Belinda Jeffery baked her first cake at the age of five or six, standing by her beloved mothers side. Ever since then, baking has been her passion.

In Mix & Bake, she shares her 100 favourite recipes for cakes, scones, muffins, biscuits, slices, quick breads, pies and tarts, in the hope that they will become your favourites too. The sweet–toothed will be unable to resist macadamia and chocolate chip brownies, a gooey butterscotch peach cake or a mocha cake with shards of coffee bean brittle. Make a simple meal out of dill, ricotta and parmesan muffins by adding a big bowl of salad, or rustle up some pumpernickel and polenta soda bread to serve with soup on a chilly afternoon.

Belindas encouraging words and clear instructions will inspire even the most inexperienced baker, while her gentle advice gives every chance of success. Beautifully illustrated with photographs by Belindas long–time collaborator Rodney Weidland, this compendium of timeless baking recipes is bound to become a much–loved and well–used addition to your kitchen bookshelf.

Extract

Since that time baking has been my thing ? I love it and it gives me more pleasure than any other type of cooking. And although, during my years of working in restaurants, I cooked my way around most parts of the menu, it was always baking that I was most passionate about. When I say baking, I dont mean those elaborate, multi–storey cakes and gateaux that you see in shop windows ? theyre not really my cup of tea ? but more the cherished family recipes and heart–and–soul baking that you find in old country cookbooks.

Simple cakes, biscuits and tarts that you just know are going to taste good, and which often have a history to them ? as do so many of the recipes in this book. As I bake them, they immediately conjure up images of my family and friends, and tasting them is, for me, like a taste of memories. Be they of my mum, Cooee, making her classic orange cake (I can still see her now, bowl in one hand and wooden spoon in the other, beating the butter and sugar until it was fluffy and always making sure there was plenty of mixture left on the spoon for me to lick), or of my Auntie Beryl wreathed in a cloud of icing sugar as she baked hundreds of her Mexican Wedding Biscuits for my wedding day.

Having said that, I understand that this may well be a somewhat unusual book to write now, when more than ever we seem strapped for time and our preoccupation with eating a healthy diet is soaring. However, in a funny way, it is perhaps because of these very two factors that I have written it, for baking can be such a serene and peaceful thing to do, and both preparation and results can help restore ones body and soul like nothing else I know of in the mad and busy world.

I also realise that, despite the best will in the world, finding the time to make a cake may seem a luxury that few of us can afford these days. In response to this, I have tried to simplify and streamline my favourite recipes as much as I can to make them more suited to hectic modern schedules, so it becomes possible to, say, bake a slice or muffin that only takes twenty minutes or so to make (and, I should add, tastes much more delicious than anything you can buy). And thats the other thing about all of this ? homemade cakes, biscuits and pies made with fresh, good–quality ingredients just taste incredibly good.

Now I live in a rural community, Ive also noticed that entertaining here tends to be very casual and spontaneous, as so many people are up and working at the crack of dawn and dont have time for planning and preparing elaborate meals. Although we still do manage to get together for simple dinners, an awful lot of afternoon tea–ing goes on in our neck of the woods too. Everybody makes a favourite cake, batch of scones, slice or whatever and its all put out, whether in front of the fire in winter or in the garden in summer. We then proceed to sit and chat and solve the problems of the world in a few hours, all fuelled with cake and tea ? nothing could be nicer. (In fact, as I write this, I have just received an invitation to a Mad Hatters Tea Party where, the wearing of hats is mandatory and rabbits are optional!) Its a wonderful thing to do and such an easy way to catch up when everyone is so busy. I think sometimes that, as life becomes more and more hectic, afternoon tea may well become the new dinner party of the dining world!

As to the health factor, a number of people have said they feel my writing is quite a risky enterprise when there is so much emphasis on obesity concerns these days. However, the words of a dear friend ring in my ears every time I start to wonder if Im quite sane in doing this. When I told him what I was up to and voiced my concerns, he smiled gently at me and said, A slice of homemade cake never made anyone fat, and it certainly made them smile. And its true ? like everything else in our lives it is all about balance, an I would far rather enjoy eating a piece of cake made with love from good eggs, butter and flour (with no preservatives, food additives and colourings) than something bought any day. I have taken these wise words to heart.

These are the reasons that this book has come about ? and so at last I dont have to scrabble through piles of bulging recipe folders to find the ones I love most!

My two greatest wishes in writing this are that it encourages you to make some of these recipes (and in doing so, to enjoy the quiet contentment and pleasure that baking can bring); and, that the recipes themselves, cooked and eaten with great pleasure in my own family for so many years, become favourites of yours too.

Author:

Belinda Jeffery

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ISBN:

9781920989538

Publish Date:

2/2007

Pages:

264

Publisher:

Lantern

Format:

Hardback

Availability:

Approximately 6 - 10 days
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