Spiced apple and ginger wine loaf

Like most people who are blessed with apple trees in their garden I have been looking for new ways to use up the glut. There are only so many apple pies and crumbles that my family will eat and my freezers are full to bursting - last year was a very good year too and I suspect that there are many packs of stewed apple still to be unearthed.

I was very pleased then to see this recipe from Diana Henry for a cake which contains ginger wine, a favourite of my husband.

The cake was very easy to make. I didn't bother with the apple topping as my friend Suelle had not thought it added anything. And I didn't bother with the icing as I didn't have any icing sugar in the house. Next time it will be iced and I shall take on board Suelle's suggestion of adding a chopped apple to the batter as my husband didn't feel it was "appley" enough. However he loved the spicy, gingery taste and the texture.

Definitely a cake to go into my repertoire. Which is why I'm blogging about it because otherwise I shall forget all about it.

Easy Chicken Tikka Masala

Yes I know. It's not authentic Indian etc. But I am not very good at curry anyway and  had all the ingredients in the house - well OK I omitted the fenugreek and the fresh coriander,  and I hadn't any cream so made up the shortfall with extra yogurt!

But this recipe is ace, a really good storecupboard meal, just as long as you have the Patak's Masala Paste to hand!

I am only blogging about it so that I can find it easily next time. And googling the recipe came up with huge lists of spices to grind alongside the paste. This did for us nicely. And painlessly . . .