Week One Hundred & Three- Mary Berry’s American Spiced Carrot Traybake

Posted on Nov 30, 2014 by kimsideas

Week 103 here already, it only seems like 2 minutes of so since my last blog (in fact it was only that long as I have been behind in blogs and so am trying to catch up!)

As I had some of the Borrowdale Teabread left from last week, I decided to only do one bake this week and next week’s bakes will be shh -christmas cakes (!) so I delved into Mary Berry
‘s Baking Bible and found this delightful sounding recipe for American Spiced Carrot Traybake.

Mary asks you to weigh out all the dry ingredients first which I did and then add each of the wet ingredients one at a time and mix well in between. I used my trusty food processor for this and it did a great job.

The hairy hoolies were most attentive while I was grating the carrots as carrots are one of their most favourite treats – and yes, they got the end bits that i didn’t grate ! I mixed the wet ingredients one at a time and then poured the mix into a tray bake tin ( Lakeland- my favourite shop- don’t think I have mentioned that before?!) I then popped this in the oven and left it to bake for an hour.

When the pinger went I got the traybake out and it smelled lovely. I left it to cool for a short while then transferred it to a cooling rack.

The topping was soft cheese, honey and lemon juice with chopped nuts on the top. I must admit that carrot cake is one of my favourite cakes and Mary’s twist on americanising this is lovely.

It will be all hands to deck next week as I have big plans to cook all my christmas cakes and put up the decorations so it will be very festive in our house next week!

Week One Hundred & Two – Mary Berry’s Muesli Cookies & Borrowdale Tea Bread

Posted on Nov 30, 2014 by kimsideas

Week 102 and I am still delving into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and still having lots of choice with recipes left to choose from…..this week I chose some more savoury recipes with the tea bread and the muesli cookies.

Mary’s Borrowdale tea bread began the night before with all the dried fruit soaking in strong tea overnight. the next day all I had to do was mix the soaked fruit with the dry ingredients and spread between 2 loaf tins which I had lined with the liners from the 99p shop!

Once baked, all I had to do was turn them out and leave them to cool. They are rather scrummy with a bit of butter and a cuppa!

The second recipe was the muesli cookies which were quite easy to do. The only headache was trying to find a muesli that didn’t have pieces of banana in it as I didn’t want to kill my hubby! The recipe again was one of Mary’s straight forward mix every thing together and then put spoonfuls on a baking tray and bake.

My cookies were larger that Mary suggests as I didn’t get as many out of my recipe as she suggested but they had the biscuit crunch and were lovely. Hubby didn’t think too much of them- all that healthy muesli nuts and fruits!

So with these two recipes tucked under my challenge belt, I am down to recipes to go..

And with Christmas hurtling towards us at a rate of knots, I think you can probably guess it won’t be too long until I am doing christmas cakes again which won’t have any photos as they will as usual be gifts!

Week One Hundred & One – Mary Berry’s Chocolate & Vanilla Pinwheel Biscuits & Welsh Cakes

Posted on Nov 22, 2014 by kimsideas

Wow, it’s weird typing in that it’s now my 101’st blog – but here we are, and I will attempt at the end to tally how many recipes there are left to go. I delved as usual into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and picked the welsh cakes and chocolate & vanilla pinwheel biscuits.

I began with the pinwheel biscuits as I needed to make 2 doughs, one vanilla and one chocolate and put them in the fridge for half an hour or so, then roll them out into rectangles, and place one on top of the other and then roll together. Finally put this into the fridge for another half an hour or so and then slice thinly and bake.

I rolled my dough the “wrong way” and my biscuits were mini pinwheels or bite size. Nothing wrong with them but not quite as pretty or the size of the ones in Mary’s book.

The second recipe was welsh cakes ( This brings back memories of my Auntie Shirley and Uncle Bill ) and I made this dough in between the resting stages of my biscuit dough. It’s one of Mary’s one bowl mixes and needs just a firm mix. Mary then asks you to roll it out and cut into small circles. Mary then asks you to heat a griddle. I don’t have a griddle but I have a trusty ceramic frying pan which works well so I put that on to heat.

