Tag Archives: Baking Bible

Week Eight Three – Mary Berry’s Double Orange Cake, Chocolate Victoria Sandwich Cake & Almond & Chocolate Chip Cake!

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Week eighty three and a mega bake this week. On Friday, I got home from work, all hot and bothered because of the heat and a hectic week and dove into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible for inspiration. On Saturday, hubby and I were going to see some friends who had recently moved house and thought a couple of cakes would make a nice house warming present.

So with that in mind, I chose the double orange cake which was the usual put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.When all blended well, pour into a deep round tin and bake for about half an hour until risen and golden.

Mary Berry's Double Orange Cake

Once the cake was cooked, Mary asks you to heat some apricot jam and spread over the top then mix some icing sugar with some orange juice and pour over the cake. Then finely grate some orange zest to decorate.

Kim's double orange cake

The second recipe for the house warming was Mary’s chocolate sandwich cake. Again Mary asks you to put all the ingredients together and mix well, then divide equally between 2 sandwich tins and bake.

Mary Berry's Chocolate Victoria Sandwich Cake

Once the cakes were risen and brown, allow to cool and then make Mary’s white butter cream and use this to make the filling and topping and then sprinkle with chocolate bits.

Kim's chocolate sandwich cake

Once my two house warming cakes were done, I then thought ahead to Sunday, it would be father’s day and as my chief taster is my other dad, i thought he might be upset at missing out on a cake this week so I made him the almond and chocolate chip cake.

Mary asks you to mix the ingredients together and then pour into a deep round tin. This is where i got a little creative. i had recently bought a giant cupcake tin -one of my bargain buys. I decided to use this to make this cake in and divided it equally between the two sections and baked it. Once it was baked, I put the two halves in a tin to decorate on Sunday to give it to my chief taster with his other Father’s day bits.

giant-cupcake-tin

Off we went to see our friends who had recently moved and we had a tour of the house and garden. We met these friends when we got our first hairy hoolie after losing my old girl and have been good friends since- and we got our second hairy hoolie from them a few years later. We helped our friends to take down a tree in their garden but unfortunately at the end, a rather large branch hit my wrist when it came down and a rather large egg shaped lump came up almost immediately on it and it was painful. Luckily after a trip to the Urgent Care Centre to get it looked at, it isn’t broken, just soft tissue trauma but sore!

hurt arm

Sunday came and I wasn’t sure how I was going to decorate my chief taster’s cake with such a sore wrist and it’s on my left wrist and I am left handed. I managed with the help of my lovely hubby to mix together a vanilla butter cream and put this as the filling and topping, sprinkling flaked almonds and chocolate bits on the top. I then put some coloured cellophane around the base to make it look like a cup cake case. Not quite how I wanted it to be but hopefully it looked ok.

Kim's almond & chocolate chip cake

The chief taster was pleased with his cake and we all sat on their patio with the chimnea lit and his other gift of an axe to chop his logs!

Chief Taster's father's day gift!

Happy father’s day to my other dad and as always, my thoughts are with my Dad who passed away on Father’s day eight years ago, gone but always in my thoughts.

me and dad

I know I always go on about The Great British Bake off but I was so excited to see the adverts telling me that the series is back this summer- yippee!  Oh, and I really laughed at the World Cup advert that Mary did with the rest of TGBBO team- so so funny! If you haven’t seen it, you can see it here.

Oh and the countdown? 101 left to go……

Week Eighty – Mary Berry’s Strawberry Meringue Nests & Rock Cakes

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Week eighty already and I didn’t know what I fancied attempting this week – sweet or savoury? I dipped into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and surfaced with strawberry meringue nests and rock cakes!

Mary Berry's Strawberry Meringue Nests

The meringue nests would make a nice pudding after the planned weekend b-b-q and so I began. Mary asks you to whisk the egg whites until frothy. Then you add the icing sugar but interestingly Mary then asks you to whisk the mix over a pan of hot water until the mixture is stiff and ready for piping. No easy feat but I had a pan of hot water on anyway boiling some eggs for a salad so I used that pan and juggled the bowl over it while whisking until I thought it was set…… then Mary asks you to put the mix into a piping bag and pipe into basket shapes. Mary estimates that the mix will make 6 baskets but mine made four- they were huge though!

