Week Thirteen…migraine alert….Oat Biscuits AND Dorchester Biscuits

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Wow, week thirteen came upon me so quickly and as my thumb was feeling better, I was going to tackle something more savoury, something like one of the bread recipes which can take some time-and kneading!

But come Saturday morning, i was struck with the worst migraine I have ever had, nausea, sickness, banging head, and no tablets would touch it- I was put back to bed and Saturday was a complete washout. I felt a little better on Sunday and went shopping, taking it easy as I could feel the headache still there….sigh.

Anyway, I didn’t want to miss a week, so decided on the oats biscuits recipe and then decided I liked the Dorchester biscuit recipe too so decided to do another ” 2 for 1″ recipe weeks.

                                     

The oats biscuits , Mary claims are a relative of the digestive biscuit, kind of but I think they are more along the lines of hob-nobs and Mary,  I rolled, and re-rolled, but I couldn’t get 16 biscuits out of my mix! I managed 12 and I think I got a pretty even bake so I was happy with them.

The Dorchester biscuit, I had never heard of but it was a savoury kind of biscuit so I went with it, made the mix and Mary then recommends that you roll “walnut” sized balls, and slightly press them down, sprinkle some crushed nuts on the top and you should get about 30 out of your batch? Really? I think my idea of walnut size and Mary’s are quite different!

Any way, the Dorchester biscuit is a strange entity, it kind of thinks it’s a cheese straw but with added nuts, but I thought although unusual, they were rather scrummy!

Week Twelve – Marbled Chocolate Ring Cake

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Week twelve and I feel like I have settled into this challenge now and look forward to what to make next. This week was a special week for me as I passed my Social Care with Children & Families Diploma, and with a Distinction too! Woohooo! So I was looking for this week’s inspiration with the view of a celebration and this fitted the moment, and I could do it in my mixer, as my thumb is on the road to recovery but not up to any hand mixing yet.

Mary Berry’s recipe called for a ring mould tin and to line this. Not as easy as it sounds so I thought I would look online to see if there any any hints and tips. Unfortunately I found nothing, zip, nada…….so decided to give it a go myself. It didn’t look pretty but it did the job!

The mix was pretty straightforward, just throw pretty much everything in a bowl and mix- my kind of cooking! Then add half this mixture in various places in the tin, add the cocoa/water mix to the rest of the mix , and then add to the tin. This should give it it’s marbled effect. Then into the oven for 40 minutes or so.

40 minutes later and the buzzer pinged, I looked at it but it was a bit underdone so I added another 5 minutes to the timer. Then it was done , time for a little cooling and then to tip it out. The paper lining worked well and came off easily and then the cake was left to cool.

The topping is pretty much dark chocolate, mixed with some butter and melted, then poured on the top. Mine covered the whole cake but didn’t look as smooth as Mary’s photo in the bible. This topping then needed to cool before the final drizzle of milk chocolate to finish it off.

I am pleased with the final result and can’t wait to cut into it to see how well the marbled sponge came out. Oh, and my certificate is in the photo – to prove that I did it and I can now add the following letters after my name – S.A.C. Dip……. very posh so……

 

signing off for week twelve’s efforts

Kim, S.A.C. Dip.

Week Eleven – Gingerbread Traybake

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My hubby actually asked last week if Mary Berry’s Bible had any gingerbread recipes in it as he fancied some gingerbread……well when I looked, there are several gingerbread recipes so I read each one carefully as my thumb is still out of action and I needed a recipe that I could manage with one hand.

So, most of this recipe involved weighing most of the ingredients into a large saucepan, heating gently, to melt them all together, adding the flour and spices and finally beating in four eggs and some milk. The last part was bit tricky but I managed it without needing hubby’s help and only dropped one egg on the floor and the dogs thought their luck had changed!

This recipe calls for quite a lot of each ingredient and I found at the end of the mix that the tray I used, (the size that Mary Berry recommends in her recipe) there was too much to fit in this so I dug out a smaller round tin and lined that and ended up with a tray bake AND a round bake too………

The gingerbread seemed easy enough to make, loads of treacle in it though so it’s going to be very sweet. It baked well and was ready at the recommended time. I took both tins out and let them stand for a while before turning them out onto the cooling rack.

 

Once they were both totally cool, I made the topping, Mary recommends using icing sugar, a small amount of water and some finely chopped crystallised ginger. This is when my hubby made me laugh, he asked what the topping was made of and when I told him about the crystallised ginger, he said “BLEUGHHHHHH!!” I was highly amused that he asked me to make a GINGERBREAD cake but didn’t want TINY amounts of GINGER on the topping……..MEN!!!!!

Week Ten – Orange Wholemeal Victoria Loaf

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Week ten, so what to choose to bake this week?  Well, I know one of my previous posts told the tale of the scalded hand……well this week has been influenced by the fact that I have strained the collateral ligaments in my thumb.  It doesn’t sound much but I couldn’t even take the plastic screw lid off the milk without excruciating pain so I took myself to get it looked at and it needed to be strapped and I have to take regular ibuprofen and try not to use it.

