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.

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