Kim's Meringue Nests

My piping skills obviously need a lot of practice ! I was ok with the base but when it came to the basket sides, I wobbled all over the place! When all were piped, they had to go into the oven for about 45 minutes. Once cooked and cooled, Mary asks you to put strawberry pieces in and glaze with some melted strawberry jam. This is where Mary and I agree to disagree as I am a purist with strawberries and thought they didn’t need to be spoiled with a glaze. I also added some raspberries and served in the basket with some cream.

Kim's Strawberry Meringue Nests

The second recipe was rock cakes. The last time I made rock cakes was when I was in home economic classes at school. Mary asks you to weigh out the flour and add the butter , rubbing it in until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then add all the other ingredients and mix together.

Mary Berry's Rock Cakes

Use 2 teaspoons to put amounts of the mix into small heaps on the tray and sprinkle with brown sugar and bake for 15 minutes. The finished cakes kind of resemble rocks I guess. All I can say is that they tasted good!!

Kim's Rock Cakes

Well the countdown continues with 108 recipes left to bake….

Week Seventy Nine – Mary Berry’s English Muffins & Rich Cheesy Biscuits

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Week seventy nine and all birthday celebrations had been put to bed so what to choose this week? I delved into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible with less enthusiasm than usual as I felt we were all a bit “caked out” and needed something more savoury this week.

I found the English muffin recipe which I decided to give a go and no, no bread machine in sight this week, these little delights would be made by my own fair hands! I got up fairly early on Saturday and weighed all the dry ingredients into the bowl as per Mary’s instructions. Mary then suggests that you add the tepid milk gradually using a food mixer with dough hooks to help. I was pleased about this as I didn’t think I would have the strength to mix this by hand at the moment. (My recovery is going well but I am not back to full strength just yet). The dough came together nicely and I lightly floured my work top and rolled the dough out and used a 3″ cutter to cut the muffins out. I placed the muffins onto a floured tray, dusted the top with semolina and covered the tray with a large plastic bag. I left the tray on top of my cooker. Mary suggests leaving them for an hour to rise. I used fresh yeast but I ended up leaving mine for about an hour and a half as my kitchen doesn’t seem to be the optimum place for dough rising! Finally Mary suggests you use a griddle or heavy based saucepan- I only had a large saucepan and heat it and place the muffins in it in batches for about 7 minutes each side until they have a nice brown colour and have risen well again.

Mary Berry's English Muffins

I was gobsmacked at how well they turned out- I , for the first time felt like a “proper” baker this week and I was really chuffed with them. I phoned my official taster who came and collected some still fresh from the oven and between that batch and what we had left over, they didn’t last beyond the end of the day- yum yum!

Kim's English Muffins

The second recipe was Mary’s rich cheesy biscuits. Mary asks you to put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and then add the butter and rub it in so that the mix resembles breadcrumbs. My other mum recently treated me to the new Lurpack  cook range and I used the butter which can be used straight from the fridge and is still soft enough to cook with. It rubbed in beautifully. Mary then asks you to beat the eggs together and add most of the egg to the mix to create a dough and have some left to glaze the biscuits. When the dough has come together, Mary tells you to wrap the dough in cling film and pop it in the fridge for about 15 minutes. Mine was in the fridge a little bit longer as I then popped out to go and pay the ransom demand for my hubby’s birthday card from my mum from the Post Office – (apparently it was 11p extra than the 1st class stamp she put on it but I had to pay £1.11 ransom to get it !), then I cam home via the supermarket as I had no poppy seeds or sesame seeds which Mary advises to put on there. Like most of my trips to the supermarket, I couldn’t decide on the topping so bought both…and a few other bits while I was in there! Finally I got home, rolled out the dough and used a round cutter to cut my biscuits. I put them on baking trays and glazed them with the left over egg. I then sprinkled half of them with poppy seeds and half with sesame seeds. In the oven they went for about 15 minutes.

Mary Berry's Rich Cheesy Biscuits

They smelt mouth wateringly good and were beautifully crisp from the oven. they had that biscuit snap noise which both Mary and Paul go on and on about in The Great British Bake Off! Funnily enough, these biscuits were divided between us and the official taster and they didn’t last beyond Sunday- but sadly went a little soft in the tin overnight!

