Category Archives: Kim’s cake challenge

Illness stops play….but only temporarily!

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It should be week sixty nine and I should be posting about the culinary delights that I have attempted from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible this week. Alas that is not the case as from Friday, I have had the sickness bug that has been going around and I have pretty much just curled up on the sofa most of the weekend and the thought of trying to bake something without either being sick or infecting any of my tasters was just too much to take.

I find myself missing the time in the kitchen though, just me and Mary’s book and getting lost in the moment, with the hairy hoolies waiting to see if I drop anything.

I found myself tucked up in bed rather early yesterday, a combination of being a winter Olympic/rugby union widow and just generally feeling wiped out. I put on a DVD that my friend at work had lent me when she heard about my challenge and blog and the dvd had sat on my kitchen table for some while. It was called “Julie & Julia” and within minutes I was captured and thoroughly enjoyed the tale of Julia Childs and Julie Powell who set herself a challenge to cook her way through Julia Childs cookbook and blogged about it. If you haven’t seen it, I would thoroughly recommend it and it has given me a real boost while flagging a little with my challenge. The only jaw dropping moment was when Julie heard that Julia Childs “hated” her blog and she was devastated. I was astonished given the kind of woman she was portrayed as that she would say such a thing. I researched this further and found an article here that explained it in more depth and that is wasn’t as harsh as the journalist in the film tried to portray.

The film reminded me of the day I read in the Daily Mail the article about Anneliese, a young mum who baked her way through Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and wrote “Rising to the Berry” , her blog of her adventures. This inspired me to begin this journey and I have seen others who have started this journey too.

Everyone needs to rise to a challenge sometimes and this has certainly challenged me. I have enjoyed every moment so far even with time restrictions and various health issues. The challenge continues until I had baked every single recipe in Mary’s book…but the bigger question is- what do I do then?

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Week Sixty Eight, I am a week behind with my previous blog and ahead of time with this one so I guess they kind of balance out….don’t they?! I haven’t got back into the swing of choosing two recipes a week yet so when I delved into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, the iced lemon tray bake called to me!

Mayr Berry's Iced Lemon Traybake

It’s one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients into the bowl and mix, our into a tray bake tin- and my recycled Lakeland tray hasn’t bitten the dust yet! Into the oven it went for about 40 minutes and it was done. To make the topping, you mix lemon juice and granulated sugar. Mary as usual gives you a pretty meagre helping of the topping so I had to add to it to cover the top of the sponge.

Kim's Iced Lemon Traybake

Hubby and I couldn’t help but try a piece before we put it into a tin but we thought it was rather yum!

This time of year has brought an awful lot of rain and when I take my two hairy hoolies out, I come back with 2 swampy monsters! I have created a “mud” kit which consists of giant dog wipes and lots of extra towels, the dogs get wiped down before I bring them home but they are not overly keen as they go sliding everywhere too . Our mission is to try and find somewhere not too far away that isn’t too muddy! All this exercise though makes our older hoolie rather tired!

A Hairy Hoolie Fast Asleep

Week Sixty Seven – Mary Berry’s Almond Spice Cake

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Week sixty seven and I needed a birthday cake idea  from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible for my chief taster ( AKA my lovely other Dad) and I wanted something that would cheer him up as he had been very poorly recently. I knew that he loved anything with almonds (yuk!) so this cake was perfect!

Mary Berry's Almond Spice Cake

The recipe was the usual easy Mary Berry throw every thing into a bowl and mix. The only slight variation of this recipe is that you roll out some marzipan into a circle the same size as your cake tin. Then pour half the mixture in, add the circle of marzipan and pour on top the other half of the mix. This had a long oven bake time so I had to be patient while I waited for it to cook. once it was done and cooled, the topping was made in a saucepan by adding brown sugar, butter and cream and bringing it to the boil to thicken it. Pour this over the cake and sprinkle with almonds.

Kim's Almond Spice Cake

Happy birthday to my chief taster, I hope it was a suitably worthy birthday cake for you- made with love xx

Week Sixty Six – Mary Berry’s Chocolate Chip Brownies

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Week clickedy click, oops I mean sixty six. Anyone would think I played bingo – and actually I don’t- honestly!  I chose a chocolate fest of a recipe from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible – chocolate chip brownies.

Mary’s brownie recipe was really simple, add all the ingredients to a bowl and mix- not much to go wrong here! Then pour into a tray bake tin ( one of my trusty recycled Lakeland tray bake foil tins) and level. Pop into the oven and bake!

Mary Berry's Chocolate Chip Brownies

Once baked, allow the brownies to cool in the tin, then remove and cut into squares and store in an air tight tin. The smell of these cooking was mouth watering indeed and while they were cooling, my kitchen had the most amazing chocolaty smell about it.

Kim's Chocolate Chip Brownies

My chief taster was home from his stay in hospital so I packed some into his tin for him to try and also made him some cheese scones which he loves s much to welcome him home. It was his birthday yesterday and as we weren’t sure if he would be home, I didn’t get to make him his birthday cake, so watch this space, that will be next week’s challenge recipe!

