Week Thirty – Mary Berry’s Large All-In-One Victoria Sandwich Cake

Posted on Apr 22, 2013 by kimsideas

Welcome to week thirty. It seems a bit of a milestone and it still only seems like yesterday that I began this challenge, inspired by Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, The Great British Bake Off and the lady who undertook this challenge before me and wrote her blog “Rising to the Berry“. I read about her in the newspaper and often look at her blog when I choose a recipe to see what she thought about it.

After last week’s cake that took up quite a lot of time, I wanted a recipe that was quick and fairly easy as I didn’t have the time to give to much else this weekend. This recipe, Mary tells you to put everything in a bowl, mix together and spread between two tins, what could be easier?

I weighed out all the ingredients into a bowl and used my electric hand mixer to make short work of it all. Then I lined both my sandwich tins and divided the mix between the two and levelled each one as carefully as I could. Then they went into the oven and I set the timer.

After the allocated time, I checked the cakes and gave them a little longer as they weren’t quite so set in the middle. Then finally they were done, I removed them from the oven, allowed them to cool slightly, took them out of their tins and put them on the wire rack. when they were cool, Mary suggests filling them with Jam but I was a little indulgent and put some double whipped cream in with it too! A small dusting of icing sugar on the top and I was done for this weeks challenge.

Week Twenty Nine – Mary Berry’s Divine Chocolate Birthday Cake

Posted on Apr 14, 2013 by kimsideas

Greetings! Week twenty nine , just a little late in happening because hubby, the hairy hoolies and I managed to get away last week in our caravan for a long awaited chill out time and we stayed on a lovely site called Fairlight Woods. A beautiful small site with woods all around and doggy heaven! We were only 2 miles from the beach so I was happy too- I find the beach and the waves crashing onto the shore soooo relaxing and the dogs loved it too.

Anyhow, back to the bake….as it was my other mum’s birthday, I chose the divine chocolate birthday cake recipe. I got all the ingredients and set off, thinking it would be just another twist on the usual sponge mix. How wrong I was. Mary asks for 5 eggs, 4 of them separated into yolk and white. You put the 4 yolks, a whole egg and the caster sugar in a bowl and whisk until thick and fluffy…..with me so far? Then melt the huge amounts of dark chocolate , add a spoon of hot water with a spoon of coffee granules, allow to cool slightly and add to the egg yolk mix with some ground almonds…..getting interesting isn’t it…….not a jot of flour in sight…..then whisk the egg whites until firm but not dry- an interesting phrase Mary! Then fold this into the mix and pour into the lined cake tin. Bake for 50 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean , allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out on to the rack to cool. I can honestly say this is the most peculiar recipe I have followed to date and wondered quite what would come out at the other end- I still had time to do a supermarket run to get a birthday cake if it was a disaster!

I must say, it didn’t look too bad when it came out and when I got it out of the tin, it retained it’s shape and had a lovely chocolatey aroma.

The icing was a breeze in comparison, oodles more dark chocolate ( not my favourite- so I resisted a nibble!) melted, with butter added, allow to cool to get the consistancy and then cover the cake in it and allow to set. Decorate if you like. I had some pretty icing roses I added to it.

I took the cake to the birthday takeaway with some sparkler candles- I put five on the cake, and they were so difficult to light,then burned so quickly, we laughed so much just trying to get them done and “Happy Birthday” sung!

Week Twenty Eight – Mary Berry’s Bunny Rabbit Cake & Easter Biscuits

Posted on Apr 1, 2013 by kimsideas

Week twenty eight and the Easter theme continues. Mary makes a bunny rabbit birthday cake in her book but I thought it would make a nice easter cake and funnily enough, in my search for a bargain, I found a silicone easter bunny cake in my local Lidl and it inspired me. Mary’s recipe for making this cake is pretty much throw it all in a bowl and mix it together until smooth, so that’s exactly what I did!

The fun came when pouring the mix into the silicone bunny and ensuring it went into all the nooks and crannies! Then into the oven it went and the timer went on. While it was baking, I looked at how Mary suggested decorating it. She suggests dessicated coconut, but I thought grated chocolate might be more in keeping with Easter (that’s my excuse…..!) so I grated some milk chocolate, white chocolate, pink chocolate buttons and orange chocolate buttons and made the butter icing.

