Author Archives: kimsideas

Week One Hundred & Eight – Mary Berry’s Cheese & Celery Crown Loaf & Basic White Meringues

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Week 108 and I am on track this week with my blog- for a change! This week I delved into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible with more enthusiasm and found the cheese and celery crown loaf recipe and the basic white meringues. My goal this week was being able to use what ever kitchen gadgets I have to help with my sore hand.

Mary Berry's Cheese & Celery Crown Loaf

I began with Mary Berry’s cheese & celery crown loaf and got out a large bowl. I mixed the flour and the butter together with my hand mixer. I added the pepper, the chopped celery and the garlic from my garlic roller.

Kim's garlic roller

I then added the cheese from my electric grater! I stirred these together and then added the milk and the beaten egg. I added the dough hooks to my mixer and mixed it until I had a lovely dough mix.

cheats grating

Mary suggests you either knead the dough lightly into a neat round and put on a baking tray or divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Place the balls into a greased cake tin , sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for about 40 minutes.

Prepared cake tin

This worked well for me and the finished crown loaf looked good and smelt amazing. I have managed to make a loaf without hurting my hand and this week my hand has been recovering in this brace which keeps it still so that the ligaments can heal with the occasional break for some physio so that I retain full movement.

Kim's sore hand

The second recipe was Mary Berry’s basic white meringues. I had to find some recipes this week that hubby could also eat- he had minor surgery in his mouth on his jaw and has had a liquid diet for a while. I thought the meringues with some ice cream might tempt him!

This recipe needed 3 egg whites so i used my egg separator to do this and save my hand and then my hand mixer to beat the egg white until thick and glossy.

Kim's egg separator

I then added the sugar , a little at a time , continuing to beat with the mixer until all the sugar was in. Mary then asks you to add the mix into an icing bag.One tip I have found really useful is to buy disposable icing bags, really easy to find now.

Kim's disposable icing bags

I then use a large glass to hold the bag open so that you can put the mixture into the bag really easily.

Kim's icing bag holder

I then piped small rounds as per Mary’s instructions and put the meringues in to bake for about 1 1/2 hours. I then left the oven door open while turning the oven off to allow the meringues to cool.

Kim's meringues

Hubby has yet to sample the meringues but hopefully they will be tasty with some ice cream. Hope you feel better soon hubby. xx

get well

 

The countdown continues and now there are 56 recipes left to go…..

 

 

Week One Hundred & Seven-Mary Berry’s Nusskuchen & Jumbles

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Week 107 and yes- I know- I am late again with the blog but today I am doing both last week’s and this weeks so will catch up so you get two for one today! I will get into the swing of this blogging again! I delved into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible looking for a birthday cake for my chief taster ( dad-in-law) and saw the Nusskuchen which is a german nut cake-perfect! The other recipe I found was Mary’s jumble biscuits.

Mary Berry's Nusskuchen

I started with the Nussskuchen cake which was quite a fiddly sponge. I had to roast the hazelnuts to remove the skins and then crush them to add to the sponge which had various stages to it. I roasted the hazelnuts and then followed Mary’s instructions to roll them together in a tea towel to remove the skins. What I hadn’t mentioned was that just before Christmas while walking my hairy hoolies on a street walk, my big lad suddenly ran across in front of me and I fell- the classic fall onto both knees and both hands and grazed my nose. I dented my ego , skinned my knees and had sore hands but picked my self up and finished the walk.

dog walking

 

I didn’t realise how much i had hurt myself until a week or two later when i was struggling to hold things in my right hand and it really hurt when  I rotated the wrist. I had it x-rayed but no break thank goodness but strained or pulled ligaments and advised to keep the thumb/wrist strapped to help it heal. This has proved to be good except for baking and removing the skins from the hazelnuts really hurt! Mary asks you to beat the sugar and butter together, beat in the egg yolks and stir in the crushed hazelnuts. Mary then asks you to dissolve a spoonful of coffee in some warm milk and add it to the mix, then fold in the flour. Mary then asks you to whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until light and fluffy then fold this into the other mix.  Put this mix into a 20cm tin and bake.

What Mary then says is that while this cake is baking, prepare the filling. Peel , core and slice some baking apples and put them in a pan with some apricot jam, lemon juice an rind and cook slowly until the apples are soft but retain their shape. Leave to cool. At this point, all was ok and I was on track. I took the sponge out of the oven and took it out of the tin. At this point I realised I had a problem. Mary asks you to cut the sponge in half. I want to know how I can do this with such a thin sponge so i did the only thing I could think of, I made another sponge- and yes, I  had to roast more hazelnuts and then remove their skins- OUCH!!! the things I do for love!

Kim's Nusskuchen sponges

 

sore hand

Finally I had 2 sponges, I added the apple and some cream to the middle and melted some chocolate for the topping with some chocolate buttons to make it a birthday cake.PHEW!