 

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Week Sixty Five and what a week this has been! My chief taster has not been well and had to spend some time in hospital and although this cake was made, not all of it got eaten in the rush of all that happened last week!

I chose the lemon yoghurt cake from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible as I thought it sounded quite interesting and was a bit of a change. You need 2 mixing bowls for this as you beat the sugar, butter and egg yolks together, add the lemon and yogurt and beat until smooth. Then fold in the flour. In the other bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks and fold into the main cake mix. Pour into the tin and ……bake!

Mary Berry's Lemon Yoghurt Cake

The cake took about an hour and a quarter to bake and then once cool, Mary asks you to mix some icing sugar with some lemon juice and spread over the top. This cake is best kept in a tin in the fridge. I found it quite a dense cake and you didn’t want too much.

Kim's Lemon Yoghurt Cake

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Sport Relief Bake Off episodes and mostly managed to predict who the winning celebrity would be each time! I made my donation, there is still time for you to make yours- go on, you know you want to!

Week Sixy Four – Mary Berry’s Potato Scones

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When I delved into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible this week, I must admit that after the relative gluttony of Christmas food, I couldn’t face two recipes this week but mindful that I want to complete this challenge this year, I will aim to try harder next week!

Mary Berry's Potato Scones

Potato scones sounded unusual and it was nice to try something savoury for a change. The recipe is like Mary’s usual scone recipe except that you get to add some fresh mashed potato to it! Mary claims that you can make 12 scones out of this dough batch. Well I managed that but they were thinner than I would have liked so if I make these again or you decide to have a go, then roll the dough thicker if you like a deeper scone.

Kim's Potato Scones

They tasted very yummy when split and eaten with a dash of butter while still warm from the oven.

I was very excited to see that The Great Sport Relief Bake Off is coming tomorrow. I have already set all four episodes to record and will sit and watch each one avidly!  I have greatly missed The Great British Bake Off with Mary Berry’s kind words and Paul Hollywood’s stern looks.

Week Sixty Three – Mary Berry’s Date & Cherry Butter Bars

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After a few weeks of not baking for my challenge of baking every recipe in Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible, it felt a little strange to get her book out again and look for something easy to ease myself back into this. This recipe is one of her tray bakes and as I had cherries and dates left over from Christmas baking , it seemed like a good one to re start the challenge.

Mary Berry's Date & Cherry Butter Bars

Mary asks you to rub the butter into the flour to make breadcrumb like texture, then add the chopped cherries and dates, some caster sugar and an egg. Bring it all together into a dough like ball and press it into a tray bake tin. Place it in a pre warmed oven for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, mark it into bars with a sharp knife and return it to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the bars are a lovely golden colour. Score through the bars again and allow to cool in the tin.

Kim's Date & Cherry Butter Bars

Once cool, keep in an airtight tin.

A quick and easy to get me back in the Mary Berry challenge saddle!

Week Sixty Two – Mary Berry’s Bakewell Slices ( and some sugarcraft too!)

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Week Sixty two and only a week’s gap, not so bad. I’ve had my operation, let’s just say all that should have been done, was not and I will have to back again..sigh. The general anaesthetic and procedure has had me feeling tired and generally under the weather, hence no bake until this weekend and only one.

Mary Berry's Bakewell Slices

So I delved as ever into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible and decided to do her Bakewell Slices. They looked easy enough. Mary asks you to make a shortbread type of base , I made this and rolled it out and as ever, Mary’s quantities don’t go as far as she seems to be able to make them. I struggled to get the pastry to cover the bottom of my ever faithful Lakeland tray bake tin. Eventually with a lot of prodding and poking, I covered the base.

Mary then asks you to use 4 tablespoons of raspberry jam to cover the pastry and then proceeds to tell you to be generous with it as the jam makes all the difference. Again, four tablespoons over a tray bake tin didn’t go very far, by the time I had added an even layer, pretty much the whole jar of jam had gone- well she did say it made the difference! Finally the sponge topping, one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix instructions and spread over the jam. Not easy and took a while to get it all even. Finally I sprinkled flaked almonds over the top and popped it in the oven for 25 minutes.

The final product looked nicely browned and when cool, sliced well. I am not overly keen on cakes with almond in but I must say, I didn’t mind it at all!

Kim's Bakewell Slices

A Bakewell SliceA quick update from the Christmas cakes made. They are all marzipaned and iced now and had a little bit of port to “feed” them.

Kim's Christmas Cakes

I have begun to make some of the decorations, here is one I made earlier, I am not going to reveal much more as some of the cakes are going to friends and family and I don’t want to reveal too much! Spoilers……..

Kim's icing igloo

Week Sixty One – Mary Berry’s Fast Mincemeat Christmas Cake & Carrot Cake

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Week sixty one and my bakes this week helped take my mind off what I am facing tomorrow…but more of that later. This week’s bakes were also disappointing in some ways too….

