Mary Berry's Gingerbread Traybake - Recipe

A traybake can be made in any square or rectangular tin and you can increase or decrease the quantities to your hearts content. I love a traybake because of its versatility.  A traybake doesn't have to be a cake, it can be a pudding too, cut into squares and open freeze for a rainy day. It was Mary Berry who back in the day first introduced me to the wonders of a traybake bake, and true to say it lost favour for many, many years.

Iced and decorated gingerbread.

The batter waiting to go into the oven for baking.

When I first married I used to watch her on TV (I was a child bride!),  I then went on to purchase my first cookery book, which was The Hamlyn All Colour Cookery Book and I can remember they updated this quite a few years after it first came out.  When Mary contributed to Home & Freezer Digest I used to buy this from the newsagents and can remember saving every copy.

I bought a copy of Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook and gave my children a copy of this too, to use for reference, and hopefully cook a few recipes.  My daughters husband uses this cookery book and makes a fabulous Potato Dauphinoise, another favourite is Potato Lyonnaise, he has also turned out a few memorable starters using recipes from this book.

Some of my Mary Berry cookery books - do you have a collection too?

There are a few recipes on my site that I have cooked from Mary Berry cookbooks and they are all delicious.  One of my favourites is her Lamb Tagine and this is one of the best tagine recipes ever. A couple of her books on my wish list are Mary Berry's Family Sunday Lunches and her latest cookbook, Mary Berry at Home.

The following recipe is taken from Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book - I always halve this quantity and use a 18 x 28cm tin.  Freeze un-iced.

Slightly adapted recipe.  For this quantity of mixture you will need a 30 x 23cm tin lined with parchment paper.

275g golden syrup
275g black treacle
225g dark molasses sugar
225g unsalted butter
450g self-raising flour
2 teaspoons mixed spice
2 rounded teaspoons ground ginger
4 eggs, beaten
4 tablespoons milk

For the icing:
225g icing sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
50g crystallised ginger finely chopped.

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF/Gas 3.
2. Measure the syrup, treacle, sugar and butter into a large pan.  Heat very gently until the butter has melted.  Remove from the heat and stir in the flour and spices.  Add the beaten eggs and milk, beat until smooth.
3. Pour into the lined tin.
4. Bake for 45-50 minutes until beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.
5. Cool in the tin.
6. When cold lift out of the tin and remove the lining paper.
7. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the lemon juice, drop by drop and mix until smooth.
8. Decorate with the chopped ginger and leave the icing to set.
9. Cut into squares.

Celery, Leek and Stilton Soup: Recipe

Celery, Leek and Stilton Soup

Now I'm an adult I like Stilton Cheese and any leftover pieces I freeze away for a rainy day. Stilton cheese, celery and leeks all get on well together and are amazing in any recipe.

A bowl of warm, comforting soup simply can't be beaten.  It's also the time of year when we are wall to wall with diets and exercise dvds - eat sensibly with good homemade food made from scratch, eat less and don't forget to eat a slice of cake every day, it always works for me.

Only if you must, the Stilton cheese can be left out of the recipe, but either way it will still taste very delicious.

Serves: 4

You will need:

25g butter
7 sticks celery - reserving the leaves.
1 large leek
1 onion
110g peeled potatoes
¼ tsp celery seeds
600ml semi-skimmed milk
250ml chicken stock
50g Stilton Cheese

Method:

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan.  Chop the celery, leek and onion, peel and chop the potato. Add to the pan and cook on a medium heat for 15 minutes to soften.
2. Pour the chicken stock and semi-skimmed milk into the pan. Add the celery seeds and season.
3. Cook for 25 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through.
4. Crumble half the cheese into the pan to melt.
5. Puree the soup with a stick blender until smooth.
6. Pour into bowls, garnish with celery leaves and crumbled Stilton cheese, if you like.

Nigel Slater Recipe: A Creamy, Crunchy Fruit Sundae

The wild blackberries are from a stash in my freezer.  A relative picked these last year at a top secret location in Melton Mowbray - I now live in the West Midlands, and I'm not likely any time soon to pass this intelligence to any Meltonians.

Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers was must watch TV and the recipe from his programme can be found on the BBC Food website.

This is an easy, yet delicious dessert recipe and all you have to do is gather the six ingredients together, whisk the cream and layer the ingredients.  I slightly adapted the recipe and used half double cream and half natural yogurt which I mixed together. The base layer is a scoop of vanilla ice cream, followed by a cream, meringue and blackberry layer, a few chopped pistachio nuts are sprinkled over for decoration.

