked fine here) and gluten-free breadcrumbs.