Kim's Nusskuchen cake

The second recipe was Mary Berry’s jumbles biscuits. This was an easy dough to make, one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Mary Berry's Jumbles

Mary then asks you to divide the dough into 32 pieces.  As my hand was sore, i divided mine into 16 and made my biscuits a little larger. Mary suggests making the biscuits into the shape of the letter S. I did play with the idea of making them into various initials but stuck with the S shapes as it was easiest on my poor hand.

Kim's jumbles

When you read the blog, it must seem like we lurch from one accident, incident or operation to the next- sometimes it does seem like that!

I

Week One Hundred & Six – Mary Berry’s Sticky Apricot Pudding

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Week 106 and already I am behind with my blog, so much for New Year good intentions! As I have mentioned before, we still had a lot of goodies left over from Christmas and so when I dipped into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible I went hunting for a pudding that could be eaten quickly and the sticky apricot pudding seemed to fit the bill. I had actually planned to make this before Christmas but I didn’t get around to it.

Mary Berry's Sticky Apricot Pudding

This recipe was a lovely one to begin the new year. It basically involved a cake mix which was a Mary special- throw all the ingredients together and mix, pour into a pudding tin and lay the apricots on top and then pour over the melted butter and then sprinkle demerara sugar over the top. Bake in the oven for about half an hour until , in Mary’s words it becomes caramelized and brown. Mary suggests you eat it while its still warm with either cream or custard. We had a slice on its own and it was delicious.

Kims sticky apricot pudding

Our hairy hoolie who gave us such stress with his unexpected torsion and emergency operation just before Christmas is well on the road to a full recovery. This was a massive relief to us, this photo below was when we had just collected him on Christmas Eve and he was still really sleepy from the anesthetic and the painkilling drugs but having him alive and back with us. was the best Christmas present we could have had!

poorly hairy hoolie

A few people have been asking for clearer pictures of the stable I made for my nativity characters, if you re-visit that blog entry, I have added some more photos for you that show more of the detail.

My Mary Berry challenge of 2014

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As it has been the Christmas period and things have been hectic, I haven’t done a bake for a week or two and we are still eating Christmas chocolates, cake etc so any bake would be wasted and that is not the intention of the challenge.

I started this challenge in 2013 and initially did one bake a week. It would have taken years if I had continued to stick to that so I upped the amount to two bakes each week where possible to get through the recipes. This has worked well so far and I have now only 61 recipes left so 2015 should be the year I complete this challenge.

My baking skills have definitely improved thanks to Mary’s detailed recipes and I have enjoyed most of it and find there are very few weekends where I don’t want to bake. My store cupboard has never been so full either and I don’t have to check now , I pretty much know if I have every thing I need for a recipe.

I also know which recipes I will definitely make again and which will never see the light of day again!! I loved the doughnuts and will be purchasing a deep fat fryer this year (hint hint hubby) and I have enjoyed making the bread recipes with a few yet to go. I have loved the small cakes and tray bakes but the dobaz torte was one to consign to the never again pile as were the Florentines.

Thankfully the keep and make recipes outweigh the never again ones! If you have been regular readers you will know that I have had a few operations over the course of this challenge and I think “getting back in the baking saddle” has helped my recovery and getting back to normal-what ever that is!

I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who visits the blog for their support and love checking to see how many visitors I have had and from which countries. Some days we have a globe trotting community. I try to recognise you all where I can and often put on there how many visitors we have had.

My thoughts are obviously beginning to turn to what to do after the challenge is completed. I will still bake but will not have the pressure of having to do so weekly unless I choose to. My hubby recently blogged about splitting the blog so that he/we can focus on photography and this is also something I love but I need to learn more about the process so will need to do a Photoshop or Lightroom course. I,am a “purist”photographer in that I don’t believe in having to manipulate an image other than sharpening etc . My feeling is that if you have to change bits or take things out then you didn’t take the right image.

Any how. Onwards into 2015.welcome to the last year of the challenge. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to comment on any blog with thoughts and suggestions. It would be nice to hear from you.

Week One Hundred & Five – Mary Berry’s Pineapple & Cherry Cake

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Week 105 and this blog is a little late- nothing new as this time of year brings other pressures! I delved with pleasure into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and came up with this lovely tea loaf type bake. The recipe was one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients together and mix. The only tricky bit was washing the syrup off the cherries, cutting them into quarters and drying them. The pineapple came out of a tin. I  mixed it all together, lined a loaf tin with a liner from the 99p shop and put it in the oven and set the timer.

Mary Berry's Pineapple & Cherry Loaf

When the timer pinged, I checked the loaf and the skewer test came out clean. I left it to cool in the tin. I took my photo then cut it in half and sent half to the chief testers. Mary does tell you to keep it in the fridge as it will go moldy in a tin in a warm kitchen.

