For those of you who’ve been watching Lorraine Pascale’s latest cookery series on BBC2, How to be a Better Cook, this new cookbook will come as no surprise. Whether you’ve seen the series or not, Lorraine’s easy style makes this an accessible book for both beginners and those wanting to expand their range of techniques; the more advanced cook may also find it useful for inspiration. She carries us through the recipes with characteristic grace and modesty. The cover states, “100 quick and easy recipes”, a statement that grabbed my attention. Time is at a premium for most of us these days, so any help we can get to enable us to produce tasty and nutritious food that also looks good and is simple to prepare has got to be a good thing.

Published by HarperCollins, with a cover price of £25, this hardback edition of How to be a Better Cook is very similar in style to her last one A Lighter Way to Bake. The recipes are for simple every day food and are not too excessive when it comes to the use of fats and other such “naughty” ingredients. Chocolate tart I hear you cry? Well yes, there is a chapter on desserts, cakes and treats, what cookbook is really complete without one? But even the tart is made with more milk than cream. Similarly her recipes for panna cotta, ice-cream and Bircher muesli use yogurt to replace some or all of the cream associated with these dishes.
This is not a book aimed at vegans and vegetarians and I could wish there was a little more in it for me. However, despite the three chapters devoted to meat and fish, a few recipes caught my eye. Many of the meat dishes can easily be adapted to include vegetarian alternatives and there are chapters for canapés & cocktails, starters, snacks & soups, salads, vegetables & sides which also contain many vegetable dishes. It’s been a long time since I tried making harissa but Lorraine’s recipe has me inspired once again. She is a self-confessed harissa junky and uses it in all sorts of ways. I keep meaning to unearth my slow cooker from the back of the cupboard, but it’s a bit of a faff, so tends to stay put. However, this is about to change as I’m now really keen to make slow cooker lentil, sweet potato and cumin soup with ginger and coriander – I can just imagine how good that tastes.
As a fan of incorporating vegetables into sweet bakes, thus trying to make them a little more nutritious, I was pleased to see a recipe for pumpkin, brown sugar and pecan cake with cream cheese icing and very nice it looked too. Lorraine also incorporates wholemeal flour in some stem ginger and apricot biscotti, an addition which I obviously heartily approve of.
With Halloween and Bonfire Night just a few days away, it’s useful to find that Lorraine has these covered. Ghostly black-eyed meringues, lighter chocolate muffin spiders, s’mores pops and toffee apple slice pops are great fun to make, with or without the children.
The pages are shiny which makes them a little difficult to read in certain light. I also found the photographs to be rather hard and a bit stark. There are plenty of them in the book and many of them are of Lorraine. As a former model, this is perhaps not surprising, but much as I like Lorraine, I prefer my recipe books to show pictures of the food rather than the author. However, I liked the stylish use of colour running through the book, a picture of something on a green plate for example would be matched by green text on the opposite page. A recipe for chargrilled green bean, sugar snap and courgette salad with poppy seed dressing printed in pink, had pink forks shown in the accompanying photo. You can see what I mean from the recipe excerpt below.
Lorraine gives tips and tricks throughout the book, but also includes a few pages at the end detailing her store cupboard essentials, kitchen equipment essentials, how to look after knives and how best to store food.
As soon as I saw the recipe for Ridiculously Rich Chocolate Tart, I knew that was the one I was going to make for this review. As per usual, I changed things around a little. I had some goat’s butter from St Helen’s Farm that I was keen to try out in the pastry and some goat’s milk in need of using up. I also wanted to give the tart a bit of a salted caramel edge. To do this, I used a pinch of salt and 100g of Cacao Barry caramel milk chocolate and 165g of 72% dark chocolate, which included one of the Seed and Bean bars I reviewed a while back. I also made the pastry with half wholemeal flour and half white.
Apart from faffing around with pastry, which is never my most fun activity in the kitchen, this tart was a breeze to make. If you are in a rush, Lorraine allows for a nice easy get out clause for this stage – buy the pastry. But that’s not my way. The only problem I experienced, other than trying not to eat it before it set, was getting the tart into the oven without spilling the filling. Needless to say, I didn’t achieve this. Lorraine suggests pouring the filling into the tart case once it’s actually on the oven shelf. My oven and kitchen preclude this, so I didn’t quite get the nice clean edges I’d have liked. I also found, I had more pastry and filling than I needed, so I made three 10cm tartlets as well.
The Tarts were sublime. They had a crisp, buttery, flaky pastry which melted in the mouth – not a soggy bottom in sight. The filling was rich and creamy and had the hint of salted caramel I was looking for. It also had a subtle goaty tang which did a good job of reinforcing the robust flavour of the chocolate and added another welcome dimension.
I’m sending the tarts over to Lucy at SuperGolden Bakes for her weekly event #CookBlogShare.
In case you would like to try Lorraine’s recipe out rather than my slightly adapted version, I am taking the unusual step of including an exact copy here for you with kind permission of HarperCollins.