SO with this in mind, I sat with a cup of tea and Mary Berry’s Bible and looked through to see what I could make where my mixer could do all the work and this is what I came up with. The only bit I needed help with was grating an orange for the rind and that’s where my angel of a hubby came to the rescue – what a star!

So, I (carefully) weighed everything out, stuck it under the mixer and hey presto – one mix with no fuss. I put it into the tin, Mary does say it doesn’t look like it will fill the tin and she was right!

 

 

Timer on , 40 minutes later, this is what came out. I must say, it rose beautifully, was a great golden colour and the aroma wafting upwards was lovely.

 

It needed a topping when it was cool, of softened butter, icing sugar and marmalade. I think even Paddington Bear would approve of this recipe!

 

 

 

I am going to start looking now at other recipes i can use the mixer to do all the work as I get the feeling my hand will need to heal for a while yet……..sigh.

Week Nine – Blueberry Muffins AND American Chocolate Chip Muffins

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Week nine already, and because of work commitments, I only had Sunday to clean shop and cook so decided to go for the muffins recipes as I thought “Oh, they’re easy”…….. but I was wrong………..

 

 

 

 

I decided to do both the blueberry and the chocolate chip muffins as the mix was pretty much the same at the beginning and thought as I was tired and time was short, to halve the recipe and do half the batch as blueberry and half the batch as chocolate chip. I also found at 5pm that I only had enough muffin cases for half of them and decided (oh silly me) to just use normal cake cases for the others but a few more……

Well, we all have baking disasters and Sunday was mine. The muffins didn’t really rise, they were heavy and all stuck like glue to the cases. I decided that I would make them again, but on Monday after a good night’s sleep and a quick dash around Morrison’s to get more cases…blueberries…chocolate chips…etc, think you might be getting the picture….

            

SO Monday came and I got home from work, took the hairy hoolies for a quick dash in the rain , dried them and got out Mary Berry’s Bible. I read the recipe instructions more carefully and off I set. I had googled the muffins sticking and came upon this blogger who also had the same issues with Mary Berry’s recipe, so I was pleased I wasn’t the only one.http://risingtotheberry.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/chocolate-chip-american-muffins.html

Ok, batch one – the blueberry muffins seemed to go well and so did the second……set the timer and into the oven they went. The result?…………………….

Well they look much better than the first batch, but the test will be- do they stick to the case? Well, they need to cool totally so watch this space….

Week Eight- Fast Flapjacks- with chocolate chips!

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Week eight and I have adjusted to mum living at a distance again.

I didn’t want to cook anything too taxing this week so chose flapjacks. Mary Berry’s Fast Flapjacks with the option of adding chocolate chips sounded like it fitted the bill.

Since I have started this challenge, I have 2 avid fans in the kitchen watching my every move and if I drop anything, well, they make sure it’s cleaned up quickly!

Ok, the recipe seemed simple enough, golden syrup, butter, Demerara sugar and porridge oats– vaguely healthy too- well the porridge oats say they are a “super food” any way!

The syrup, butter and sugar all went in the pan and melted together.

Then in went the porridge oats, a thorough stir in and left to cool for 10 minutes before adding the chocolate chips, then pressed into a tray bake tin and into the oven for 35 minutes.

 

All in all, another success, quick and easy and no hidden extras- such as preservatives that you get in shop bought things. I am also beginning to think more about buying things in the supermarket, before I stop and I think- ” I can make that!”.

Week seven – Cheese & Olive Scone ….and a bonus..Chocolate Crispies!

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Week seven…and it’s a bit late in publishing, my mum went home and I didn’t feel like baking ….or blogging…but now I’m back in the saddle, so where were we?

I fancied a savoury challenge this week and thought that Mary Berry’s Cheese & Olive Scone fitted the bill. It isn’t like your usual scones in that you don’t cut them out into neat little rounds, the recipe suggests you press it into a rectangular tin and mark it out into sections and bake. That’s what I did.

It mixed easily enough, no hiccups with making the dough and into the oven it went.

I also decided to do a “bonus” recipe, Mary’s bible has a children’s section and there were the old favourites of Chocolate Crispies recipe. Now, I am no “great shakes” in the cooking department, but even I thought that I would feel like a fraud if I devoted a week’s blog and challenge to chocolate crispies on their own…….!

So while I waited for the scone to bake, I mixed up the chocolate crispies and spooned the mixture into the cases. I then put these into the fridge and took out the scone bake.

The recipe said to take it out of the oven after 15 minutes and sprinkle grated parmesan cheese over it and return it to the oven for 5 minutes. I did this and got out the cooling rack ready.

I was really pleased with the way the scone turned out. I allowed it to cool and cut it into sections and put it in an airtight tin. We sampled it the following day with a little butter and even if I do say so myself, it wasn’t half bad!

So what to do next week? Back to something sweet I think………..

Week six – Mary Berry’s “My Mother’s Bread and Butter Pudding”

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Week six here already, I seem to have settled into this challenge lark and am gaining confidence in my cooking abilities too.

I now look forward to sitting with Mary Berry’s bible to choose the recipe I fancy tackling this week.

 

I had quite a lot of a tiger loaf left over this week that was not fresh enough for sandwiches but I didn’t want to waste it so the bread and butter pudding fitted the bill!