Kim's pineapple & cherry loaf

I can now reveal my finished Christmas cakes as those who are getting them should have received them by now so here are some photos of the mini victorian christmas cakes in the boxes I found in the £ shop and the tiny christmas cakes I made in the silicone moulds and then sandwiched together with marzipan and iced. I didn’t get these boxes from the £ shop but on ebay. I had such fun printing our labels too but my kitchen up until this weekend looked like an Elf factory!

Christmas cake gift Kim's victorian christmas cake

 

Kim's packaging Kim's mini christmas cakes

Well hubby and I will do a seasonal blog shortly but from kimsideas, I would like to wish you all season’s greetings for this time of year.

seasons greetings

I hope for all those of you who celebrate that you don’t end up spending pretty much all of one day wrapping as I did this year- I can’t help it- I love wrapping the presents and making them look pretty but is it exhausting!

stressy wrapping!

Week One Hundred & Four- Mary Berry’s Tiny Fruit Cakes & Victorian Christmas Cake

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Week 104 and this week was a feat of organisation -for my annual Christmas cake bake fest! I dipped into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible and found the final two christmas type cake recipes and I started on Friday night weighing out all the fruit and soaking it in various alcohols including brandy and port!

On Saturday morning, I took the two hairy hoolies to the park while the ground was still frosty so I didn’t bring them back too wet and  muddy and then rolled up my sleeves and set off. In the kitchen I have an old CD player and my Cd of choice for baking for the last few months has been Robbie Wiliams “swing both ways” and this week was no exception. I just love this CD and find myself dancing and singing while baking, much to the amusement of the hairy hoolies and my hubby! Any how, back to the bake. I started with Mary Berry’s tiny fruit cakes, and made 4 x the amount Mary states in her recipe as each year I make christmas cakes as gifts. Once the fruit had been soaked, Mary asks you to put all the rest of the ingredients in and mix it all together.

Mary Berry's tiny fruit cakes

Mary suggests you use small cake tins or used baked bean tins but as I already had something in mind, I used two silicone moulds to put the cake mix in …but can’t tell you much more at the moment as they will become presents but I will take pictures and reveal all after Christmas.

Kim's tiny fruit cakes

The second recipe I used was Mary Berry’s Victorian Christmas Cake which again was an all in one recipe and I used 2 small spring form cake tins instead of the one larger one that Mary suggests. The difference with this recipe is that it involves pineapple in the cake which is unusual. This recipe made four small cakes …and again, sorry but photos to follow after christmas!

Mary Berry's Victorian Christmas Cake

We had to phone the chief tester to inform him that there was no bake this week for testing, the reaction was hilarious!

sulking

I have watched this year’s “I’m a Celebrity, get me out of here” avidly. It’s my guilty pleasure and great fun to watch. I must say that I was pleased that Jake and Foggy were the final two and I didn’t mind who won  as I was pleased for them both! I don’t  watch the X Factor so I didn’t know who Jake was but he came across as a lovely guy who was very thoughtful. I had heard of Carl Fogerty and he was more patient than I imagined.

I also had time this weekend between batches of cake making to put up  my christmas decorations. Our tree is always decorated with ornaments that we have collected over the time hubby and I have been together and we always buy a new one each year. This year it was a mini rolling pin to celebrate my ongoing baking challenge! On my mantelpiece I always have a little nativity scene which is a little set given to me one christmas by my mum and dad and it came from Woolworths way before it closed when you could get some amazing things all under one roof! For a while now, I had wanted a stable for my nativity figures but every one I found was either way too big or way too expensive so I decided to make one myself….. I don’t think I did too bad a job!

Kim's stableinterior stable viewbasic stable viewside stable viewStable viewKim's stable

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

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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 Berry's 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.

Kim's American Spiced Carrot Traybake

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!

christmas stress

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

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Week 102 and I am still delving into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and still having lots of choice with 67 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!

Mary Berry's Borrowdale Teabread

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!

Kim's Borrowdale Teabread

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.

Mary Berry's Muesli cookies

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!

Kim's muesli cookies

So with these two recipes tucked under my challenge belt, I am down to 65 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!

stress

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

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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.

Mary Berry's Chocolate & Vanillla 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.

Kim's mini pinwheel biscuits

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 Berry's Welsh Cakes

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.

Kim's Welsh Cakes

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.

remembrance_candle

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

Kim as a baby with Dad my beautiful girl

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

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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.

100 blogs!

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 Berry's Ginger Cream Roll

 

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.

part one - Kim's ginger cream roll

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!

part twop Kim's ginger cream roll

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

Mary Berry's Madeira Cake

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.

IMG_0348

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!

shopping patterns