Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Usually I love June. After all, my birthday falls in June. Roses are the flowers of June and pearls are its birthstone. I used to assume that the weather would be good on my birthday and that I was entitled to good weather on my birthday. How innocent I was! Last year we had lovely weather but all was not right with the world. This year there is more to be positive about.  Cranachan cheesecake with raspberry coulis I have baked some very good cakes and other items since the end of April. Exactly a month ago I baked a cranachan cheesecake , using a recipe from Paul Hollywood's book Pies and Puds . My mother-in-law had asked me to provide a dessert for a family lunch and I was happy to oblige.  Orange and marmalade cake A second recipe from the same book was a marmalade and almond cake . A couple of people said that orange and almond shouldn't work and then they tasted the cake. Orange has been a surprisingly luxurious flavour or ingredient in anythin...

Recipe Round-Up An e-mail went around at work on 1st June: baked goods were being sought for a fund-raiser. Great! I was home early from work but I had to cook the dinner before going out. Somehow I managed to make two batches of scones (one containing sultanas and the other cheese and chives) and a coconut jam slice from Successful Cooking: Slices . We were planning a quiet bank holiday weekend after the spouse's busy week. Flicking through Doreen Fulleylove's Country Fare I came across a recipe for wine cobbler, the ingredients for which are a bottle of white wine (this book was published in the days when no one was expected to know anything about wine regions), ice cubes, sliced lemon, mint, maraschino cherries (I substituted fresh blueberries), lime juice and a pint of soda water. This quantity was supposed to give you fourteen cups! The spouse and I had about two glasses each before it disappeared. Very tasty and refreshing, all the same. I also baked a cheesecake....