Week One Hundred & Thirty Five- Mary Berry’s Quick Boiled Fruit Cake & Hot Chocolate Souffles

Posted on Nov 1, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 135 and the end is nearly in sight now…and the puppy is getting bigger…no excuses still, I now had the last few recipes marked with book marks and dipped with some sadness into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible and came out with her quick boiled fruit cake and chocolate souffles. I was in awe of the souffles as I had watched them on the Great British Bake Off and it did fill me with dread….

Anyhow, I began with the strangely names quick boiled fruit cake. The main stay of this recipe is condensed milk which you pour into a saucepan and add the butter, fruit and cherries. Mary asks you to heat slowly until the butter has melted and then simmer well for five minutes and then set aside.Measure out the dry ingredients, add the eggs and fruit mix and stir well and pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 1/2 hours and allow to cool in the tin, then tip out. This cake was quite a contrast from the rich fruit cake and was quite sweet in comparison. I must say I loved this and would make it again.

Now for the hot chocolate souffles. I prepared my ramekin dishes and then began melting the chocolate. I added the milk then removed this from the heat.

In another pan, I melted some butter and stirred in the flour, cooked on a low heat for a short while and then stirred in the chocolate milk, brought it to the boil until thickened and then left it to cool. Finally I beat the egg yolks into the cooled mix, added the sugar, whisked the egg whites and folded this into the mix. Finally, I poured the mix between the souffle dishes and put them in the oven for about 10 minutes. I made a quick call to the chief tasters who were present with spoons at the ready when the souffles came out of the oven.

All I can say is thank you to the Great British Bake off, I think watching the contestants go through it before me helped and they were rather tasty!

The countdown is getting scarily low….it’s now at the head heights of….

The puppy is ever growing and now joins the other hairy hoolie in greeting me when I bring the shopping back but he insists then on laying on all the bags! At the rate he is growing, I guess I know have to say 1 & 3/4 hairy hoolies at the moment!

Week One Hundred & Thirty Three – Mary Berry’s American Chocolate Wedding Cake

Posted on Sep 23, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 133 and this week I had to try and see if Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible would come up with a cracking recipe to suit the occasion. It was the Chief Tasters Golden Wedding Anniversary so I found the perfect recipe. Mary’s American Chocolate Wedding Cake.

When you read this recipe, you realise this is a MONSTER of a recipe and if followed to the letter, the three tiered cake would feed over 100 people. Now I made a decision to scale this down to a realistic level. I chose the middle tier sized cake to make and split the mix between three sized tins to create the tiers. Even making this one mix, involved melting obscene amounts of chocolate ! I followed Mary’s recipe carefully and carefully separated the eggs and beat the yolks with one whole egg and the sugar, then whisked the egg whites until thick and light then added the melted chocolate and ground almonds and a taste of coffee. the mixture did not want to fold into together and it took a little while to wrestle this mix into shape! I then poured it into my tins and waited for them to bake.

The sponges came out well and I left them to cool. I then melted yet more chocolate and butter for the covering and drenched each sponge in this, smoothed them as much as a I could with a palette knife and stacked them. I was fairly pleased with my miniature version of this enormous cake. i decorated mine with golden edible bits and gave it to the chief tasters as part of their anniversary present…as their main present is still ” in production” and yet to be dispatched. I would like to wish you both a very happy anniversary with much love x

We enjoyed an amazing meal with them to help them celebrate.

The 1 1/2 hairy hoolies seem to have settled into a relationship of sorts and he is such a character! He is certainly keeping us on our toes and we are certainly sleeping well at night…in exhaustion!

The Countdown is now at the heady heights of ….

The recipes left to go are:

Mary’s Rich Fruit Cake, Quick Boiled Fruit Cake, Chocolate Mousse Cake, New Year Tipsy Cake, Gateau Saint Honore, Gateau Moka aux Amandes, hot chocolate souffles and….the “bin-gate” of the last Great British Bake Off- the BAKED ALASKA!!!!

