Favourite Cakes

As I have a lot of cookbooks, I don't generally look at books specialising in just one aspect of cooking, such as sweets, as I figure I've already got hundreds of cake recipes I've forgotten about in the back of books I already own. But our local bookshop was having a sale and I remember being given a small book by this author, Julie Le Clerc, some years back that I rather liked.

Flicked through Favourite Cakes and knew these recipes were easy and tempting enough for The Child to want to make herself. So far, we've made (okay, she chose it and I actually baked it) the Honey Syrup Cake and have the Vanilla Angel Food Cake with Berry Icing earmarked for today.

The Honey Syrup Cake was a huge hit - tasted like a fresh, moist Honey Jumble biscuit minus the icing - and The Child, who usually values chocolate cake much highly above all others, declared it one of her all-time favourites.

What's nice about this book is that most of the ingredients are simply listed in cups, tablespoons and teaspoons, which I find nostaligically refreshing in this age of celebrity chefdom and molecular gastronomy.

Pass me an apron and call me grandma.