I had also decided to make some Easter biscuits so I made this dough which was easy enough, and rolled out the dough. I didn’t have any easter cutters so I used a heart cutter.

The cake came out of the oven and was left to cool a while before I took it out of the silicone shape. It came out really well and I left it to cool completely. The biscuits went into the oven at this point. My hubby likes this point as he gets to have “first dibs” on the leftovers in the bowl and if there isn’t anything in it that is harmful to the dogs, they often get the last lickings before it goes in the dishwasher!

The decorating of the rabbit cake was trickier than it looked. Having to put on the butter cream and then the chocolate shavings and trying to keep any bits that fell on the floor away from the dogs- in case anyone doesn’t know, chocolate , raisins, currants etc- VERY bad for dogs, can even kill them so please don’t let them anywhere near them.

Finally the cake was finished, the tidying up of all the shavings, bowls and surfaces took forever.

The biscuits, I decided to put an icing cap on so I rolled out some fondant icing, and used the heart cutter to cut the toppings. I have some pretty cutters so I pressed these into the topping and then allowed the icing to set before using food colourings to paint them to make them look pretty.

Week Twenty Seven – Mary Berry’s Chocolate Eclairs & Profiteroles

Posted on Mar 26, 2013 by kimsideas

Choux pastry was the order of the day this weekend and as both Mary Berry‘s eclairs and profiteroles are made form the same pastry method, I decided to make both…or I will never get to the end of this challenge!

I read Mary’s baking bible carefully and got out a medium size saucepan, and weighed out the butter and measured the water and put the pan on a low heat. Once the butter had melted and the mix was beginning to boil, I added the flour and mixed it together until it formed a dough ball that came away from the sides of the pan.

Mary tells you to allow it to cool a little before adding the 2 large eggs and then mix it together to form “a smooth shiny paste” and I used my electric mixer for this.

Then the fun part, trying to put this lovely mix into a piping bag without making a mess- I failed dismally at this part…but what’s a little mess when you are cooking? Mary recommends using a 1cm piping nozzle, I didn’t have one of these, so used the largest plain nozzle I had, the eclairs kind of resembled caterpillars!! Anyhow, I piped some eclairs and some balls for the profiteroles and then into the oven they went, on a higher temperature for part of the bake and then a lower temperature for the rest of it.I took the goodies out of the oven and cut them to allow the steam out.

Then while they were cooling I whipped the cream and made the chocolate icing topping. Although Mary uses dark chocolate for this, I don’t like dark chocolate very much so this is where I decided to put my own twist on it- with GALAXY chocolate! It looks much lighter than the traditional topping but it was very yummy!

Week 26 – Mary Berry’s Hot Cross Buns

Posted on Mar 17, 2013 by kimsideas

As promised, the Easter recipes begin here, and with hot cross buns. Yes I know it’s technically not the right time to make and eat them but any excuse for a bake! This bake has taken the longest of all my bakes so far, because it involved yeast and rising time so it took most of the day to do.

The dough itself seemed easy enough to mix together and the 10 minutes of kneading it seemed to fly by and it’s very therapeutic taking out your frustrations on a piece of dough! I then needed to leave the dough to rise in a warm room – in our house, that’s not so easy but after looking on the internet, it recommended putting your oven on low, with the door open and rest the bowl on the open door which is what I did, and the kitchen felt cosy too. After an hour and a half, the dough had doubled in size and was ready for the next step. Mary then asks that you knead it again for several minutes then divide into 12 and place on a tray, and cover with clingfilm and leave to rise again for half an hour.Usually at this point, I find that Mary’s estimate of how many can be made out of a batch are often optimistic but on this occasion, I found that I had 16 hot cross buns!

While the buns were rising again, I made the small amount of pastry needed to add the cross to the top of the buns, as I felt that just marking the top of the bun with a cross was not traditional enough. I then rolled the pastry out and cut it into strips ready to go on the buns.

Finally, the buns were ready to have their cross, and then into the oven they went for 15 minutes. I set the timer and five minutes before they were rady, I made the glaze by dissolving sugar into water and when the buns came out, they had a liberal coating of the glaze.