Week One Hundred & Thirty – Mary Berry’s Devil’s Food Cake & Jane’s Fruit Cake

Posted on Aug 16, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 130 and I apologise for the lateness of posting this blog, hubby and I have had a well earned rest and break in our caravan in South Wales and it was really needed. I did a bake just before we went away but didn’t get a chance to blog it and haven’t got the energy to bake today after the unpacking, washing etc. I have now put little bookmarks in my Mary Berry Baking Bible so that I can see at a glance where the remaining recipes are and how many are left. I had pulled out Mary’s devil’s food cake first. The sponge recipe was not quite one of Mary’s throw every thing in and mix ones but it wasn’t too complicated and once mixed, I put it into two prepared sandwich tins. Once baked, I had two lovely dark chocolate sponges. The next part was to make the American frosting and I had already made this once with one of my previous challenge recipes so I knew what I was doing……kind of!

I made the American frosting and then the race was on to spread it over the cake before it set and I kind of lost that battle but although it wasn’t pretty, it tasted better than it looked!

The second recipe was Mary’s Jane’s fruit cake. I have no idea who Jane is and Mary doesn’t explain in her recipe but hey-ho! All Mary says about this recipe is that it is a good family cake that goes quite dark when baked because of the wholemeal flour. I also had to go and find some buttermilk in the supermarket which I have never seen before. I found it in the cream section!

The bonus of this recipe is that it is one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients in and mix recipes. I did this and poured the mix into the prepared tin. This cake is baked long and slow- over three hours of cooking time! Once baked, I wrapped it and put it in a tin and it travelled to Wales with us and kept us fed and energised for our holiday!

The Great British Bake Off is now going into it’s third week and I have been avidly watching. I was pleased to see that in the first week, Mary asked the contestants to bake her frosted walnut cake which I had already done so I watched with great interest having already done this one and commenting as they made their frosting. The biscuit week was interesting, I have not hear of or made Arlette biscuits and having watched the contestants, I think I will be giving them a miss! The next episode is bread week- always a giggle!

the countdown continues and I have now reached the giddy heights of

recipes left to bake!

Week One Hundred & Twenty Nine – Mary Berry’s Chocolatines, Mokatines & Apricot & Almond Gateau

Posted on Jul 21, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 129 and my ever shrinking Mary Berry‘s baking bible and came out with three recipes this week, the chocolatines and mokatines were so similar for the recipe base that I could combine the two and then chose the apricot & almond gateau too.

I started with the chocolatines & mokatines recipe which both started with a genoese sponge. I made this sponge mix which was quite a list of instructions in itself.

I then halved the ingredients for both toppings so I could make both cakes without any waste. The genoese sponge came out well, I allowed it to cool and then cut it into squares and sandwiched some with the chocolate icing and some with the coffee icing. I then coated the chocolate ones with more chocolate icing, rolled them in crushed nuts and piped little rosettes on the top.

I did the same with the coffee ones and thought they looked rather smart.

The second recipe was Mary’s apricot & almond gateau. This recipe involved making the meringue mix with whisked egg whites and the monotonous task of adding the sugar a teaspoon at a time until stiff. Mary then asks you to fold in some ground almonds and then spread into 2 20cm circles and bake.

Once the meringue is made, add the apricots and some water to a pan and heat gently until tender and put into a blender to puree. Mix the puree with some of the whipped cream and sandwich the meringues together. Decorate the top with a dusting of icing sugar and swirls of whpped cream. This was a crunchy, gooey tasty pudding.

I was really excited to begin to see adverts for The Great British Bake Off 2015, I can’t wait, it’s the highlight of the year and hopefully the end of the challenge for me while the program is on….as my countdown because of 3 recipes this week has reached…

Week One Hundred & Twenty Eight – Mary Berry’s Sachertorte & Coffee & Banana Vacherin

Posted on Jul 21, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 128 and I dipped my toe into Mary Berry‘s Baking bible– it’s about all that will fit into what is left to bake and I came out with Mary’s Sachertorte and Coffee & Banana Vacherin.

I began with the sachertorte. This has oodles of dark chocolate in it and you know I really don’t like dark chocolate so I compromised and had 3/4 dark chocolate and 1/4 milk chocolate to take away some of the bitterness. Mary asks you to melt the first amount of chocolate and allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile beat the butter and then add the sugar, beating well still and then add the melted chocolate and vanilla extract, then the egg yolks then fold in the dry ingredients. Mary advises you that by this point the mixture will be quite thick- she fails to mention about the gut busting amount of calories already in this and we haven’t finished yet! In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff and add to the chocolate mix. Pour into the tin and bake for about 50 minutes until well risen. Mary Berry's sachertorte

Remove from the tin and allow to cool. To make the slimline(!) topping, melt the chocolate gently and add the double cream, allow to cool slightly and pour over the cake spreading it gently. Finally when set, write “Sacher” on the top. The icing came out nice and glossy especially considering mine had some milk chocolate in it too.

