99. Cheese and Celery Crown Loaf

I feel like I could easily maintain this tradition of making some sort of bread for our Sunday picnics; it's so nice to have something a bit special at the weekend. I'm not sure that this really qualifies as 'bread' though, as it turned out more like a scone, although we treated it as a loaf and made sandwiches with it. I was fascinated by how it would turn out, with the combination of three celery sticks, garlic and a lot of grated cheese, and was actually pleasantly surprised. I'm not a fan of celery, but I stuck to the recipe to see what it would be like, chopping the sticks as finely as I could.
The recipe suggests either forming 12 balls and baking in a round cake tin (like the crown loaf I made the other week) or free-forming on a baking sheet. I chose the latter, partly because it was quite hard to make 'rolls' (filled ones) with the small ones I got out of the crown loaf. As it turned out, doing it the first way would have basically made us 12 separate scones, which I'll probably do next time.
Anyway, it was very easy to make and handle; I adjusted the baking time to ten minutes less than suggested, but popped it back in for an extra 5 just to be sure, and it was perfectly baked. It was quite moist as a result of the celery, and it also had quite a salty flavour (the combination of cheese and celery). It smelt lovely during baking; the garlic helped it to be really appetising. We ate slices of it warm with butter, and had some apple and walnut chutney with it. It would work really well as an accompaniment to a cheese board.
Baker's verdict: really easy to make and very tasty. I'll definitely bake it again.
Husband rating: 8/10 - nice flavour; lovely crust; quite heavy though.

98. Oat and Sunflower Squares

Unfortunately, there is no photo to accompany this post; I think the end result was so uninteresting that the thought of taking a photo didn't occur! They were very quick to make, following the usual flapjack process. Elizabeth was too busy having fun in the garden on a hot day to participate, so I made them very quickly. They came from the 'bakes for children' section, and it was interesting to note that there was no sugar included besides the golden syrup. There was also only a small amount of butter in the mixture too, so I imagine these were intended to be a more healthy option for children. I made a bit of a mess of the baking as I forgot to press start on my timer, but in any case, Mary suggests 20-25 minutes, which I thought would be far too long. I set the timer for 10 minutes, but have no idea how long they actually had. They were definitely over-done though, as they were a bit too brown at the edges and were very crumbly: not easy to cut and get out of the tin. I'll make them again and be more careful with the timing, because they were very easy and tasted good. Much less sweet and fatty. I also need to add a photo!
Baker's verdict: easy and tasty; great for making and eating with children.
Husband rating: 7/10 - nice, light alternative to a flapjack for a snack.

97. Dorchester Biscuits

Husband is still having a cake amnesty, so I chose another savoury bake for this week's endeavour. These looked very easy, and the only extra ingredient I needed to buy was the chopped nuts; I was troubled to discover that husband had used the baking butter though(he doesn't realise it's my designated baking butter), so I had to use the spreadable kind. The recipe, strangely (for biscuits) stipulated that softened butter was required, so this was actually fine. However, the 'dough' was so melty that it couldn't really be handled for very long. I'd use cold (hard) butter next time and see how the biscuits turned out after that. I've had this issue before; usually where biscuits are concerned, you need to rub the butter in. You can't do this very well with softened butter! Anyway, there seemed to be a high ratio of cheese to flour, so that I thought I'd measured things wrongly. It was a bit of a suck-it-and-see bake, but the end result was good. The recipe suggests serving them with drinks - they certainly had that canape sort of feel to them. They were bitesized and very tasty, even after a couple of days. Husband said they were rich, but I found them really moreish. They were very cheesy!
Baker's verdict: easy and tasty; I'd make these for 'nibbles' in the future and I'm sure they'd go down well.
Husband rating: 7/10 - very nice; quite rich so you'd
want no more than a couple at a time. Not really had anything like this before so not got anything to compare it against.

