Favourite Bakes

As promised back in January - better late than never-  these are my favourite recipes. I have picked two from each chapter. It was hard to choose as there are so many delicious ones. Most of my favourites are straight forward to make, don't take too long, and taste great, but you will only know if you have a go!!

Classic Cakes - Large all-in-one Victoria Sandwich Cake / Swiss Roll
Fruit & Nut cakes - Quick Boiled Fruit Cake / Strawberry Dessert Cake
Spiced Cakes - Sticky Ginger & Orange Cake / Apple & Cinnamon Cake
Chocolate Cakes - Very Best Chocolate Fudge Cake / Death by Chocolate Cake
Cupcakes and other Small Bakes - Cupcakes / Eccles Cakes
Celebration Cakes - Victorian Christmas Cake / Easter Simnel Cake
Special Cakes - Swiss Wild Strawberry & Walnut Cake / Sachertorte
Traybakes & Flapjack - American Spiced Carrot Traybake / Fast Flapjack
Biscuits & Cookies - Chocolate Chip Cookies / Melting Moments
Fancy Biscuits - Anzac Biscuits / Florentines
Shortbread & Bars - Bishops Fingers / Bakewell Slice
Baking for Children - Banana & Chocolate Chip Bars / Gingerbread Men
Tarts & Pastries - Chocolate Eclairs / Austrian Apricot & Almond Tart
Breads - Honey Glazed Walnut Bread / Quick Granary Rolls
Fruit Breads - Banana Loaf / Borrowdale Tealoaf
Buns & Scones - Drop Scones / Special Fruit Scones
Hot Puddings & Pies - My Mother's Bread & Butter Pudding / Treacle Sponge
Souffles & Meringues - Strawberry Meringue nests / Raspberry Meringue Roulade
Cheesecakes - Angel Sponge Cheesecake / Continental Cheesecake

Well, this really is my last post. Thanks again. Happy Baking!

New Year Tipsy Cake

Well, here it is, my final bake! I have completed my challenge, and in less than a year, well 362 days!
Yesterday, we had a family get together, and so I was delighted to be able to make this cake for everyone. Although I baked it on New Years Eve, I had to assemble it at Mum and Dad's as I did not have anything to make it tipsy with! The recipe suggests a quarter of a pint of sweet white wine, with 1 tblsp of brandy. I decided to use sherry instead of the wine and brandy, as I figured sponge, cream, fruit - it was almost a trifle. I used 2 tblsp, although in the end, it could have taken more.
The cake itself turned out to be quite crunchy on the top, so I turned it over before cutting out a lid. Inside are segments of orange from 4 oranges and whipped cream. The lid was then replaced, and the whole thing covered with more whipped cream - great start to the new year diet!!
The cake went down really well, despite stiff competition from a pavlova made by Ad - yes it was his first ever meringue, and it was very tasty. The tipsy cake scored a respectable 8.0

Thank you to all of you who have read my blog, placed comments, eaten much cake, and given ratings - I couldn't have done it without you. Several people have asked me what I am going to do this year - probably go on a diet! It's not been the best thing for our waistlines, but it has all been in a good cause! I was given a new recipe book for Christmas - Save with Jamie, and I noticed it only has 120 recipes, I was almost tempted!
Looking back, this has been a really good challenge. I have baked things that I would probably have never tried, and picked up a few new skills on the way. I think I may have even inspired a few people to get baking - I know that at least 3 people have bought the Mary Berry's Baking Bible because of this blog.
I should also say a big thank you to Mary Berry, who will probably never even hear of my blog, but nevertheless has been my inspiration and my baking guide. Her recipes have proved to be straightforward, and by and large delicious. I look forward to reading her autobiography which I received this Christmas, and to watching her new TV series. Bring on the Great British Bake Off - and no, I am still not entering!!

Although this is my final recipe this may not be my final post, several folks have asked what my favourites have been, so I may do some sort of top ten - watch this space!