The second recipe was Mary’s coffee and banana vacherin. I had no idea what a vacherin was so I looked it up and it says it is a meringue dessert filled with cream. This recipe caused me a great headache as I thought I had done all the banana desserts while visiting my family but this one popped up !! So I followed the principle of the recipe- a meringue filled with cream and made mine a fresh cream and raspberry vacherin instead as this house is a banana free zone because of hubby’s allergy- don’t want to kill him with my baking!

Mary asks you to whisk 4 egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar-225g of it-one TEASPOON at a time ..zzzzzzZZZZZZ. Once all the sugar is mixed in, the meringue mixture will be very stiff. Spoon it into a piping bag and pipe 2 20cm circles and bake. Once baked, allow to cool in the oven . This is where Mary and I parted company , I whisked the cream and used fresh raspberries to create my vacherin and thought it was very tasty! Kim's fresh cream & raspberry vacherin

The countdown reaches

Week One Hundred & Twenty One – Mary Berry’s Quick Granary Rolls & Chocolate Rum Cake

Posted on May 18, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 121 and yes I confess this post is long overdue. I will explain why a little later. I delved into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible with my hubby’s birthday in mind. He wanted to have a b-b-q with some “exotic” meats such as buffalo and I found Mary Berry’s quick granary rolls for the burger buns and her chocolate rum cake for his birthday cake- perfect.

I began with the quick granary rolls. Mary asks you to mix all the dry ingredients together and rub the butter in with your fingers. Mary then asks you to add the milk and water mixture in a “continuous ” stream while mixing the ingredients to a dough and she suggests using a machine with a dough hook. At this point I read and re-read the recipe, Mary definitely asks you to add 3/4 pint each of tepid milk AND water. I thought this was a lot of liquid but I thought “Mary has been doing this for years and knows what she is doing”.

Mary Berry's Quick Granary Rolls

I ended up with a gloopy mess that even with the dough hook didn’t resemble anything like a dough. I added more flour- I had been using a white spelt flour that I had been given and a granary flour and added more of both until the liquid became a dough.

This took a long time and an awful lot of flour to achieve this. When I had got it to the dough stage, I divided it into the roll shapes and covered them to rise. I then checked on the rising to the Berry blog to see if Anneliese had struggled with this and yes, she too had the liquid issue and had to add more flour so I am glad I was not alone in this. Once the dough had proved, I baked them and even though I had to use an awful lot more flour than the recipe said, I was pleased with how they came out and the buffalo burgers tasted very nice inside these rolls. Hubby was very cheeky though and took a photo of them and said he was pleased with his wife’s baps! This was after we were laughing at one of the search terms on the blog where someone had searched for “kim’s buns”!

The second recipe was Mary Berry’s chocolate rum cake. This was for hubby’s birthday and involved two of his favourite things- chocolate and rum! I started by breaking up an awful lot of chocolate into a bowl. As usual, Mary asks you to use dark chocolate and I compromised with 3/4 dark chocolate and 1/4 galaxy milk chocolate.. When this has melted, let it cool and whisk the egg yolks and sugar together, then add the chocolate and rum then fold in the flour and almonds.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mix and pour into the cake tin and bake. When cooked, while it cools, make the filling/icing by breaking yet more chocolate into a bowl- same mix for me, add loads of butter and stir lots. Cut the sponge in half and use this chocolate icing to sandwich the two sponges together and ice the top.

Once this was done and set, I then decorated it for hubby’s birthday.

We had a lovely b-b-q using meat ordered from the alternative meat company and their buffalo burgers were delicious. Hubby, I hope you had a lovely birthday and this blog is dedicated to you for your birthday.

The countdown continues and has now reached ……

Now finally the reason this blog is so late – not long after I baked these, I went down hard with flu/norovirus and was really knocked for six with both. I was literally in bed for five days with aching muscles, fever and upset stomach. I lost a stone in a week and even though I went back to work probably before I should, I was not up to baking or blogging.

