Crown Loaf

As well as the apple tart, I made this last Friday to go with the meal we were having - I feel that I have to mention at this point, that Adam cooked the main meal - Aubergine Moussaka! Yes, one of our guests was vegetarian, otherwise, this probably would not have been on the menu. However, it was really very tasty, and although Ad and I enjoy our meat, we really didn't miss it. Not sure the kids would think the same though!
This turned out to be another delicious bread, and very easy to make. I did, however make the mistake of leaving it to prove for too long under clingfilm that had not been oiled - note for next time. When I went to take the clingfilm off, the mixture had all stuck to it, and completely lost its shape. Not wishing to be defeated, I took it out the tin, and "knocked it back" again and set about dividing it into twelve balls for the second time. Thankfully it still rose, and turned out beautifully when cooked.
Another good score of 8.5
I notice that Paul Hollywood is doing a new series on bread making starting next week, so that should be one to watch.

French Apple Tart

I made this dessert last Friday as we had some friends coming round for a meal. The recipe said to make the pastry using  an egg, but as one of our guests does not eat egg, I made the pastry with flour, butter and water instead. It tasted fine.It was quite a lot of work, as it involved making an apple puree to go under the sliced apples, however, it was very tasty, and worth the effort. Next time I would put more sliced apple on top. My apples were rather small, so the slices did not look as impressive as Mary's!
I can't honestly remember what score we gave it, probably about 8.5, but our guests enjoyed it, and that's what counts.

Maple Syrup Cake

 It was Ben's 11th Birthday yesterday, and here he is with his Maple Syrup Cake.
As you can see it was quite substantial!
It was straight forward to make. My only comment would be that the recipe says "fill and cover ahead of time so that the cake keeps moist". I made it on Friday, and although it was still lovely and moist, the cream covering very quickly cracked, and it didn't look quite so attractive.
The cake received mixed reviews. The general verdict was that it was a nice cake, texture etc, but it was not everyone's choice.
Mum gave it a 9.0, but Ben only gave it 7.0, which was a shame. I think when he chose it, he did not realise that it had pecans in.
Overall score 8.0

Coffee and Banana Vacherin

Having been left with three egg whites from the sweet pastry of the lemon tart, I decided to make a second dessert for Sunday lunch.
This proved to be quick and easy. The meringue uses light muscovado sugar, which is why it looks brown. The filling inside is whipped cream with coffee and chopped bananas.
One thing I have learned this weekend is that when you add liquid to whipped cream, instead of making it runnier as you would imagine, it thickens it up. This also happened with the filling to Ben's birthday cake, when I added maple syrup, so I don't think its a coincidence. The answer is not to over whip the cream. The "vacherin" (posh word for meringue), scored 8.5, and went down well. I should add that, had I piped the meringue carefully, it would have looked rather more attractive. I got into a bit of a mess with a piping bag that was too small and ended up just spreading the meringue mix into circles.
Mary doesn't suggest it, but I put a few pieces of dried banana on the cream for decoration - the fruit and fibre came in very handy!

Glazed Lemon Tart

It was Ben's 11th Birthday yesterday, which led to rather a baking frenzy on my part.
We were having family for Sunday lunch - as well as a joint of beef! - so I let Ben choose a dessert. This was his choice - glazed lemon tart.
As you know, we like lemons, and so it is not unheard of for us to buy a pre-made lemon tart or "tarte au citron" as it is called. I was nervous that this might not live up to the standard!
For a start, I had to make sweet pastry - another first for me. I didn't realise before, but it uses egg 3 yolks (that answered a problem for me in what to do with my yolks when I next made a meringue, but I now felt I needed to make a meringue to use the egg whites left from this!!!!)
The pastry was rather a nightmare to roll out and get into the flan dish. Ben reminded me of what Claudia Winkleman did on the comic relief bake off. She was making lemon meringue pie I think, and she ended up  pressing the pastry in. Mine didn't end up quite as bad as that, as thankfully Ad had the good idea of putting a thin chopping mat underneath the pastry and we were able to slide most of it into place. I just patched up the rest.
I have to say that after the very lemony lemon meringue, I was a little more cautious with my use of lemons in the filling - I shouldn't have been.
The overall verdict was 8.5. It could have done with being a bit more lemony. I should say however, that I did only put one lemon on top to decorate, and Mary says to use two. If you used two on top, and were happy to eat the lemon slices then I think it would be fine. They actually tasted fine with it - maybe because they had been soaked in syrup for 2 hours!

Honey-glazed walnut bread

The time had come to attempt something from the bread chapter! I confess to have been putting this off, but I need not have worried. Mary says "this recipe makes good bread, very quickly!", and she is right.
It was really delicious, and for my first attempt at bread, I was very pleased. I should add at this point, (because he needs the credit - you know how it is?!) that Adam glazed the loaves for me, and put them in the oven, as I was out.
We ate some slices cold, but also, as Mary said it made the best toast ever, we did have a couple of slices toasted with jam - Yum! We gave it 9.0, and I would definitely make this again. Having said that, the kids did not particularly like it, but then that's more for Ad and I!!

Oat Rounds

I haven't been very good at keeping up to date this week. I have done lots of baking, just not lots of blogging!
Last Tuesday evening Tom and I were having a conversation about the lack of digestive biscuits in the house (he is a hungry teenager!), when I remembered that Mary had her own version of digestives in her book.
The recipe only required four ingredients, all of which we had, so no sooner had we had the conversation, the oven was on!
These were very easy to make, and turned out to be very tasty. Tom was a great help, and even managed to get 17 biscuits out of the mixture- Mary suggested 16. They scored 8.5 We would definitely make them again. They were good dunked in tea, but also with nutella spread on them - not my idea, but apparently it took the rating up to 9.0!