Griddle Scones

Early yesterday evening, I made a start on baking the Tipsy cake. Once I had got it in the oven, urged on by my children, I started making the griddle scones. Although I started my baking challenge on 5th January, and so technically I have until then to finish it, in the kids minds, the challenge needed to be finished by the end of the year.
At least this recipe was fairly straight forward, and this time, I put the frying pan on to warm as soon as I started. I have made the mistake in the past of leaving it until after I had made the mixture, and then the pan wasn't warm enough.
This time, everything went to plan, and I didn't burn anything. As you can see from the photo, the scones turned out golden brown.
The only problem with them, and this has been an issue for everything I have cooked on the frying pan, the middle did not seem baked enough, despite cooking them for longer than the suggested time.
These scones did not score very highly - a disappointing 6.0. I have a feeling that had I made them in the summer and covered them with strawberries and cream they would have done a lot better, but after all the festive food that we have eaten, they were rather a disappointment. My verdict is that if you are going to bake scones, do it in the oven!!
My final post for the New year Tipsy Cake will appear tomorrow as, although it was baked last night, it needs assembling in preparation for our family celebrations today.

Continental Cheesecake

 Happy New Year Everyone! I can't believe 2014 is here already. Where did 2013 go?
As I type, I am finishing off preparations for my final bake - The New Year Tipsy Cake. Its been a pretty amazing journey!
Anyway, back to the Continental Cheesecake. I made this on Saturday - and yes it was a bit of effort, but we were at Mum and Dad's on Sunday as Ad was preaching at their church, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to bake this. It was either this or griddle scones!
The recipe was actually for a cheesecake of enormous dimensions - 10inch! Since starting my baking I have never made anything that was 10 inches big, and I was not about to go out and buy a tin especially for this one! I decided to go for an 8 inch cheesecake, and  halve the ingredients (apart from the ricotta - I was supposed to use 225g, but the tub was only for 200g, so I decided to wing it, and add some extra cream instead!). It should be noted that halving the ingredients made the biscuit base incredibly thin, but amazingly enough it was still ok.  I still baked it for nearly the full time, as I wasn't sure if it was cooked before that.
Although I am sure the proportions were not exact for an 8inch tin, it turned out fine. As Mary says, it does dip in the centre on cooling, but it made more space for the fruit. I used a bag of frozen summer fruits, and although I  did cook the black and redcurrants, I didn't bother with the arrowroot.
As you probably know from reading my blog, cheesecakes have not been the most popular puddings, however, this one went down really well, and we scored it 8.5.

Mushroom and Garlic Stuffed Picnic Loaf

I found it very difficult to get a jar of wild mushrooms in oil, in Gravesend, so I asked Mum and Dad if they could look in Sevenoaks. I thought it was more of a wild mushroom in a jar kind of place!! It turns out that it is! They very kindly bought me a jar in a delicatessen. The only problem was that one jar cost £7.95!!!!!
Yesterday, my brother and his family came over, so I decided to make this loaf for them.
I would say that I had high hopes for it, but when you are using a jar of mushrooms that costs £7.95 to start with, the pressure is on!!
Thankfully the loaf was fairly straight forward, and turned out ok. It really would have been a disaster, had it gone wrong.
It was very tasty, but I don't think it was £7.95 kind of tasty! I would expect a loaf that costs that much to be amazing, and this was just good. I am sure that it would be possible to use cheaper alternatives, so maybe another time...
Forgetting the price of this loaf, we gave it a score of 8.0
I have now done all my pre Christmas baking (only three more recipes to go), and am looking forward to sitting down with the family to watch The Polar Express. A Christmas Eve tradition of ours.
Happy Christmas Everyone!

Buche de Noel

I have always tried to stick closely to Mary's recipes, after all, that was what the challenge was about. However, for this recipe I had to make quite a big change. I do feel slightly guilty about this. I used Mary's swiss roll recipe,but the icing was out of Nigella's Christmas book! I guess that is called a Marella recipe!
The reason for this detour was because I couldn't get hold of any unsweetened chestnut puree for the filling. I wasn't actually that disappointed about this as I didn't think the kids would really like it. Also the buche de noel recipe had a topping of whipped cream, and I really wanted to serve this as a cake rather than a pudding. I made it on Sunday afternoon, before our guests came round.
It didn't last long, in fact the whole thing went in the evening!  It was delicious and  scored it 8.5

Rich Cheesy Biscuits

On Sunday evening, we had an open house for the neighbours, and did some carol singing around the piano. Of course there was food on offer, so a great opportunity to tick off a couple more bakes!
These rich cheesy biscuits were easy to make, and I decided that star shapes would be more festive than circles.
I thought I had some sesame seeds for the top, but it turned out that it was a bag of linseed, and I didn't think that would be any good. On some of the biscuits I put a little bit of grated cheese, which worked well. 
Although there were 30 biscuits, they did not last long, and the kids especially seemed to enjoy them. We scored them 8.0