Mary suggests that you have a medium heat as these welsh cakes take 2-3 minutes each side and if your heat is too high, you cook the outside but the inside is raw. I cooked mine in batches of 3-4 . They are delicious served warm with a little butter. My only complaint was the amount of sugar that goes into them, they were very sweet and if/when I make them again, I would cut down on the amount of sugar that goes into them.

This week has been quite an emotional week and I am posting this candle of remembrance for my friend Caron whose funeral was this week.

It’s also in remembrance of my dad and my first hairy hoolie Rosie. You have both been in my thoughts this week x

Week ONE HUNDRED! – Mary Berry’s Ginger Cream Roll & Madeira Cake

Posted on Nov 15, 2014 by kimsideas

Welcome to my one hundredth blog of my Mary Berry challenge to bake every recipe in her Baking Bible. It’s been a long road and sometimes hard to motivate myself each weekend but I am doing well and from over 200 recipes, I am now down to double figures instead.

I delved into Mary’s baking bible and found this week’s recipes and set off. Mary’s ginger cream roll sounded easy enough, the first step involved a pack of ginger biscuits, some brandy and some whipped cream!.

Mary asks you to quickly (!) dip each ginger biscuit in the brandy and then spread cream on one end and sandwich them together on a serving plate to form a roll. Place this in the fridge to set.

Once the roll has set, whip the other half of the cream and pipe swirls all over and then allow to set again. This was a no cook pudding and easy to do. The brandy soaks into the ginger biscuits and they go all soft and gooey with the cream. It makes a very indulgent pudding that is rich and boozy!

The second recipe was Mary’s madeira cake. I thought this fairly plain cake would balance the richness of the cream roll.

This is one of Mary’s all in once recipes and so I weighed everything into a bowl and mixed it together and poured into a tin, smoothed the surface and put it in the oven.This cake is quite a dense cake but provided a nice balance to the other one.

The clocks have now changed which means dark evenings which I don’t like. This means the hairy hoolies only get street walks until the weekend when we can get to the park and then they get really muddy!

This time of year also brings around “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here” and I am quite partial to this. i have now seen the list of celebrities and it will make for an interesting mix. Bring on Sunday to see what they are made of and whether I will be watching the whole journey or not.

I also am posting a “joke” that my chief taster sent to me- I had had need of his trolley pushing duties for supermarket trips when I was recovering from my operations and I think he is trying to tell me something! I only go up and down the aisles twice-up one side and down the other!

Week Ninety Nine – Mary Berry’s Orange Drop Scones & American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake

Posted on Nov 5, 2014 by kimsideas

Week 99 – wow it’s almost 100 blogs for this Mary Berry challenge and I am still a way to go yet- I take my hat off to Anneliese who completed her “Rising to the Berry” challenge that inspired me in just 18 months! When I begin to flag or get a bit despondent, I read the original article about her and I remember what inspired me to start this path.

Any how, on this week’s dip into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, I found the orange drop scones and the American chocolate ripple cheesecake. I started at the weekend with the orange drop scones which were a breeze to make. Mary’s recipe for these is easy to follow and mix and I halved the recipe as this was just going to be brunch for hubby and I.

I heated my ceramic frying pan and poured spoons of the mixture in, about three at a time. I gave each one a few minutes and flipped them over. You could smell the orange in them as they were cooking. Soon enough, Hubby and I had 5 or 6 each in the middle of a plate and we enjoyed them with some butter and maple syrup- yum!

The second recipe I chose was the American chocolate ripple cheesecake which is a baked cheesecake. The recipe is a staged recipe in that you begin by putting some dark chocolate digestives in a bag and crush them, melt some butter, add the crushed digestives, mix well and press into the base of a loose bottomed tin. I always think Mary skimps on this part so as usual I topped up the base with some more crushed biscuit and butter mix. I then put this in the fridge to set.

Mary then asks you to beat the cheese mix until soft and melt the chocolate. Put half of the cheesecake mix in blobs on the cheesecake base and add the chocolate to the other half and mix well. Add this to the base in between the white mix and then use a spoon to swirl it around so it has a rippled effect. Bake as per the recipe and don’t worry that the cheese cake cracks when it cools , Mary warns you about this. Keep the cheesecake in the fridge . It is very rich and you will only want a small slice but it is best eaten as fresh as possible.