Tag Archives: Kim’s Cake Challenge

Week Forty Two – Mary Berry’s Apple Strudel

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Week Forty Two and boy, has it been a hot weekend. I wanted something this week to make that didn’t involve slaving over a hot stove or bending too many times down to check cakes in an oven. Mary Berry’s Baking Bible didn’t fail me, the apple strudel fitted the bill perfectly.

Mary Berry's Apple Strudel

Best of all, Mary clearly states she buys her filo pastry so I did exactly that. Mary asks you to core, peel and roughly cut the apple, add the juice of half a lemon, Demerara sugar, sultanas and cinnamon. Mix it all together and spread it between the filo pastry sheets, brushing the sheets with melted butter and folding. I managed to make 6.

The dogs loved the off cuts of the cooking apple but remember, do not give them the core as apple pips are not good for dogs ( neither is any dried fruit) The finished strudels were brushed with the remaining butter and put in the pre heated oven for about 20 minutes. When they were done, Mary asks you to glaze them with some caster sugar melted in some water and then dust with icing sugar when they are cold.

Kim's Apple Strudel

After a long hot day, with the hairy hoolies in the garden with some water and a paddling pool, the strudels, still slightly warm went down very well indeed!

The Hairy Hoolies enjoying water fun in the garden

 

Week Forty – Mary Berry’s Maple Syrup Cake

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What cake can I make for our seventh wedding anniversary? Well, hubby got his way and I set about putting together Mary Berry‘s Maple Syrup Cake! It was one of Mary’s throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix which is simple enough The cake mix went into the lined tin and into the oven for about one and a half hours.

Mary Berry's Maple Syrup Cake

I set the timer and did the usual Sunday housework etc and soon enough, it was time to check the cake. Yep, it was cooked nicely and I left it to cool for a short while and then took it out of the tin onto a cooling rack.

When it was cold, came the fun part. Mary says, use a long sharp knife and cut the sponge into three equal slices……. well I cut it into three slices, not so sure about the even part though. Mary asks you to then whip up an obscene amount of double cream for the filling and topping. Well Mary, as usual I have substituted the double cream for Emlea double light. Then , add the maple syrup , stir it in and begin to create the towering cake.

layer twolayer one

layer three

I sandwiched together the three layers, and then had to cover the outside with the rest of the cream. That wasn’t as easy as it sounds and was very messy.

Maple Syrup Cake

Finally Mary asks you to decorate with some orange rind. I had nothing to create the fine wisps she uses, so mine were shorter and stubbier….

Kim's Maple Syrup Cake

Finally the cake was done, and it has to be kept in the fridge because of the cream. After dinner, we had a slice each….I then looked up how many calories each slice would contain and had a huge shock…so I won’t be eating now for at least a day!

A slice of maple syrup cake

So hubby, happy seventh anniversary, hope you enjoyed our anniversary cake and enjoyed the ingredient I forgot to mention…..pecan nuts!

Oh and our anniversary falls on 1st July, which is also Canada Day, so Happy Canada Day to all and sundry with our Canadian themed cake.

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

 

Week Twenty – Mary Berry’s Eccles Cakes

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Mary Berry's Eccles CakesWell, I am feeling better still this week and wanted to try something a bit more challenging so, I looked through Mary Berry’s baking bible and decided on the Eccles Cake recipe.

I have never made these before so it was a bit of a venture into the unknown as to what the outcome would be.
Mary’s recipe instructions are very detailed so I set off reasonably confidently on Sunday morning.

Eventually I was at the construction stage and that was the fun part! I cut out my circles in the pastry and put a table spoon of filling in each one, wet the edges and folded the pastry in to meet and seal, turned them over, shaped them into rounds , flattened them slightly and cut the 3 slots in them.

Kim's Eccles Cakes

Here are the results and I must admit, they tasted rather good! ? I seem to be back in the baking saddle and I am now looking through Mary’s book to see what I fancy making next week!

Week Nineteen – Mary Berry’s Iced Fairy Cakes

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Have you missed me? I am “back in the saddle” as they say and while still recovering from my surgery on New Year’s Eve, I wanted to get back to some kind of normality so decided I would spend a little time in the kitchen and Mary Berry‘s bible has 2 recipes– her fairy cakes and then on the next page, iced fairy cakes so rather than do this twice, I combined it, made the fairy cakes and iced them!