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Photography © Maja Smend |
Recipe taken from How to be a Better Cook by Lorraine Pascale (HarperCollins, £25).
Do take a look at my giveaway page to see if there is anything else you would like to enter.
Thanks for sharing the recipe, planning to try it tomorrow on my day off 🙂
RIDICULOUSLY RICH CHOCOLATE TART
chocolate mousse recipe
A really nice chocolate mousse – mine are always too heavy.
the chocolate tart 🙂
Chocolate souffle
I was watching Lorraine earlier on good food channel, I do like her, she is so relaxed and I think that makes a good bake.
Hmm. If I could have any chocolate recipe, it would be a decadent vegan gluten free chocolate fudge cake. From her book I’m a sucker for the tart you’ve made so I would do that.
Finding it hard to go completely vegan which is why I follow so many blogs and chefs. But I do love my baking and chocolate. It’s HARD! Ha ha x
definitely the chocolate tart
Chocolate soufflé
A perfect chocolate brownie recipe squidgy but not too much
chocolate yule log
chocolate souffle, as the last one I made was like a rubbery tongue lol 🙂 Natalie Gillham
The chocolate tart
The chocolate tart
These look great!
Yummy chocolate tart
ooo would love to make the chocolate tart!
the tart looks yummy,
chocolate mouse recipe.
Chocolate anything is good! lol.
But the chocolate tart looks so good.
got to be the fudgiest chocolate brownie recipe I just cant seem to get them right.
chocolate tart looks amazing!
chocolate cheesecake
A yummy chocolate mousse recipe
Wow, fab looking tart, I’m naff at soufflés so would love to give the chocolate soufflé a go
The chocolate tart looks great
Something with Nutella in as I am a little obsessed by Nutella lol
A good chocolate brownie recipe
choccie suffl’e yum
kate sabin-burns
chocolate tart 😀
The Ridiculously Rich Chocolate Tart looks delicious and id want to make it
Chocolate brownies,mmmmm!Lorraine’s recipes are so very easy to follow,her books are the perfect gift.
The chocolate tart looks yummy
Any of the chocolate based recipes!
Yule log. My hubby always want’s me to make one each year but they kind of scare me a little so I always seem to not have the time 🙁
debbie jackson
The stem ginger and apricot biscotti sounds delicious.
Chocolate tart.
Chocolate tart.
A chocolate trifle recipe.
The Chocolate Tart
kirstyjfox AT yahoo DOT com
Easy chocolate souffle
The chocolate tart looks scrummy x
chocolate brownies
The Chilli, Chestnut & Chocolate Cake sounds good too, though I really like the tart!
Chocolate tart looks amazing 😍
Like the chocolate tart
Slow cooker lentil, sweet potato and cumin soup with ginger and coriander – I love hearty spiced soups when the weather starts getting cold x
Chocolate fudge cake
I’d love to try a Chocolate Fondant 🙂
Chocolate Yule log.
I’m really into making different kinds of chocolate mousse at the minute, just got a new magi mix so I’m putting it through it’s paces 🙂
chocolate tart Mmmmm
I love Chocolate fondant- very hard to make but scrumptious
The perfect brownies
the chocolate tart fab giveaway
lisa ann tebbutt
Wow can’t wait to try most of these 😀
I’d love a chocolate yule log recipe for Xmas 🙂
The chocolate tart looks amazing!
Chocolate fondant
Perfect for a chocoholic 🙂
definitely chocolate tart as i love chocolate and i love pastry!
choclate fudge cake
The chocolate tart x
choc brownies yum xx
Chocolate Tart
The perfect chocolate brownie
I’d like to get my hands on the slow cooker lentil, sweet potato and cumin soup with ginger and coriander that you mention in your post – that sounds delicious – and could follow that up with a slice of the chocolate tart 🙂
Chocloate Tart looks delicious- can’t wait to try the recipe myself!
Chocolate tart sounds wonderful.m
Chocolate Brownies for me
Chocolate Mousse sounds scrummy 🙂
Chocolate tart. Sounds delicious.
I would love a good chocolate brownie recipe
Chocolate Souffle
mmmm chocolate brownies yum yum
a chocolate and pecan tart that I once had on a trip into Stamford
A calorie-free Millionaires Shortbread!
Chocolate Bownie
Cakes with white chocolate
I’d love to learn how to make a salted caramel chocolate melt-in-the-middle pudding!
I love chocolate cornflake cakes
chocolate mousse
The chocolate tart
Chocolate soufflé please
The chocolate tart – yummie
Chocolate Brownies
Chocolate Yule Log
Stephen Little
[email protected]
Mmmmm…the chocolate tart 🙂
Oooh the chocolate tart
Chocolate brownies are my fave _ @timscomps
A chocolate souffle,mmmmm
Rich chocolate mousse pots, never been able to find the chocolate pots!!
Chocolate Brownies
I’d love to try the panna cotta recipe
Chocolate brownie recipe would be great.
A chocolate souffle! Thanks for the giveaway – great prize!