A perfect sundae and I am entering this into Dish of the Month - January 2013. Hosts are Janice at Farmers Girl and Sue at A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate.

Recipe: Chocolate and Beetroot Cake

Chocolate and Beetroot Cake - I have held back making this, even though it has been a popular bake with food bloggers.  The thoughts of a beetroot splattered kitchen and the earthiness I associate with beetroot had no appeal.

After feeling 'so last year' or is it the 'year before last' I decided Chocolate and Beetroot Cake should appear on the blog. After some research, the recipe in Fiona Cairns book Bake & Decorate appealed, mainly because the cake is made with vegetable oil which gives a light cake.

No grating, no mess. Simply cut the beetroot into chunks (I bought prepacked), place in the food processor and blitz to a puree = no splattered kitchen.

I made the cake in a springform tin because I didn't want to chance spoiling the cake when turning out. Some retained beetroot juice from straining the pureed beetroot is the natural food colouring for the icing. The icing is a lovely pink colour and it doesn't taste of beetroot.

Fiona suggests drizzling and flicking the melted chocolate over the cake to make an abstract design.  Is this something you learn at a chocolate masterclass?

The sensible persons guide is to drizzle the melted chocolate over the cake, I always put the cooled melted chocolate into a ziplock food bag and cut a tiny corner off the base of the bag. Or simply dip a teaspoon into the melted chocolate and drizzle over the cake, not my choice because I make chocolate blobs and somehow my drizzles don't happen.

The cake is a winner, easy to make, deep chocolate flavour, moist, has a tender crumb, cuts well and is a keeper.  This is a large cake and would easily feed twelve people. If you are looking for a cake recipe to feed a crowd then look no further.

I am entering my cake into the January Calendar Cakes Challenge. This is hosted by Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes - Laura is hosting this month.

Recipe: Baileys and Walnut Cupcakes

I am mostly drawn towards coffee and walnut cupcakes but this time I left out the coffee in the cake batter and used Baileys in the buttercream.  Good idea - yes?

For the cake batter I prefer to use salted butter or to make them lighter substitute some of the butter with margarine.  I always use unsalted butter for my buttercream, it's all down to individual taste, and I know salted this and that is everywhere, but I don't think salted buttercream will ever be for me.

The recipe below is for 9 cupcakes - cupcake cases vary and these are medium size to allow for rising but leaving enough room for the buttercream topping.

This month I need to concentrate on eating less sugar, but failed, I grazed on seeds and then ate a slice of Christmas Cake........

You will need:  9 muffin cases and a muffin tin

For the cupcakes:

175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
175g self raising flour
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g chopped walnuts

For the Icing:

250g softened unsalted butter
500g sieved icing sugar
1 tbsp Baileys
Walnut halves to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC.
2. Add all the cake ingredients in a bowl and beat for two minutes with an electric mixer. Stir in the walnuts.
3. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases.
4. Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked.  Cool for 10 minutes and then place on a rack to cool.
5. For the icing: beat the icing sugar and butter together until fluffy.  Stir in the Baileys.
6. Pipe or spread the buttercream over the cupcakes and top with walnut halves.
7. Can be frozen decorated.

Recipe: Frozen Berry Parfait

This is such a pretty dessert and one that can be made ahead and frozen. One of my Christmas desserts,  it is totally delicious and fortunately there is still some left in the freezer.  First published in Olive Magazine the recipe can be found on the fabulous BBC GoodFood website.

My 'nodietdiet' is about to start - basically this is simply eating less and more healthily. I now need to cut back on sugary things, I've eaten my body weight in sugar and some of my pending blog posts are Christmas desserts loaded with sugar. My increase in weight over the festive period was nil but I did eat far too much sugar.

Grazing on seeds, dried and fresh fruits at lunchtimes is going to be a priority.  Leaves, leaves and more leaves will be on the menu too. Pomegranates definitely won't get a look in, I used to like them, but every book and every magazine has a recipe using pomegranate seeds.

There are still Christmas goodies in the freezer, the naughty cupboard has all manner of chocolates looking at me and trying to tempt me in.  How can I resist a Thorntons Chocolate Smile? I have carrier bags with part-baked baguettes, Cadbury chocolate fingers and a few bags of posh crisps.  Everyone seems to have bought us sweet indulgences for Christmas and the house is heaving with sugar overload. Looking at all the booty I think it will take us until Valentine's Day to eat the lot.