The Hairy Bikers' Family Cookbook - Mums Know Best is the latest book by TV cooks Si King and Dave Myers. It is the accompaniment to their Mums Know Best series which was shown earlier this year on the BBC.

The book itself is in hardback with a smooth cover which is matt around the spine. The pages themselves have a slight matt finish and a good quality spine which means that all the pages can lie out flat very easily.

The first few pages have soem photographs of the 'mums' involved in contributing recipes to the book and some old family photographs. There is a short introduction by King and Myers which sets out the ethos of the book - that is the publishing of 'family favourites' recipes, both modern and historic, traditional British and multi-cutural. Each recipe has a short introduction giving expert tips or a reminiscence from the Hairy Bikers themselves or the member of the public who contributed the recipe. The recipes either have an accompanying photo or have further photos in double page spreads separating out through the chapters. The book contains over 100 recipes.

The first chapter is called 'family favourites' and contains recipes such as; beer battered fish and 'the best chips ever', cheese pie, yellow split pea and ham soup, various types of samosas (including a special section on how to make the pastry and assemble the samosas), boiled leek and onion pudding, crumpets, lemon drizzle cakes, rocky road and scones.

The next section entitled 'show-off food', and as you would expect contains less homely, more 'impressive' looking dishes eg chicken ain brandy and mustard mash, lemon soufflé, kringel (an Estonian yeast bread with raisins and chocolate sauce), whole poached salmon, a wonderful Baked Alaska, honey and marmalade roasted gammon (to serve 20!).

Next up are "good simple suppers" eg meat and potato pie, piccalilli, killer fishcakes with cheddar cheese sauce, spicy roasted chicken with minty sauce, pakoras, a couple of really great chicken curries, a gorgeous pan haggerty, varieties of rice pudding, spaghetti carbonara

Next we come to 'birthday treats' including summer berry trifle, cottage pie with cheesy mash, stuffed vine leaves, sausage plait, Manchester Tart, some great Welsh griddle cakes,

Following this we have 'Sunday dinners' including mushroom risotto, the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, apple and blackberry crumble, lemon meringue pie, Texas and Southern cornbreads, Keylime Pie, steak and ale pie, perfect cauliflower cheese (and it is perfect trust me!),rum babas (delicious and beautifully presented)

The final section is entitled picnics and includes: sticky ginger and soy chicken wings, scotch eggs (including an Indian version which I am very much looking forward to trying.), courgette fritters, a divine Victoria sandwich, Maryland chicken, treacle tart.

For the relatively short amount of time I have had the book (it was released in January 2010), it has rapidly become one of my favourites in my quite extensive cookbook collection. I had never bought a book by The Hairy Bikers before, but had particularly enjoyed the series which this had accompanied. Their obvious enthusiasm for the subject matter - that is bringing back family favourites or introducing them to a new audience.

The multi-cultural element is a really nice touch as it introduces a number of cuisines which are not altogether widely covered in other cookbooks, for example Greek, Estonian, traditional American, Romanian, South African, Nepalese, Caribbean, Cypriot, - some traditional dishes, others fused with other dishes.

I have cooked many recipes from this book and intend to cook many more. The recipes that I have done have been really easy to follow and have turned out really well, as well as being delicious. For the most part they do not rely on expensive or hard to source ingredients. The book itself is really well presented and the photography attractive and useful - especially with dishes that you may not be immediately sure how to present them.

The mix of traditional and more unusual dishes actively encourages you to experiment a bit more and I have tried things that I would not normally try. There is also a really good mix of dishes which serves as accompaniments, would be good mid-week meals and those which you can take a little bit more time over when you are not working.

Currently (as of May 2010), Amazon are selling this book for £9, with an option to use their 'look inside the book' feature in order to help you further decide whether it would be appropriate for you. Therefore, I would advise anybody who likes cookbooks and cooking at home to look into this - it really is an excellent book made with passion and a solid addition to my cookbook collection.