For my first foray into making buns with yeast, I was quite pleased with the way they turned out!

As you can see, my usual two baking fans were in their usual spot waiting to see if there were any left overs or anything dropped , but sorry guys, no dried fruit for you too, it’s like chocolate, very dangerous for dogs , so you can have a doggy treat instead today!

Week Twenty Five – Mary Berry’s Butterfly Cakes

Posted on Mar 11, 2013 by kimsideas

This weekend I had loads to do so I needed a quick and easy recipe that would fit in with what I needed to do so I got out Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and found the Butterfly Cakes. As it was also Mother’s Day, it reminded me of when I was small and my mum made these quite regularly and when I spoke to her, it reminded her of when her mother, my nan used to make them.

The basic cake recipe was fairly easy to mix together and divide between the 12 cake cases, they baked evenly and I left them to cool. Then the fun came with cutting the top off the cakes to pipe the butter icing on, then cut the offcut in two and artistically place like a butterfly on the butter icing!

Then when I had piped and swirled and cut and artistically made butterfly shapes, I then finished them with a dusting of icing sugar. I was pleased with the way they looked.

Happy Mother’s day mum, hope these bring back the lovely memories of Nan that you gave to me.

Happy Mother’s day too to my other mum, hope you enjoyed your fresh off the press cake!

Next week I may begin to tackle some of Mary’s Easter recipes…watch this space….

Week Twenty Four- Mary Berry’s Deep Treacle Tart

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 by kimsideas

Week Twenty Four and the parkin from last week is sitting there “maturing” so what to make for this week? I decided that a pudding might go down well and treacle tart brings back warm memories of school dinner puddings so off I set on this venture.

The pastry went together well and the flan tin was soon lined and ready to go.

The next dilemma was that the recipe called for breadcrumbs, and preferably of the fresh variety, not the “longlife” buy them in a packet supermarket variety. So I salvaged my Kingsmill 50-50 loaf which was on the turn and cut off any bits showing signs of mould. I then put the rest in my food processor and a quick whizz of the blades and hey presto – I had a big pile of beautiful breadcrumbs! These were added to the mleted treacle, lemon juice and rind and then this was poured into the flan tin and into the oven it went.

The result, doesn’t look all that good but it was rather scrummy on it’s own or with custard, although the lemon flavour is rather strong in it.

Oh and by the way, we weren’t overly keen on the parkin from last week- I will stick to traditional gingerbread in future!!!!

Week Twenty Three – Mary Berry’s Traditional Parkin

Posted on Feb 23, 2013 by kimsideas

Parkin?? Until today, I had only vaguely heard of it and didn’t really know what it was or it’s origins. According to Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, it is ” a favourite from the North of England“……this got me curious so I tried to dig a little further into the history of this gingerbread type of cake.

I found a few variations of it’s “history” but little seems to be known about where it started other than- “Parkin is a traditional gingerbread eaten in Autumn, in Yorkshire. It is a sweet and sticky cake that is perfect for long winter evenings. Often associated with NorthYorkshire, particularly the Leeds and York regions, the origins of parkin are not known. It is also baked in other Northern regions such as Lancashire. Parkin is a moist and sticky cake which is traditionally eaten on Bonfire Night, but can be eaten all year round. Guy Fawkes was born in Yorkshire, and this tasty gingerbread, which originated in that area, is traditionally baked in November to celebrate the foiling of his plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament!The principal ingredients of parkin are white flour, oats, black treacle or molasses, butter and ginger. All these ingredients were important constituents of Northern, working-class diet in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, so it is likely that parkin evolved in that period. It is a cheap and filling cake that is distinguishable for its dark colour and lovely rich consistency.”

So , with Mary’s recipe in mind, I melted the butter with the black treacle and dark sugar. I had put the dry ingredients of flour, spices and porridge oats in a bowl and in a jug had the milk, egg and bicarbonate of soda. Once the butter and treacle had dissolved the sugar, I let it cool and then mixed all the ingredients together. Into the prepared tin it went and into the oven for an hour.

