Sunday | Lewis & Kim

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.

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.

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.

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….

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!

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 nine already, and because of work commitments, I only had Sunday to clean shop and cook so decided to go for the muffins recipes as I thought “Oh, they’re easy”…….. but I was wrong………..

I decided to do both the blueberry and the chocolate chip muffins as the mix was pretty much the same at the beginning and thought as I was tired and time was short, to halve the recipe and do half the batch as blueberry and half the batch as chocolate chip. I also found at 5pm that I only had enough muffin cases for half of them and decided (oh silly me) to just use normal cake cases for the others but a few more……

Well, we all have baking disasters and Sunday was mine. The muffins didn’t really rise, they were heavy and all stuck like glue to the cases. I decided that I would make them again, but on Monday after a good night’s sleep and a quick dash around Morrison’s to get more cases…blueberries…chocolate chips…etc, think you might be getting the picture….

SO Monday came and I got home from work, took the hairy hoolies for a quick dash in the rain , dried them and got out Mary Berry’s Bible. I read the recipe instructions more carefully and off I set. I had googled the muffins sticking and came upon this blogger who also had the same issues with Mary Berry’s recipe, so I was pleased I wasn’t the only one.http://risingtotheberry.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/chocolate-chip-american-muffins.html

Ok, batch one – the blueberry muffins seemed to go well and so did the second……set the timer and into the oven they went. The result?…………………….

Well they look much better than the first batch, but the test will be- do they stick to the case? Well, they need to cool totally so watch this space….