The last time I tasted this pudding was when my own mother made it so it also brought back childhood memories too.

The recipe was very easy to follow, and in no time at all the pudding had been put together, I took a little time to layer the bread and as it was a tiger loaf, the pieces of bread were not a uniform square that was easy to cut into sections. Once made, Mary recommended leaving it for an hour to stand before putting it in the oven for 40 minutes.

I had the time, so sat with a nice cup of tea and reminised with my mum on her memories of making bread and butter pudding. then the pudding went in , timer on and waited.

The finished result looked good to me and Mary says in her book that although it tastes good hot, that it is just as nice cold…..well, we dug into it while it was hot and I enjoyed it very much, I am actually beginning to enjoy my own cooking, something I don’t usually do.

The rest of it? Well hubby had some later in the day and his parents took some away today. The only thing I would do differently? My mum recommended serving it hot with clotted cream ice cream……..naughty but nice….and mum always knows best!

Week five – lemon meringue pie

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Week five came so quickly, where do the weeks go?

Ok, so I opened Mary Berry’s bible for my weekly inspiration and my mum was also coming up to visit …and the lemon meringue pie recipe just jumped out at me.

A quick trip around my local Morrisons to get some condensed milk and some unwaxed lemons and I was off.

A roast dinner with mum and hubby was planned so that all went in and then I got out my all new, all singing, all dancing Breville mixer on a stand (I don’t just buy things you know- my electric hand mixer only had one speed- despite what it said on it- and that speed was “painfully slow”!

I crushed the digestive biscuits, melted the butter and mixed my base, and pressed it into my flan tin (yes- that was new last week!) and put that in the fridge. Then I mixed together the lemon filling- Mary Berry says mix the tin of condensed milk, the “finely grated” rind and juice of 3 lemons and 3 egg yolks. The Breville made short work of that and that was poured on the base and set to chill.

Lastly, the 3 egg whites and caster sugar were whisked by the trusty Breville until it was forming nice soft peaks. The mix was spread on the lemon topping, swirled around and put into the pre- heated oven for 20 minutes.

This is the final effort and Ieven if I do say so myself, I think it  looked ok.

Once the roast dinner was consumed, I then dished the pie up for pudding..and it seemed to go down well with hubby and mum!

Hopefully one/both of them will leave a comment with a truthful opinion!

Until next week……. Kim x

Week Four – Shortbread!

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Week four and I decided to go with Mary Berry’s “The very best shortbread” recipe. I already had a shortbread mould from Lakeland and thought that this would come in useful with this recipe.

The other retail therapy item I treated myself to was the perspex cookbook stand from Lakeland which is fast becoming my second home. Each week I was struggling to find space on a work surface to cook, weigh, roll out etc while keeping the recipe book at hand and relatively clean. This solved this issue, I can clearly see my book now and it keeps it nice and clean.

Lakeland perspex cookbook holder

I followed Mary’s recipe for her very best shortbread and got out my Lakeland mould and followed the instructions on that to prepare the mould. I carefully pressed the dough into every nook and cranny of the mould and put it in my pre-warmed oven. I checked it after the time Mary recommended and decided to give it about another 10-15 minutes. Then I took the mould out of the oven and left it to cool completely. It then said to “turn it out onto a rack and dust with castor sugar“- it didn’t say “how do you get the stupid shortbread out of the mould in the first place?” ! I used a knife around the edges, I turned it onto the rack and tapped the back of it. It just wasn’t shifting!

Eventually I resorted to chiseling it out and it still stuck!

Well, being ever resourceful, I decided to google this issue and came across a blog with the same issues as I was having with this mould. http://cakesbakesandcookies.com/tag/shortbread/

Lakeland also have some comments/feedback under their website for this item with the same issues. http://www.lakeland.co.uk/11537/Shortbread-Mould

I decided to call it a day, go and get some more ingredients to make this again. I decided to make 2 batches, one in a tin as per Mary’s recipe and one giving the dratted mould another go.

The mix went well for each batch. I pressed the shortbread into my tin and after oiling and then flouring the mould, I pressed the mix into the mould. I had taken on board the tips on the websites to turn the temperature down a little and cook it for longer and in the oven it went.

Lakeland recommended a lengthy bake, allowing to cook to the colour of toast. I set the time for 45 minutes, then after this had gone by, added another 15 minutes…..then another 15 minutes….and eventually decided that they were done.

I turned the tin shortbread out fairly quickly, dusted it with castor sugar and cut it into fingers. The mould I left to cool.

The shortbread fingers were golden in colour and the semolina in the recipe gave it a nice crunch.

Now to the mould quickly becoming my nemesis. I went around the edge with a knife and tipped it onto a tray no movement yet. I tapped it gently all over. Still no movement. I used a small meat hammer to tap it smartly and hey presto, it released onto the rack.

I was not impressed with the result, the thistle mould could barely be seen, despite carefully pressing it into the design. The colour was too golden and it was very crunchy!

Oh well , I have achieved my goal and the tin of shortbread I was happy with the results so task done, but I am going to have to read more into the solutions to my mould it will not beat me!!