Chocolate Tart! 🙂
The chocolate tart.
A chocolate souffle please.
A good gluten free chocolate cake
Really light chocolate moose
A really light chocolate moose
Chocolate Tart x
I’d love to try the Chocolate Tart recipe. Something I’ve always wanted to try to make.
The tart looks fab, I also like the idea of the childrens halloween recipes they sould delicious for adults too!
chocolate fudge cake
Chocolate fondant cake
As I love chocolate, any chocolate recipe or all chocolate recipes. The recipe given above for chocolate tart looks nice.
Rachel Craig
Chocolate fudge cake
A chocolate souffle sounds lovely
I’d love a good recipe for chocolate mousse.
Chocolate tart yum yum
This chocolate tart looks delicious. Wow. I’d love to master any chocolate recipe other than variations of slow cooker fudge, they are my limit, tasty though, so I can’t complain too much!
The chocolate tart looks amazing!
I am not a huge baker only just getting into it more! I would like to be able to make the richest brownies ever!
i like the chocolate tart recipe!!
Chocolate tart
chocolate tart look delish
dorothy cavender
chocolate tart looks amazing!
The chocolate tart
the chocolate tart
Somebody at work said they’d had chocolate sorbet so I’d like to find a recipe for that.
A chocolate souffle
chocolate mousse
the chocolat tart
The chocolate tart looks divine! I’m going to use the recipe on the weekend for me and my husbands night off from the little one. Might just have to sit in front of the tv and eat it all! ;P
Chocolate Tart please
Chocolate self saucing cake
A rich chocolate mousse.
Looks delish!
all of them!!!
I’d love to get my hands on a foolproof chocolate fondant puddings recipe
Can’t be too rich nor too chocolate
Can’ be too rich or too chocolatey
Sounds absolutely delicious! I will have to see if I can make a gluten free version!
a good chocolate brownie recipe would be fab.
The chocolate tart recipe looks scrumptious!! I am on the lookout for some chocolate Christmas pudding recipes to try xx
chocolate souffle xx
I love Lorraine Pascal. Some of her recipes have made me a better cook. I would love to get my hands on Chocolate Brownies.
the Chocolate Tart Recipe for me
chocolate souffle
I was thinking what chocolate dessert to make during weekend and this tart seems like a perfect choice!
Thanks for sharing.
A good chocolate mouse recipe.
Your choc tarts look super, I once made one on a baking course it was white chic filling with a chocolate pastry.
Angela – Garden Tea Cakes and Me
Thanks Angela. A white chocolate tart is now being added to my list 😉
This looks like a seriously good chocolate tart. I love dark chocolate so this is right up my alley. I would like a good chocolate fondant recipe as I’ve been trying to find the perfect one.
Thanks Ros. I had a brilliant chocolate fondant recipe that worked every time, but I’ve foolishly managed to mislay it!
I love Lorraine Pascale’s books and TV shows. She has an easy air about her on TV and her recipes are very tempting. GG
Yes, she seems very natural some how GG. These tarts are most definitely delicious 😉
Sounds yummy delicious! Thanks for the giveaway!
My pleasure 🙂
I love a good chocolate tart and this one looks yum. But as I have already mastered that, I would like to source a good, creamy dark chocolate panna cotta recipe….. Yum yum!
Haha Kate, that’s one I’m looking out for too – only it needs to be a vegetarian one.
chocolate souffle 🙂
Oh yummy! Adding it to The Food Blog Diary as we speak!
Oh thanks Jac. Forgot to let you know about it – again!
The chocolate tart x
I’d like to master millionaires slice. It may be called a different name in other regions.
chocolate souffle
(Spencer Broadley)
The chocolate tart xxx
They look extremely neat and intense x
Thanks Deena – they are indeed very rich and thus very satisfying, so a little goes a long way.
A chocolate mousse
A really good chocolate mousse recipe that is dairy free.
I think I would do anything for a slice of that tart.
Anything Bintu? Well I could think of a few things …
they look lovely although I didn’t enjoy the book I would enjoy these!
Ah, thank you Dom 🙂
These are so cute!
xox
Thank you Many 🙂
A chocolate souffle!
The “Tart” looks good and love the adaptation I can not remember the last time I actually stuff to a recipe word for word. I was not familiar with Lorraine as I hardly even watch bbc2 but now I know will google her lol
Thanks Miranda. The only time I manage to stick to a recipe is if I’m recipe testing and then I have to be really strict with myself 😉
I would love to get my hands on the Chocolate Tart Recipe & now I have! xxx
Do let me know how you get on if you do make it Tracey.
I love LP’s series!
Thanks for the chocolate tart recipe!!
You’re very welcome Gill.
Your chocolate tart looks luscious and fantastic!
Thank you Angie – I’m pleased to say there is still quite a bit left 🙂
OOh this sounds and looks absolutely divine, not sure mine would turn out so well x
Thank you, that’s very kind, but I’m sure you could do as well or better.
Wish I could cook like this