Welcome to week ninety seven- almost at the hundredth blog for our site- that’s quite an achievement and an awful lot of blogs!  Thank you to all who stop by to have a look at our blog, our stats show that we have now had over 60,000 visitors – so welcome, feel free to stop and look around for a while!

I delved with less enthusiasm than usual into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible this week, I don’t know why, perhaps it was because The Great British Bake Off has finished? I must say before I continue with my blog that I was pleased that Nancy won and thought the standard generally of the baking skills this year was exceptional and enjoyed watching every episode- I have now downloaded the Masterclass episodes to ease the pang of no more Bake Off for another year…..

Any how, back to my bake, I only chose one recipe this week, as was my woe and I chose Mary’s sultana and orange tray bake. The recipe was simply one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Pour into a tray bake tin ( Thank you Lakeland for my trusty foil tins!) I set my timer and into the oven it went. About 40 minutes later it was ready to come out and sit on my cooling rack. Mary suggests either putting some demerara sugar on the top about 10 minutes before the end of the bake so it caramelises or to use some fresh orange juice and icing sugar to make an orange icing for the topping. I opted for the orange icing. I then cut it into squares and sent some in a tin to my chief tasters and put mine on my stand.

I would like to dedicate this week’s post to my friend Caron, a former colleague and a friend who sadly passed away today , taken too soon. Rest in peace my friend, your smile and energy will be sorely missed. I know you read my blog when you could and am proud to dedicate this week in your memory xx