Mary Berry's Iced Fairy Cake

I made 2 batches of fairy cakes, one plain as per Mary Berry’s recipe and one to which I added cocoa so they were chocolate fairy cakes and the icing had cocoa in it to make it chocolatey too. A simple recipe and probably really easy to do but making them was the longest I had stood in the kitchen for a while.

Kim's fairy cakes

 

The results were good, I was pleased with the cakes and as they are very moorish , I gave my hubby’s mum and dad some to save our waistlines.

Kim's finished fairy cakes

I didn’t put many details on about my recent ill health and surgery, but I had an amount of time where I thought I might have a serious illness and was “off my game” for a while. Luckily, I had a lovely GP who sent me to the hospital and I found myself on a Fast Track to surgery rollercoaster. I had never had surgery before and was a little anxious to say the least. I have come out of it the other side, recovering well and the results show that my fears can be laid to rest. To give you a flavour of what I went through, you can read further here:

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Hysteroscopy/Pages/Introduction.aspx

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Laparoscopy/Pages/Introduction.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oophorectomy

On a lighter note, I hope you have managed to watch The Great Comic Relief Bake Off http://www.rednoseday.com/whats-going-on/whats-on-tv/bake-off, it certainly helped my recovery and gave me the motivation to get back to my baking challenge. I will also be making a donation to this very worthwhile cause and ask that if you can , you do so too.

Finally, and yes this is one of my longer blogs, I would like to thank my hubby, my mum and my other mum and dad for all the love, help and support over the last month or two, without you guys, it would have been so much tougher. Much love to you all. x

Week Eighteen – Mary Berry’s Gingerbread Men

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Mary Berry's Gingerbread MenWhat could I find to fulfil the challenge but to also fit in to the hectic schedule of Christmas?

Gingerbread of course. It’s very Christmasy!

I added some icing hats and scarves to complete them and make them look more seasonal.
Kim's Gingerbread ManThe only thing I would do differently next time is to add more ginger as they have a very subtle flavour.

What ever you are doing this Christmas, I hope your celebrations go well.

Happy Christmas. x

Week Seventeen – decorating the Christmas cakes

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Week seventeen and this week is devoted to the endless task of decorating the Christmas cakes made last week.

These are going to be gifts for friends and family and it’s so close to Christmas that if they read this and see the photos it won’t matter too much.

Kim's Christmas Cake 1Kim's Christmas Cake 2 Kim's Christmas Cake 3 Kim's Christmas Cake 4 Kim's Christmas Cake 5

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank family and friends for the endless support in the last two weeks when I have been to hell and back with a health scare. The news is better than I feared and now I am looking forward to spending the Chriatmas period in the company of those I love and cherish- after all , that is the underlying spirit of christmas.

To all who read this, I wish you a Happy Christmas where ever you are and a peaceful New Year.

Week Sixteen – Mary Berry’s Classic Rich Christmas Cake

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As promised, this week is Mary Berry‘s Christmas Cake and I make a few christmas cakes as gifts and usually look for a different recipe each year so this fitted in well. I don’t usually leave making my cakes until the middle of December but I just don’t know where the time has gone!

Mary Berry's Classic Rich Christmas Cake

Anyhow, I wrote a shopping list of all the ingredients that Mary’s recipe calls for and I Lakeland dividing tinhad a good work out carrying all the bags needed for the sizes of cakes I needed to make. I used the chart on the other page of Mary’s Bible to see what size tin I was using and the quantity needed. I had purchased an amazing tin from Lakeland last year ( yes, I just love Lakeland!) which is a massive tin on its own but has dividers so it can make varying size cakes. I used my tin divided into four to make four smaller cakes.

My next workout was weighing out all the ingredients and then mixing them by hand- I found muscles I didn’t know I had! I also had the fun of lining each of the tin sections individually. ( I had left the fruit to soak in the brandy as Mary recommended by the time I did this.)

Finally, after a huge amount of mixing , the cake mix was divided and the cakes went into the oven………for FOUR hours! They have come out a very rich dark brown, and now need to be wrapped in foil and “fed” for the next few days before decorating. As they will be gifts, and some of the people they are intended for read this, I will take photos and post after they are in receipt of their present!

Kim's christmas cakes