A few months ago, gripped by baking fever, I purchased Mary Berry's Baking Bible. I quickly decided to embark upon a mission to bake everything in the book, and turn myself from an occasional baker into a bit of an expert. My Grandad Ern was a Master Baker by trade; the man responsible for introducing Danish Pastries to England in fact, and I wish it had occurred to me to spend more time learning from him, rather than simply enjoying the fruits of his effortless labours. This project is almost a way of making amends for that; I'd like to follow in his footsteps (if not in my career, at least as a hobby) and continue the proud heritage of baking in my family.
I credit my friend Rachel with the idea to write a blog about my baking exploits, hoping that there will be more successes than failures as I attempt all 213 of the Queen of Baking's recipes.
So as not to bore the husband with a monotonous diet of sponges, followed by weeks of biscuits, I've decided to tackle the recipes by selecting the first bake from each chapter, followed by the second recipe and so on. I'm not going to pick and choose; I'm determined to face my baking demons and learn how to do everything baking-related, even if the consequences are disastrous!
Everything will be photographed, with comment about how I found baking it, and a husband rating (to be taken with a pinch of salt as he has a very selective cake-tooth).


Friday 23 January 2015

71. 'Boozy' Fruit Cake

Back in October, when the Christmas baking begins (I made my mincemeat), I decided not to make a Christmas cake. As we raced towards the festive season however, my Mum and I decided we'd quite like to have one, so I chose this one as a sort of Christmassy cake which didn't need maturing. 'Boozy' is essential at Christmas, and this cake was jam-packed with nuts and different fruits. I was surprised to discover it didn't have any sugar in it, but a hefty amount of golden syrup instead (which generally stresses me out because it's so messy and sticky - sticky fingers, ugh). Anyway, it of course involved much measuring and chopping of many fruity ingredients, but the cake batter was super easy to prepare. I love the smells of melted butter and sweet things all combined, and this was another quite unusual element of the recipe: the 'wet' cake ingredients were heated in the pan with the fruit, then the dry stuff was added to this afterwards. It took a lot of baking (almost 2 hours), but of course the benefit of that is the slow release of those lovely festive aromas which fill the house.
The cake was fed with brandy once it came out of the oven and then well wrapped until we were ready to eat it. A lovely way to spend Christmas Eve. We sampled some the following day and it was delicious. It was quite a light cake (meaning not dark), so not your typical Christmas cake, but very tasty. I even sampled it with some good cheddar, which went down very well.
Baker's verdict: easy to make and tasted wonderful.
Husband rating: 7/10 - lovely and moist, but a bit too cinnamon for my taste. Didn't enjoy it as much as last year's Christmas cake.
 
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1 comment:

  1. Aodhnait13 June 2015 at 14:02

    Oh wow! Well done you......this is some amount of baking. Good job!

    ReplyDelete

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