Week Ninety Two and this bake was being done away from home. Hubby was being watched over for me and I took the opportunity to bake the last banana recipe and another while I was visiting my mum and taking photos of my great niece. Mary Berry’s Baking Bible had one final banana recipe and I started with this.  The recipe was quite an easy mix, but mashing the bananas needed a bit of elbow grease! I lined the tin with baking parchment and put the loaf in the oven for 1 1/4 hours.

The loaf needed to be covered with some foil about an hour into the bake and Mary does warn you of this in her recipe. The resulting loaf needed to cool for a short while before being brushed with warmed honey and sprinkled with sugar.

The second recipe proved to be a bit more of a challenge. The first part of Mary’s chocolate, brandy and ginger cheesecake wasn’t too bad, it involved crushing ginger biscuits and combining this with melted butter and sugar. Put this in the base of the tin and press down and leave to set.

After the banana loaf had baked, I set about making the cheesecake middle layer. This proved to be the challenging part. Mary asks you to melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water- no problem there. Sprinkle the gelatine over the water and leave for 10 minutes to sponge- not so good. Beat together the egg yolks, sugar and cheese in a bowl. Add the soured cream and chocolate. Stir in the gelatine. Whisk the egg whites until frothy and fold in to the mixture and add the brandy and chopped ginger. At this point the mixture was very runny and I wasn’t confident that it was going to set. I poured it into the tin on top of the biscuit base and left it in my mum’s fridge. Many hours later it was still runny, with no sign of setting so I put it in her freezer for several hours. Slightly better but not properly set.

I had to leave it for my mum to whip the cream ad sprinkle chocolate over and send me a photo so I never got to taste this one but mum said when she took it out of the tin, while putting the cream on top , the chocolate cheesecake mix was beginning to sag and move so it had to be eaten quickly. All I can think of was that I didn’t do the gelatine properly but who knows? I will chalk this one up to experience.

I am still enjoying The Great British Bake Off and my three early favourites are still there. I learnt two things from tonight’s show. Trim your tart pastry once cooked , not before, which I had always done , it looks so much better and if making any kind of custard tart, it’s better to pour the custard into the pastry case while it’s on the oven shelf rather than struggling not to spill it while getting it back into the oven!