My dogs were hanging around drooling, like they always do when I am baking but they were out of luck , no drips, no bowl to lick as they have both put weight on and need to watch their waist lines!!

PING went the timer after an hour and I took the parkin out, it was dark and firm (!) and I left it in it’s tin for Mary’s recommended 10 minutes, then put it on the cooling rack. When it was cool, I cut it into squares and have put it away for a week as apparently it will be much nicer…..according to Mary!

Although it’s not November, as is traditional, it’s bloomin’ cold outside, we have coal in our fuel burner and the dogs are laying on their bed in front of it- I think that qualifies!

Week Twenty Two – Mary Berry’s Classic Apple Pie

Posted on Feb 17, 2013 by kimsideas

As I still have a good amount of last week’s bake left in the fridge, I wanted to bake something that we could eat for pudding this week so I chose Mary Berry’s classic apple pie recipe.

I picked out several lovely apples in Morrisons while doing my weekly shop, and had the rest of the ingredients already. The only variation to the recipe was that Mary adds cloves to hers and we are not keen so I sprinkled some cinnamon on the apples.

I cut the apples, sprinkled the sugar and cinnamon, added the water and rolled my pastry. Then I needed to decorate it in some way. For Christmas I got a roller that creates lattice work so I decided to try that- what a bad move!!! When it works it looks great but it sure isn’t as easy as it looks!!! I rolled and cut the lattice work and laid it on the top at least 6 times and took it off and re-rolled it until I was happier with it! I guess it will be easier with practice !!! I then used a leaf cutter to cut out some leaves to make the border and finish the pie.

Kim's unbaked apple pie

I am happy with the way it looked and baked and hopefully when we eat some later with a little cream, it will taste as good as it looks!!!!

I have also looked through Mary’s book and realised how many more recipes I have yet to do so will try when possible to double up on a few more!

Week Twenty One – Mary Berry’s Millionaire’s Shortbread

Posted on Feb 13, 2013 by kimsideas

Although this blog is a little late in being published, I made Mary Berry’s Millionaire’s Shortbread on Sunday. This brings back lots of childhood memories, my mother used to make this a lot but it was known as Wellington Squares in our house. As my dad loved these so much I have dedicated this recipe to his memory and renamed it to Billionaire’s Shortbread as his name was Bill………..

Anyhow, the recipe was very familiar to me and I made it in one of the infamous Lakeland tray bake disposable tins which come in very handy. I have been aware of not taking so many pictures of various stages recently to have taken a few more this week as there are three distinct stages to this scrummy cake.

The shortbread base is first and fairly easy to do, it’s just getting the balance of golden rather than burnt!

Then there is the caramel middle, Mary Berry is not wrong when she says stir ALL the time, if you don’t, it will catch and burn and you end up with burnt bits in it. This didn’t catch but it has done for me in the past so be careful.

The topping is then the melted chocolate. Mary recommends just a plain top or a mix of plain, milk and white chocolate in a marble pattern. Traditionally in our house, it’s a milk chocolate topping with white lines and then swirled so that’s what I did and love the look of it. So here you have, Kim‘s Billionaire’s Shortbread in memory of my lovely Dad who was taken too soon by illness.

Oh and don’t forget to support the Comic Relief Bake Off and make a donation here:

http://http://www.rednoseday.com/whats-going-on/whats-on-tv/bake-off

Lewis & Kim

Lewis & Kim Brown's blog of Baking, Photography, Dogs, Canada and whatever takes our fancy…

Week Thirty – Mary Berry’s Large All-In-One Victoria Sandwich Cake

Week Twenty Nine – Mary Berry’s Divine Chocolate Birthday Cake

Week Twenty Eight – Mary Berry’s Bunny Rabbit Cake & Easter Biscuits

Week Twenty Seven – Mary Berry’s Chocolate Eclairs & Profiteroles

Week 26 – Mary Berry’s Hot Cross Buns

Week Twenty Five – Mary Berry’s Butterfly Cakes

Week Twenty Three – Mary Berry’s Traditional Parkin

Week Twenty Two – Mary Berry’s Classic Apple Pie

Week Twenty One – Mary Berry’s Millionaire’s Shortbread

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