Week One Hundred & Eighteen – Mary Berry’s Death By Chocolate Cake & Swiss Roll

Posted on Apr 19, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 118 and when I delved into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible this week I was looking for appropriate birthday cake for my other mum and one of my chief tasters. Death by Chocolate definitely seemed to fit the bill!

This is a seriously chocolatey cake and the first step Mary asks you to do is grease and line 2 sandwich tins. The sponge mix has a lot of cocoa powder in it as well as golden syrup and vegetable oil. I followed the step by step instructions for mixing and poured the mix into the tins and put them in the oven. When the pinger went, I took out 2 beautiful chocolate sponges and put them on the airing racks to cool. Mary then asks you to cut each sponge in half so this cake will have 4 layers….gulp.

Next step was to tackle the icing. This is where the “death” bit comes in. Mary asks you to melt 450 g or 1 lb of dark chocolate! I have said before that I really am not a fan of dark chocolate but most of my tasters are so I compromised with 3/4 dark chocolate and 1/4 milk chocolate to try and take the bitterness of the dark chocolate away. Once the chocolate has been melted, Mary then asks you to add the 200g of butter to it and allow it to melt into the chocolate…… ( cholesterol comes to mind….lol) . Mary then asks you to sandwich each layer of the cake together with this icing and then stand the cake on a wire rack and use the rest of the icing over the top and sides of the cake! I gave it a liberal covering but still had some icing left over. Mary asks you to leave it to set then decorate with coarsely grated plain and white chocolate. I must admit I ” cheated” here by buying a pot of ready mixed chocolate curls!

The cake went down well and I would like to take this opportunity again to wish my other mum and one of the chief tasters a happy birthday!

The second recipe was Mary’s swiss roll recipe. I have tackled some of the swiss roll recipes before with varied success. The baking part isn’t the issue it’s the rolling!

The sponge is a fatless sponge and easy to make. I whisked it all together and poured it into the prepared swiss roll tin. I put it in the oven for ten minutes and while it was baking put a sheet of greaseproof paper on the side with caster sugar sprinkled on it. Soon enough the sponge was done and I tipped it onto the prepared paper. Mary asks you to allow to cool “slightly” and then spread with jam. Slight hiccup here, my jam had grown a lovely mold on it so I quickly made some buttercream and used this instead. I rolled the cake into the roll and again , it split to my dismay but not all the way through. I sprinkled it liberally with caster sugar and took the photograph!

Well the countdown has now reached 38….. so near yet so far!

Week One Hundred & Sixteen – Mary Berry’s English Cherry Cake & Mississippi Mud Pie

Posted on Mar 29, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 116 and strangely enough I find myself blogging about this bake on the same day that I actually tackled it! Wonders will never cease! I delved into Mary Berry‘s Baking Bible and found these two recipes- her English cherry cake and Mississippi Mud pie.

I began with the Mississippi mud pie. It began with crushing digestive biscuits, combining with melted butter to create the base. I always find Mary is a bit stingy in this part so I doubled the amount of biscuits and butter and I felt it was just about enough. I pressed it into the tin and got on with the next step of the recipe.

Mary asks you to put the chocolate, butter and water into a pan and melt gently. In another bowl, whisk six eggs (!) with the single cream and dark sugar and add the chocolate mix when melted and cooled slightly. Whisk all together, pour onto the base and cook. One word of warning, if you fancy tackling this bake, if you are using a loose bottomed tin, then stand it on a baking tray as it may leak slightly. Once baked, Mary tells you to leave it in the tin until cool. It will recede from the edges and sink/settle slightly. Once cool, add some whipped cream to the top and serve.

The second recipe was Mary Berry’s English cherry cake. One of the first things Mary tells you is to quarter the cherries, wash and dry thoroughly. I did all of this and covered the cherries in a fine layer of flour.

Put all the other ingredients in a bowl andmix thoroughly, then fold in the cherries so hopefully they don’t all go to the bottom. Put the mix into a lined cake tin, I chose a square one rather than Mary’s recommendation of a circular one. Bake for the recommended time.

The cake came out well but I was disappointed to see that my cherries occupied the lower half of the cake rather than being distributed evenly- must try harder!

The Easter weekend is coming up but I am going to be a little busy so the bake and the blog may be a little later than the usual weekend.