Kim's rich cheesy biscuits

This week I was really pleased with my muffins, I couldn’t believe how well they turned out and I will definitely make these again. I have been a bit nervous of anything yeasty but it has given me confidence to tackle the rest of Mary’s bread recipes without resorting to the bread machine!

Week Seventy Eight- Mary Berry’s Cornish Fairings & Very Best Chocolate Fudge Cake

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Week 78 already and as it has recently been my other mum’s birthday , I had given her a token with four choices of birthday cake (from  Mary Berry’s Baking Bible – of course) so that she could choose what birthday cake she got. Due to some recent ill health, no choice had been made and suddenly it’s hubby’s birthday too and so a joint birthday cake was the choice of the day otherwise we would be all caked out- literally!

Mary Berry's Very Best Chocolate Fudge Cake

So I dipped into the Baking Bible with hubby and he chose the very best chocolate fudge cake. This seemed like an easy recipe to do so off I set. I added cocoa to some hot water and mixed it together then added all the other ingredients and mixed it thoroughly. I then split the mix between 2 greased and lined sandwich tins and popped them in the oven. The smell as they cooked was mouth watering. The cakes rose well and no dips in the middle today so the oven behaved today. To make the topping/filling Mary asks you to melt the chocolate with some cream and when cool, use as a filling and topping. So nearly 2 bars of dark chocolate and a pot of cream later, I had to spread some in the middle and over the top!

Kim's Very Best Chocolate Fudge Cake

The second recipe- what to do as I had already made a cake that was going to be very rich and filling. I found the Cornish Fairings recipe and followed Mary’s recipe carefully.

Mary Berry's Cornish Fairings

I rubbed the butter into the flour and then added the sugar. I then heated the golden syrup and added this to the mix until it formed a dough. Mary then asks you to roll the dough into cherry size balls and bake for 10 minutes then remove the tray, bang it on a hard surface and return to the oven for 5 minutes. I found that the biscuits didn’t need to be banged although I did this anyway and that they burnt really easily and almost a quarter of mine were too far gone to be rescued. The one thing they did have going for them was that they had the biscuit snap when you broke them in half!

Kim's Cornish Fairings

So I want to wish a belated birthday to my other mum and I hope that you begin to feel better soon.

I would also like to wish my special hubby a happy birthday too. I know you didn’t get what you wanted for your birthday but we have each other and I love you very much…and so do the hairy hoolies!

Week Seventy Six – Mary Berry’s Farmhouse Brown Seeded Loaf & Easter Simnel Cake

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Week seventy six at last, I am back in the baking saddle but it is a tentative exploration during my recovery and I have found that the mind is willing but the body doesn’t want to stand in place for too long without moving or sitting down! So I decided to find some recipes from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible that I could manage this week.

The first being Mary’s farmhouse brown seeded loaf which I let my bread machine take the strain of as I was not up to kneading bread etc but wanted to make it so I followed Mary’s recipe but then let the machine do the proving and kneading and baking. A bit of  cheat I know but a girl can only do so much….

Mary Berry's Farmhouse Brown Seeded Loaf

The resulting bread doesn’t look as pretty as Mary’s loaf but it was light and tasty inside and it is one of Mary’s recipes that I will make again at some point.

Kim's Farmhouse Brown Seeded Loaf

The second recipe was Mary’s Easter Simnel Cake, I thought I had better make this as I am hoping that I will have completed Mary’s challenge by next Easter and it would be a bit weird making a simnel cake at any other time of year.

Mary Berry's Easter Simnel Cake

I struggled standing for the length of time needed to weigh out all the ingredients but it is one of Mary’s usual throw all the ingredients in and mix recipes and I used my electric had mixer to take up the strain of mixing it by hand. I poured half the mix into the lined cake tin, added a circle of marzipan and then the rest of the cake mix on the top.

After 2 1/2 hours the cake was done. I let it cool and then brushed the top with jam, topped it with another marzipan circle and 11 marzipan balls, brushed it with egg and then borrowed my other mum’s kitchen blowtorch to brown it all.

