Week seventy five and I sat on Saturday with my coffee and my well used copy of Mary Berry’s Baking Bible to see what I fancied doing this weekend. I chose Mary Berry’s date & chocolate loaf firstly as I knew that my other mum would particularly like this and what else could I give her for Mother’s Day?!

Mary asks you to soak the dates in hot water for 30 minutes. Melt the chocolate and roughly chop the brazil nuts- they pinged every where! Add the dry ingredients to a bowl and pour in the egg and milk then everything else and mix well together. Pour the mix into a lined loaf tin and sprinkle some brazil nuts and sugar on the top. Put in the oven for about 1 1/4 hours.You might need to cover the top of it towards the end of the bake to prevent over-browning.

The second recipe was one of Mary’s tray bakes which always go down well in our house.

Apart from blending the hot water and cocoa together, it’s one of Mary’s usual throw everything in together and mix. Pour into a tin , level it and put it in the oven for about 40 minutes. Allow to cool in the tin.

Once cool, melt some chocolate- I must admit, that Mary suggests dark chocolate but I went with galaxy for this topping! Beat in some icing sugar and pour over the cake. Mary suggests covering the top of the cake with some melted apricot jam first which I did.

Once set, cut the cake into squares and serve.

So , 118 recipes to go, but there will now be a break for a week or maybe two as I go into hospital soon to have a procedure that should have been done last year. I will try and blog perhaps about the recovery and how I found it and also about my favourite bakes of the challenge so far.

Finally I would like to wish 2 special ladies a very happy mother’s day with love always. xx