I delved into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible and wanted to make a start on my Christmas cakes so I chose her fast mincemeat Christmas cake recipe and dug out my trusty Lakeland cake tin that can be divided into smaller cake sizes so I had four square cake tins.

Mary Berry's Fast Mincemeat Christmas Cake

Mary’s recipe is the strangest Christmas cake recipe I have ever made, and I make Christmas cakes for friends and family most years. usually I am up to my armpits in various dried fruits, candied peel, brandy etc. but nope, not this year. Mary’s recipe uses mincemeat in a jar along with some sugar, currants, flour, butter and some eggs. That was pretty much the recipe. I made four batches and poured them into my tins which were greased and lined. I popped them into the pre warmed oven for the hour and three quarters that Mary states. After the timer pinged, I got my trusty skewer and checked the cakes. Imagine my disappointment when I saw that all four cakes had sunk. I hadn’t opened the oven at all during the bake and had pre warmed the oven so I don’t know why they did. I was very disappointed but took heart that the bottoms of them were flat so that will effectively become the top but I will know that they weren’t right. I will now wrap them in foil, feed them a little alcohol- Mary doesn’t add any to this cake and I think a little gives it some flavour. I will also then decorate them and fancy trying some sugar craft modelling…..

Kim's fast micemeat christmas cake

The second recipe was Mary’s carrot cake. I had a major problem with Mary’s recipe because it has banana  (in a carrot cake?!) and I can’t use banana in anything at home because of hubby’s allergy. So I looked on Mary Berry’s website and found that she does a lovely carrot cake recipe without banana here . I also decided to make it as a tray bake rather than the usual cake.

Mary Berry's Carrot Cake

I mixed all the ingredients together and popped the tray bake into the oven. After the allotted time, the cake was done and a lovely golden brown. I left it to cool in it’s Lakeland tray bake tin and set about making the creamy topping. I spread the topping over the tray bake and put pecan nuts on it rather than walnuts and popped it into the fridge. I can’t wait to try a slice of this….

Kim's carrot cake traybake

For those of you who drop by this blog occasionally you will know that at New Year last year, I had to go into hospital for some surgery. Well tomorrow I have to go in again for another small procedure- small in time spent in theatre but a reasonable time recovering. Hence the blog actually being on time today and I am not yet sure if I will feel up to baking at all next week yet. I am having this procedure done.

Finally, I got to see the Day of the Doctor last night. In case you hadn’t guessed, I am quite the Dr Who fan and thoroughly enjoyed the 50th anniversary program last night. Well worth the wait and way beyond any hype. I pressed the red button after the program and also enjoyed the Five doctors (almost) which had Peter Davidson, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy in a spoof drama trying their hardest to get cast into the program. It was hilarious!

Week Fifty Nine – Mary Berry’s Iced Apricot Fruit Loaf & Double Chocolate Cookies

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Week fifty nine and I am beginning to wonder where the time goes in between the bakes…it just seems to gallop along! I had quite a sweet tooth craving this week and decided upon Mary Berry‘s iced apricot fruit loaf first. Mary’s recipe from her Baking Bible is the usual “add everything to a bowl and mix” which is really easy when you have so much else to fit in at the weekend. I mixed it and poured it into a loaf tin and put it in the pre heated oven for an hour and ten minutes.

Mary Berry's Iced Apricot Fruit Loaf

I began to get the lovely baking aromas in the kitchen about half way through it baking and it began to make my tummy rumble. Soon enough, the timer pinged sounded and I got my trusty skewer to check it was done- yep, all done, Mary recommends you leave it to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before tipping it onto a cooling rack. It seemed to take forever to cool and be ready for the icing topping. Mary asks you to combine some water and apricot jam, heat both together to combine and then add icing sugar. It makes a tangy apricot icing. Mary then recommends finely cutting two apricots and sprinkling them down the middle. I decided to slice mine so it had more of a Mohican look!

Kim's Iced Apricot Fruit Loaf

Mary’s second recipe was double chocolate cookies. This involved melting some dark chocolate with some butter then adding a tin of condensed milk– I could see this was going to be a usual slim line Mary recipe! Once the chocolate had melted and the condensed milk added, you needed to leave the mix to cool then add to the dry ingredients. This then had to be chilled until it was easy to handle. Mary asks you to grease some baking trays and add teaspoons of the mixture in regular intervals, leaving space for expansion.

Mary Berry's Double Chocolate Cookies

The cookies only take about 10-15 minutes to bake, they are quick and easy to make and seemed to go down well with hubby which is always a bonus!

Kim's Double Chocolate Cookies

Well I have been having withdrawal symptoms from The Great British Bake Off finishing but I am bolstered this week by the 50th Anniversary episode of Dr Who – I am a true Whovian! I am also looking forward to watching the antics of the celebrities in I’m a Celebrity…….