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Week Thirty Six – Mary Berry’s White Cottage Loaf

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It’s been an interesting week and this weekend, in particular. I hadn’t got a lot of time this week for my bake, my dog Bailey has not been too well and seemed to get worse over the weekend so , as I have made plenty of white bread before, I am not ashamed to say that I used my bread maker to cut the physical amount of time I needed to spend in the kitchen.

Mary Berry's White Cottage Loaf

I added all the ingredients that Mary Berry uses in her recipe and set the machine off to do the mixing and rising that was needed, it even baked it too! I must say that I get the bread machine out from time to time and we love the smell of freshly baked bread in the house, it’s heavenly!

The loaf came out well, the machine did it’s usual sterling job, and don’t fear, there are plenty of other bread recipes in Mary Berry’s Baking Bible that I will go on to make, and hopefully some of them by hand!

Kim's White Cottage Loaf

As for Bailey, he got to visit the vet, be sedated, have blood tests and x-rays and get discharged back to his very worried owners with various medications. He is extremely dopey and flopping around  but we are all glad that he is ok and home with us where he belongs.

poor dopey Bailey

Week Thirty Four – Mary Berry’s Cupcakes

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Week Thirty Four and I felt we were all a little “caked out ” so I wasn’t sure what to make.

I had been invited to a fund raising lunch for 2 friends at work who are bravely walking 20 miles around Leeds Castle soon in aid of a Breast Cancer Charity ( They did the Moon Walk last year) and so I decided to make and donate some cupcakes to help them with their fundraising.

Mary Berry's Cupcakes

Mary Berry‘s recipe was very straight forward, put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. I put some pretty cupcake cases in the tin, divided the mix between them. The only twist to this to make it my own was that I added 2 strawberry chocolate buttons in the centre of each cake and put the tin in the oven and set the timer.

Half an hour later, the pinger sounded and I checked the cakes. They were all evenly baked and risen so out they came while I made the butter icing topping.

Kim's cupcakes

Instead of adding a little vanilla essence to the butter icing, I added some strawberry essence. Once the cakes were cool, I spread some of this on the top of each cake and added a slice of fresh strawberry to complete the cake.

Kim's final cupcakes

The girls lunch fund raising seemed to be very successful and I will be thinking of them when they do their walk. Here is the link to read what they will be doing and when. There is a donate link within this if you would like to donate to this very worthwhile cause, even the smallest donation will help. I am sure they won’t mind me mentioning them- so good luck Fran & Clare ! xx

http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/fundraising-events/walks/pink-ribbonwalk-6

I would also like to take the opportunity to dedicate this page this week to a dearly loved friend and colleague who lost her battle to this disease, gone but not forgotten.

Lorraine Day, we will never forget you.

Week Thirty Three – Mary Berry’s Cheese Scone Round

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After the over indulence of chocolate and big cakes of the last few weeks, I searched Mary Berry‘s baking bible in search of something savoury and found this recipe that I had yet to cover.

Mary Berry's Cheese Scone Round recipe

The recipe seemed easy enough and Mary’s instructions as always are clear and concise. I assembled all the ingredients as instructed and ended up with a scone dough that Mary suggests shaping into a round and dividing into 6 sections. This is where I added my own twist and decided to cut them out as usual scone shapes which I think looks nicer and is easier to store. I managed to cut out 9 scone shapes , sprinkled the top of them with the leftover grated cheese and popped them in the oven.

The smell as they were cooking was mouthwatering! After the pinger went off, I had a look at them and they were a beautiful golden colour and pretty even so I was pleased with them.

Kim's cheese scones

I am afraid to say that one didn’t get to cool off totally, before it was sampled but I maintain that this is the cook’s perk!

Week Thirty Two – Mary Berry’s Cappuccino Cake

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Week Thirty two and a special bake this week as it was my lovely hubby’s birthday.

After the success of the victoria sandwich cake, I thought the cappuccino cake would go down well with him and reading the recipe, Mary tells you to pretty much throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together, but do not over mix (??!!) So, I weighed out all the ingredients, put them all in a bowl and with a quick whizz of the electric hand mixer, job done, just needed to divide the mix between two sandwich tins and into the oven for about half an hour.

Mary Berry's Cappuccino Cake

After the half hour was up and timer had gone ping, I checked the cakes but they were not quite done so another five minutes or so and out they came. They looked lovely and after a few minutes, i was able to take them out of the tins and put them on the cooling racks.

A while later I finished the cakes with quite a lot of whipped cream, and coffee. To add my own spin to it, I added a few chocolate flakes to the top, some chocolate hearts and some candles.

Kim's Cappuccino Cake

Happy Birthday to my lovely hubby, hope you enjoyed your cake! xx

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

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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.

Mary Berry's large all in one victoria sandwich cakee

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.

Kim's large all in one victoria sanwich cake

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

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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.

the hairy hoolies on Winchelsea Beach April 2013

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.

Kim's chocolate cake fresh out the oven

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.

Kim's divine chocolate birthday cake

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!

sparkler candlesHappy birthday!

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

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Mary Berry's Bunny Rabbit Cake

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 throw it all in together mix

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.

Lidl's silicone bunny case

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 hoolies love the bowl

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.

Kims Bunny Rabbit Cake

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

Mary Berry's Easter Biscuits

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.

Kim's Easter Biscuits

 

Week Twenty Four- Mary Berry’s Deep Treacle Tart

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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.

Mary Berry's Deep Tracle Tart

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

Kim's pastry

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.

Kim's deep treacle tart

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 Two – Mary Berry’s Classic Apple Pie

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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.

Mary Berry's Classic Apple Pie

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.

Kim's apple pie filling

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 pieKim's baked 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

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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.

Mary Berry's Millionaire's Shortbread

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

 Kim's Billionaire's Shortbread base

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.

Kim's Billionaire's Shortbread caramel middle

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.

Kim's Dad Bill Kim's Billionaire's Shortbread

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