The countdown has now reached the heady heights of…

Week One Hundred & Seven-Mary Berry’s Nusskuchen & Jumbles

Posted on Jan 25, 2015 by kimsideas

Week 107 and yes- I know- I am late again with the blog but today I am doing both last week’s and this weeks so will catch up so you get two for one today! I will get into the swing of this blogging again! I delved into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible looking for a birthday cake for my chief taster ( dad-in-law) and saw the Nusskuchen which is a german nut cake-perfect! The other recipe I found was Mary’s jumble biscuits.

I started with the Nussskuchen cake which was quite a fiddly sponge. I had to roast the hazelnuts to remove the skins and then crush them to add to the sponge which had various stages to it. I roasted the hazelnuts and then followed Mary’s instructions to roll them together in a tea towel to remove the skins. What I hadn’t mentioned was that just before Christmas while walking my hairy hoolies on a street walk, my big lad suddenly ran across in front of me and I fell- the classic fall onto both knees and both hands and grazed my nose. I dented my ego , skinned my knees and had sore hands but picked my self up and finished the walk.

I didn’t realise how much i had hurt myself until a week or two later when i was struggling to hold things in my right hand and it really hurt when I rotated the wrist. I had it x-rayed but no break thank goodness but strained or pulled ligaments and advised to keep the thumb/wrist strapped to help it heal. This has proved to be good except for baking and removing the skins from the hazelnuts really hurt! Mary asks you to beat the sugar and butter together, beat in the egg yolks and stir in the crushed hazelnuts. Mary then asks you to dissolve a spoonful of coffee in some warm milk and add it to the mix, then fold in the flour. Mary then asks you to whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until light and fluffy then fold this into the other mix. Put this mix into a 20cm tin and bake.

What Mary then says is that while this cake is baking, prepare the filling. Peel , core and slice some baking apples and put them in a pan with some apricot jam, lemon juice an rind and cook slowly until the apples are soft but retain their shape. Leave to cool. At this point, all was ok and I was on track. I took the sponge out of the oven and took it out of the tin. At this point I realised I had a problem. Mary asks you to cut the sponge in half. I want to know how I can do this with such a thin sponge so i did the only thing I could think of, I made another sponge- and yes, I had to roast more hazelnuts and then remove their skins- OUCH!!! the things I do for love!

Finally I had 2 sponges, I added the apple and some cream to the middle and melted some chocolate for the topping with some chocolate buttons to make it a birthday cake.PHEW!

The second recipe was Mary Berry’s jumbles biscuits. This was an easy dough to make, one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Mary then asks you to divide the dough into 32 pieces. As my hand was sore, i divided mine into 16 and made my biscuits a little larger. Mary suggests making the biscuits into the shape of the letter S. I did play with the idea of making them into various initials but stuck with the S shapes as it was easiest on my poor hand.

When you read the blog, it must seem like we lurch from one accident, incident or operation to the next- sometimes it does seem like that!

Week One Hundred & One – Mary Berry’s Chocolate & Vanilla Pinwheel Biscuits & Welsh Cakes

Posted on Nov 22, 2014 by kimsideas

Wow, it’s weird typing in that it’s now my 101’st blog – but here we are, and I will attempt at the end to tally how many recipes there are left to go. I delved as usual into Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and picked the welsh cakes and chocolate & vanilla pinwheel biscuits.

I began with the pinwheel biscuits as I needed to make 2 doughs, one vanilla and one chocolate and put them in the fridge for half an hour or so, then roll them out into rectangles, and place one on top of the other and then roll together. Finally put this into the fridge for another half an hour or so and then slice thinly and bake.

I rolled my dough the “wrong way” and my biscuits were mini pinwheels or bite size. Nothing wrong with them but not quite as pretty or the size of the ones in Mary’s book.

The second recipe was welsh cakes ( This brings back memories of my Auntie Shirley and Uncle Bill ) and I made this dough in between the resting stages of my biscuit dough. It’s one of Mary’s one bowl mixes and needs just a firm mix. Mary then asks you to roll it out and cut into small circles. Mary then asks you to heat a griddle. I don’t have a griddle but I have a trusty ceramic frying pan which works well so I put that on to heat.

Mary suggests that you have a medium heat as these welsh cakes take 2-3 minutes each side and if your heat is too high, you cook the outside but the inside is raw. I cooked mine in batches of 3-4 . They are delicious served warm with a little butter. My only complaint was the amount of sugar that goes into them, they were very sweet and if/when I make them again, I would cut down on the amount of sugar that goes into them.