Kim's Easter Simnel Cake

Although I am not overly keen on marzipan, I am looking forward to having a slice of this.

I would like to take the time to thank all of you who follow this blog regularly and also to those who dip in and out as they discover it, welcome all and please feel free to pop back as often as you like. I have discovered a true love of baking through this challenge and enjoy sharing the experience on here, the good times and the disasters.

Week Seventy Two – Mary Berry’s Apricot & Orange Cheesecake & Lemon Drizzle Tray Bake

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I am still on a roll and managing to bake 2 of Mary Berry’s recipes from her Baking Bible. This week my mum came to stay and to celebrate, I decided to try one of the more difficult and lengthy cheesecake recipes. Mary Berry’s Apricot & Orange cheesecake started with melting butter and crushing digestive biscuits. Mix these together and press into a deep circular tin and chill.

Mary Berry's Apricote & Orange Cheesecake

The next part of the cheese cake involved boiling orange juice and the apricots for about five minutes, then blitz in a food processor and add the gelatine, sour cream, cream cheese, honey, and egg yolks and blitz again until smooth. Whip the egg whites with the sugar until stiff and fold into the cheesecake mix. Pour this onto the biscuit base and chill again  overnight. Finally , melt some apricot jam and pour over the top of the cheesecake. Chill again. Mark the cheesecake into 10 slices and decorate each slice with a whipped cream swirl and a ratafia biscuit. This has been the most complicated cheesecake I have ever made but it looked good and tasted even better!

Kim's Apricot & Orange Cheesecake

The second recipe was Mary’s lemon drizzle tray bake. This was one of Mary’s through all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Line a tray bake tin ( Lakeland…) and bake for about 40 minutes.

Mary Berry's Lemon Drizzle Tray Bake

Once baked and cooled, mix granulated sugar with some lemon juice and drizzle over the top. Cut into squares.

Kim's Lemon Drizzle Tray Bake

I loved watching Mary’s show this week, with the dinner party recipes. I particularly liked the salmon mousse terrine with asparagus. I am looking forward to next week’s roast dinner recipes.

Week Seventy – Mary Berry’s Irish Soda Bread & Bath Buns

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Week Seventy and I am ahead of myself this week. As it was half term, I managed to get a few days holiday at the end of the week and decided to devote Friday to baking and was super excited about it too! I sat with my usual cup of coffee and browsed Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and settled on her Irish soda bread recipe and the bath buns.

Mary Berry's Bath Buns

I began with the bath buns recipe as it involves yeast and therefore rising time. I made the dough as per Mary’s instructions and left the dough in an oiled bowl covered in cling film.  My kitchen wasn’t overly warm but I hoped for the best.

After an hour, the dough had barely risen at all. I wasn’t sure if it was because my kitchen was too cool or the yeast pack past it’s best. I pondered for a while and turned the oven on low. I left the bowl on the oven door with the remnants of the oven heat coming out for another half hour. It didn’t really change. I kneaded it again and divided it into buns and put cling film over them and left them on the oven door which was still slightly warm. At this point I was rummaging through my cupboard. I found a newer pack of yeast and decided to make a second batch. I made the dough again and left it to rise. This time, it did rise but still didn’t double in size. I then divided the dough into buns and covered them with cling film and they did rise slightly again. I decided to bake both batches to see how they came out.

Kim's Bath Buns

The bun on the left is the second batch and the lighter smaller bun on the right is the first batch. Actually they both tasted okay but the second batch was better. I think I will ensure that I have really fresh yeast next time and ensure that the kitchen is warmer but I enjoyed making them and will probably make them again.

The irish soda bread in comparison was an easier bake. The dough was easy to make and no yeast or rising time to contend with. Mary tells you to shape the dough into a round and bake for about half an hour in the oven and then turn it upside down for about 10 minutes to ensure the bottom is baked- no soggy bottoms here!

Mary Berry's Irish Soda Bread

The result was a round rough looking loaf of bread. The weight of it compared to a normal loaf is astounding- really heavy. You could use this recipe to make bricks I think!

Kim's Irish Soda Bread

Anyhow, as my other dad isn’t supposed to eat anything with yeast in it, he got the whole loaf to eat. I did leave him some bath buns too!

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?

Link

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 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!