96. Crown Loaf

I've fancied making some bread for a while, and upon realising that we were getting a bit short, decided to make this for us to enjoy for our Sunday tea. Although I'd suggested to Elizabeth that she might like to help, I ended up doing this one solo, which was actually a welcome break from having to coordinate someone else.
It was pretty straightforward, with minimal ingredients: just flour, yeast, salt, butter and water, and the process was fairly simple too. Everything behaved as it should: the dough was a bit hard to handle owing to its stickiness, but I managed to get a good rise in the provings (it needed two; the second one being once it was divided into rolls and put into the tin), and it looked great when it came out of the oven.
I initially baked it for the minimum 20 minutes suggested, but let it go for the full 25 in the end, just to be sure that it was properly baked. It was a little darker than I wanted on the top, but it was so well baked once I'd cut into it, that I'm glad I left it in that bit longer. The yeast I had was best before 5 months ago, but it doesn't seem to have been detrimental to the bake, so I'm glad I didn't discard it. We had some of the rolls for a picnic tea (I cut them off, but they did actually tear ok, particularly on the second day) and were really pleased with how it turned out.
 It had the taste and texture of bread you'd get from a bakery: I feel chuffed that I managed to achieve this result at home.
Baker's verdict: easy recipe; great flavour and texture.
Husband rating: 10/10 - perfectly baked; a lovely bit of bread. Can't imagine it being done any better than that.

95. Carrot and Orange Loaf

This week's bake followed the fruit/veg theme and is the first carrot cake I've made to one of Mary's recipes, although I've made loads before. I can clearly remember baking a carrot cake at school - I must've been in Y9 - and it turning out really well; since then I've always been a fan. I actually prefer them without the cream cheese frosting which seems always to accompany them, so this recipe appealed to me, and I was intrigued by the inclusion of the orange.
It wasn't a great bake for Elizabeth to get involved with: grating carrots is tedious and a bit too challenging for a little one, as was the grating of the orange and the removing of the pith/slicing. But she got involved in the cake side of things, and thoroughly enjoys using the electric hand whisk to mix everything together. It was another all-in-one cake, so very easy to make; the orange slices were placed on the top with some runny honey spread over for the last 15 minutes of baking. I expected the orange to do something, but it remained pretty 'raw', rather than caramelised, and I'm not really sure what it's meant to be like. It looked pretty at least, and I've actually enjoyed the taste of it.
I tested the cake with a skewer, but when I cut the first slice, it seemed quite wet in the middle. I put that down to moisture from the carrots - it certainly didn't seem raw as such. As the days have passed, the top has become quite wet from the oranges too; it's probably best polished off within a day or two. That said, it's kept very well, without needing to be stored in the fridge as Mary suggests.
Baker's verdict: easy and tasty - a good carrot cake. The orange flavour is a nice touch.
Husband rating: 8.5/10 - lovely flavour. Best on the first day, with a nice crispy outside.

94. Crunchy Top Lemon Cake

Husband chose this one for this week's project, without much hesitation, as he loves lemon cakes and desserts. It was super easy, and only required the extra ingredient of a lemon, which I sent husband to the market for. It was basically an all-in-one Victoria sponge mixture, with lemon zest grated in. The 'crunchy top' was a mixture of granulated sugar and the juice of one lemon (I opted for granulated rather than caster sugar to maximise crunchiness), poured over while the cake was still hot and in the tin. Most of it dribbled down the sides, but I figured that if it was then left to cool in the tin (as per the recipe), it would still get absorbed into the cake. I was pleased that it held its shape and didn't sink in the middle; it was generally a really nice cake.
Baker's verdict: easy and tasty. Not quite a lemon drizzle, and the sponge didn't taste especially lemony, but it was tasty all the same.
Husband rating: 8/10 - very nice lemon sponge; nicest in the first day when it was still crunchy on top, but if you want a nice lemon cake, then you might as well have a lemon drizzle cake.