Challenge #9 Coffee & Walnut Tray Bake

It's been a while since I've done a recipe out of the Mary Berry Baking Bible (http://danngoodcake.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-mary-berry-baking-challenge-1-lemon.html)  but here's a tray bake I made the other day. I loooove coffee cake, even though I hate coffee as a drink.

It's a great 'throw it all in the mixer' recipe and comes out lovely and moist. Yum.

The icing is also very tasty and easy to make - it has a lot of icing sugar compared to butter (more than usual) so be prepared for an icing sugar explosion from the mixer!.

Mary Berry tops hers with walnut halves but I had run out. Luckily I happened to have some chocolate sauce left over from pancake day so used that instead. 

My parents came to stay the following weekend and coffee cake was requested so I used the same recipe but made them into cupcakes.

Challenge #8 Bakewell Tart

 My mac has died and so my blog updates are a little behind :-(. I'm having to use my phone camera instead of my SLR because it's easier to upload onto my borrowed PC. Anyway! This week I made bakewell tart mmm. We had dinner at the in laws and I was in charge of puds.  I've just started a new job - as a baker in a lovely coffee & cake shop in Chester and the lady who I bake with made bakewell tarts this week and they looked so good that it was an obvious choice for this occasion.  So step one was make pastry...

I used my friend Jen's kitchen, she had invited some of us round for a girlie film - so I baked whilst Bridget Jones was on in the background. Good times. Next step spread raspberry jam onto the pastry base...

Step three...make almond sponge...

Step four spread batter onto jam and pastry base and sprinkle flaked almonds on top. Then bung in the oven...

180 degrees for 25mins. Jen's oven has a light that actually works - what a novelty.

Ta daaaa

Le Creuset 7-oz. Petite Tart Dish - Cherry - Le Creuset Stoneware (Google Affiliate Ad)

Challenge #6 Bling Bling Millionaires Shortbread

This is number 6 in the Mary Berry Challenge (I'm going through Mary Berry's Baking Bible....... just for fun!). But I decided to bling it up a bit.

  I saw someone else do something similar using gold and I had some silver edible paint and so thought I'd go for it.

I really like the splattered effect - it makes it look that bit more professional and special. The recipe is super unhealthy using a whole 2 tins of condensed milk for the caramel. 

 I used 70% dark chocolate for the topping which made the silver stand out really well. You can use milk chocolate if you prefer but don't use dairy milk as the American's have made it un-meltable! and it separates it into a sticky mess. Which is really sad. 

Definitely a recipe I'll be making again - really tasty and looks great.

Challenge #5 Battenburg Cake

So I've been dreading this one. It was on the Great British Bake Off last year and not many came out perfect. 

So I followed all the instructions very carefully...I'll let the pictures do the talking

Can I just point out that Mary Berry said make a 'deep pink' batter. Hmm...

I was ridiculously pleased with how it came out and it wasn't that tricky. Next time I think I might try a chocolate coffee one with chocolate fondant icing instead of marzipan. Mmmm

Challenge #2 Maple Syrup Cake

So recipe number 2 from Mary Berry's baking Bible was maple syrup cake. The main ingredients were maple syrup (obviously), pecan nuts and orange rind. I was a huge fan of the instructions which were pretty much 'measure all ingredients into a large bowl and mix together'.

All in all it was pretty straight forward to make but it takes a long time to cook in the oven (1hour and a  half) as it's made in a deep 8 inch cake tin. 

Then you have to slice it into 3 layers (mine were a bit dodgy but you can't notice once it's assembled).

The cream filling and coating was also easy to make - double cream whisked to spreading consistency and then maple syrup folded in. 

And then to finish it all off you sprinkle grated orange rind to the top. 

It was a really nice cake, subtle flavours and not too sweet or heavy (surprisingly, considering it was smothered with cream!!!).

The only annoying thing is having to store it in the fridge!...

Challenge #1 Lemon Swiss Roll

So I cheated and had 2 goes at this. The 1st one ended up as a lemon swiss pyramid and I accidently used moldy flour (so I didn't even get a chance to eat any!). 

 The filling was lovely and easy - shop bought lemon curd...

Attempt number 2 came out better. I managed to make it a roll shape and I used edible flour (!). The sponge could have done with a few more minutes in the oven as it stuck to the paper when I rolled it up (hence the bumpy outside). 

It tasted nice and was really light. The sponge was fat free - just eggs, sugar, lemon rind and flour.

Lemon Drizzle Tray Bake

One of my favourite recipe books is Mary Berry's Baking Bible. It is my favourite because I know that whatever recipe I choose - it'll be awesome.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mary-Berrys-Baking-Bible-Berry/dp/1846077850

I had some lemons that needed using up so I looked up 'lemons' in the (baking) Bible and out popped a lemon drizzle tray bake recipe. Which is basically a lemon drizzle cake that isn't baked in a loaf tin and therefore doesn't take donkey years to cook.

And as usual, it turned out great (because of her recipes - not blowing my own trumpet!).  It has a really yummy crunchy topping. Here's the recipe....I recommend it.

225g softened butter

225g caster sugar

275g self raising flour

2 level teaspoons baking powder

4 large eggs

4 tablespoons milk

Finley grated rind of 2 lemons

Crunchy topping

175g granulated sugar

Juice of 2 lemons

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160ºC2. Place all the ingredients into a bowl and beat until well mixed3. Bake for 35-40 minutes (or until the cake starts to come away from the sides and is springy)4. Let it cool a little but whilst it's still warm mix the crunchy topping sugar and lemon juice together and pour over the cake.5. Leave to cool completely and then consume