New Zealand’s rural women know all about a good day’s baking.

For generations, they’ve kept family and friends supplied with delicious sweet treats as they share the day’s news, work, challenges and triumphs.

And now home baking is enjoying a come-back in urban homes as families look to save on the grocery bills, rediscovering the delights of filling the kitchen with the warm, heady aroma of fresh baking straight from the oven.

Over the past few years, Rural Women New Zealand has shared its members’ favourite recipes in affordable cookbooks that are infused with love, warmth and the generosity of the heartland spirit.

Their latest book, ‘A Good Baking Day’, now at your favourite bookstore, celebrates our baking heritage and is a treasure-trove of over 500 never-fail recipes for cakes, muffins, slices, biscuits, loaves, scones, breads, desserts and more.

Ranging from special-occasion cakes to fill-the-tins reliables, some recipes are old family favourites, handed down through the generations, while others reflect modern trends in food fashion and dietary needs with sugar, dairy and gluten-free variations included.

Bakers will again delight in the use of the Kiwi vernacular, with recipe names like Bachelor Cake, Holiday Special, Fudgy Apple Muffins, Station Brownie, Franzie Slice, Jim’s Buns and Quick Biscuits.

You’re guaranteed to find something to get you cracking eggs and creaming butter and sugar — to the delight of family and friends.

‘A Good Baking Day’ is another indispensable, cheerful and trusty book to add to your Rural Women New Zealand recipe collection. It’s a companion volume to ‘A Good Spread – Recipes from the kitchens of Rural Women New Zealand’, and ‘A Good Harvest – Recipes from the gardens of Rural Women New Zealand’.

And the publishers have kindly allowed me to reproduce one of the recipes from the book for you to try:

RASPBERRY COCONUT CAKE

Margaret Pittaway, RWNZ National Councillor, Otago/Southland

125 g butter, softened

275 g sugar

2 eggs

125 ml milk

185 g flour, sifted

2 tsp baking powder

70 g coconut

200 g frozen raspberries (I used frozen mixed berries)

icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 20 cm spring-form tin. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and milk. Fold flour, baking powder, coconut and frozen berries through the cake batter. Spoon batter into the prepared tin and bake for 1½ hours or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool before removing from the tin. Serve dusted with icing sugar. Serves 8–10.

From A Good Baking Day - Random House NZ - $36.99 

  500 recipes !  The Bookman reckons this book is a bargain !