Jo Seagar is known as the Queen of Baking and now here, finally, is her first baking book – destined to become the baking bible for all New Zealand cooks. It contains every classic recipe you will ever need – cakes, slices, bikkies, muffins – as well as new and popular favourites and updated flavours.

Jo shares all her tips and helpful hints to make sure your baking works so you can feel confident about making her delicious recipes for family and friends. With a beautiful, elegant, heritage design, this book will have a special place in your bookshelf and on your kitchen bench for years to come.

SAMPLE RECIPES

Butterscotch Date Fingers (pictured)
This is my Granny Win’s recipe. Very quick and simple but such a complex butterscotch flavour. A frequently requested recipe.

Prep time 15 minutes
Cook time 20 minutes

Makes 24

Ingredients:
250 g butter
2 ½ cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
2½ cups chopped pitted dates (cut each date into 4–5 pieces)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20 × 30 cm slice tin with baking paper.
Place the butter and brown sugar in a medium-sized saucepan and stir over medium heat until the butter melts and the sugar is dissolved. Cool in the saucepan.
When the butter mixture has cooled, pour into a mixing bowl and beat in the eggs, then the flour. Lastly, add the dates and mix well. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 18–20 minutes until the surface is shiny and dry. Cool in the tin. Cut into fingers when cold. Freezes really well.

Cheese Biscuits (pictured)
In my mother's family recipe books these are known as Cheese Biscuits for Bridge Parties. They are best served warm and are like a savoury shortbread.

Prep time 3 minutes
Chill time 20 minutes
Cook time 20 minutes

150g butter
150g (about 1½ cups) grated tasty cheese
1½ cups flour
salt & pepper to taste

Options for toppings
finely grated cheese
crushed potato or corn chips
sesame or poppy seeds
crushed cardamom
lemon pepper seasoning
cajun spice mix
sea salt flakes or coarsely ground rock salt
celery or fennel seeds
finely grated parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line 2 oven trays with baking paper.

Makes 26

Place the butter, cheese, flour, and salt and pepper in a food processor and run the machine until the pastry clings in a lump around the blade.

With floured hands remove the mixture and form into sausage-shaped logs. Wrap in cling film and chill for 20 minutes.

Slice each log into 3–4 mm thick rounds. Spread out on the prepared trays, pressing any optional extra bits and pieces into the surface (sesame seeds or crushed potato chips or any of the options above). Bake for 15–20 minutes until golden brown.

Cool the biscuits for 2–3 minutes on the trays before sliding them carefully off onto a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Author Biography

Jo Seagar – dubbed ‘cook of the nation’ by Next magazine – is the hugely successful bestselling cookbook author and TV cook, famed for her catch-cries of ‘Easy peasy’ and ‘Maximum effect for minimum effort’. Trained as a Cordon Bleu chef in Paris and London, for many years Jo Seagar was a columnist for North and South magazine, while running popular Hartley's res­taurant in Auckland. She also wrote for the New Zealand Woman's Weekly. Real Food for Real People saw her move into television, and this series was a followed by Jo Seagar Cooks, bringing the chef known for her pearls and her ‘easy-peasy’ catch-cry to a wider audience. A real sense of joy and passion infuses her approach to cooking: ‘There's a lot more to food than getting nutrients.’ As well as her trademark books on stress-free entertaining, she has written cookbooks for novice cooks and for children. She adores entertaining and cooking for friends, and always has a houseful of people staying. Enjoying country life, polo, pet lambs, old recipe books, trashy novels, good jokes and gardening, she runs the very successful Seagars at Oxford – cook school, caf , kitchen shop and bed-and-breakfast.