81. Gingerbread Men

Having discovered that the (not so) little one quite likes ginger biscuits, I was quite excited about baking these. She's started to become a keen assistant of late, and particularly enjoys using the cutters, so I knew she'd find these fun to make. I did the dough bit, which was very straightforward, albeit a little on the messy side, and then we began the quite lengthy process of turning out our squadron of biscuity soldiers. Time became a bit pressing, with the fan over blowing impatiently away, so after a few toddler cut-out sessions, I took over and delegated the task of applying currant eyes and buttons to my assistant (ably supported by Grandma, who made sure an equal amount of currants found their way onto the gingerbread men after a few diversions to a little mouth). They had to be baked in shifts, due to the quantity (20) and number of baking trays needed, but it was good fun churning out man after man and piling them up on the cooling rack. There's something very satisfying about baking in large quantities!
Baker's verdict: easy to make and great for baking with children. I thought they could do with a bit more ginger to ramp up the warm spice.
Husband rating: unfortunately too long ago to be able to supply one (slapped wrist for the blogger).

80. Buche de Noel

I decided to bake this for Christmas, in addition to my usual traditional Christmas cake (this year taken from The Great British Bake Off book), and because we were entertaining at home and I wanted an alternative dessert to Christmas pud. I also had some chestnut puree which wanted using, so I adapted Mary's recipe to include just a filling of that instead of the whipped cream addition which would have presented fridge storage issues.
I was initially quite nervous about the whole swiss roll thing, having not attempted one before, but one must bite bullets in the baking world, and it was actually quite straightforward in the end. I figured that if the thing cracked when I tried to roll it, I could easily patch it up with icing. So, sponge made, the filling was cobbled together with most of the ingredients in Mary's recipe minus the cream. I also spread the sponge with brandy before adding the filling, just to enhance its boozy qualities.
Having not had a picture to go on, I used a bit of artistic license when assembling the 'log', and then instead of covering it with whipped cream, I made a chocolate buttercream and smothered it in that. We don't have a big fridge, and Christmas means a full one; I simply didn't have room to store a large dessert therein, so buttercream seemed the way to go, with a promise of prompt eating.
Baker's verdict: quite easy to bake and assemble; the sponge was a bit on the rubbery side, whether from over-baking I don't know. Tasted good, but I'd like to try it a Mary intended.
Husband rating: can't even remember trying it!

79. Banana and Chocolate Chip Bars

Still on the lookout to bake things with the littl'un, and needing to use up some very ripe bananas, I came across this bake and thought it looked nice and simple and sounded yummy. It was made in much the same way as the apricot one I made recently: a kind of crumble mixture with sliced bananas between the layers and chocolate chips scattered on top. It was simpler because there was no cooking of fruit required as part of the process. I had the same issue with this bake as the apricot one: the mixture wasn't plentiful enough to cover the base of the tin (half is used for the base layer and the other half is pressed on top of the fruit.) Admittedly, I didn't measure the tin, but I know it's not much bigger than the 7" suggested, and I've noticed that the 'biscuit base' quantities have been sparse in other bakes. I actually discussed this with a friend (Cathy) who made Mary's Millionaires Shortbread recently and found the shortbread quantity insufficient. I've had to double up the quantities on the cheesecake recipes before. Still, these are things you find out, and I'm making notes in the book whenever I come across an issue (a bit like the Half Blood Prince, Severus Snape, in his potions book). This made the bake a bit frustrating, trying to eke out the mixture, and when it was baked, it was very thin and flimsy. It held together in squares for the first day, but collapsed on the remaining two days I had some left for. Smaller tin or more mixture next time. We also noticed that it was very sweet, so I might try omitting the sugar altogether next time to see if the banana provides enough sweetness on its own.
Baker's verdict: tasty and easy to make - I'd bake it again with some tinkerings.
Husband rating: 7/10 - lovely banana flavour but far too sweet.

78. Cheese Straws

Another 'baking with toddler' escapade, which produced great results. A good bake to do with a small child, with some nice, 'safe' mixing involved. We managed to make them pretty quickly, and used the half hour of chilling in the fridge to do some other little jobs, before returning to them to roll out the dough and shape them. As soon as I'd started making these, I recalled that I attempted them in the very early stages of owning Mary's book. I also recalled that there was a disaster, and because of my baking experiences thus far, I was able to identify the reason for it and avert another crisis. The recipe states 'softened butter' is required, but I've not made any pastry yet which doesn't use cold butter. I remember the dough being unworkable when I made it with said softened butter, so I ignored that requirement this time and rubbed the cold butter in as I would do normally. I used mature cheddar and a fine grater: what happened here was that I did end up with some lumps of cheese in the dough, but I knew that could only be a good thing, ultimately.
The dough was very stiff when I removed it from the fridge, and quite difficult to roll out. I quickly decided to avoid the conventional creation of straws, in favour of using a small cutter which Elizabeth could play with easily. We managed to get a nice lot of hearts, which I simply baked for a reduced amount of time and kept a close eye on. Because they were so small, we were soon able to eat some of them fresh from the oven and lovely and warm. They were so moreish though, and Elizabeth and I had soon polished off about 5 each before going for our walk. We nibbled some more throughout the day, but managed to leave plenty for Daddy, and they lasted us for a couple of days, tasting just as good.
Baker's verdict: really lovely. I'd definitely use this recipe again as they were beautifully cheesy. I'd also stick to the smaller-sized biscuits as well, as they're nice in bit-sized portions. They'd make a great gift. Elizabeth loved them.
Husband rating: 9/10 - perfect bar snack: cheese, pastry - what's not to love? Can't give it 10 because they're simple things really, and there have been other things which I've loved more, but they were really good.
 

77. Apricot and Walnut Sandwich Bars

I selected these for my next bake because I wanted to bake something 'healthy' with and for my daughter. The first thing that amazed me was her eagerness to eat some of the dried apricots, when I hadn't previously been able to tempt her with any! She was a very helpful assistant in what was a pretty easy bake. I keep meaning to buy some scissors for apricot cutting, but there weren't too many to chop up for this one. As in the case of the date recipes, I had to cook the apricots in some water to make them gooey before assembling the bars: a layer of the biscuit mixture, then an apricot layer, then a topping of the biscuit, which was actually much like a crumble. I made a substitution in the recipe: mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower and linseed) instead of walnuts - mainly because I didn't have any walnuts, but also because I'm not a huge fan of them and because Elizabeth currently has a liking for pumpkin seeds.
One of the issues with baking with what I would call 'chewy fruit' (which becomes especially chewy and even 'chanky' - as those of Field origin call it - when baked) is that cutting the bake into slices is really difficult. This was a very crumbly mixture, and I didn't cut it into 8 bars, as Mary suggested, preferring to create smaller squares for easy nibbling. There was, as a result, lots of crumbs. Not really a problem though; I'm good at hovering crumbs up.
Baker's verdict: a little bit fiddly to make and a pain to cut into squares/bars. Very buttery and moreish. A shame the toddler in residence didn't really like them (she is suspicious of anything with 'bits' in, and had decided she didn't like apricots after all) but maybe she will when she's older.
Husband rating: 9/10 - just a bit different really. Nice touch with the seeds and a bit like the date bars from Stuart. A bit chewy but crumbly at the same time and soft and oaty. Very moreish.
Postscript: Husband didn't get to experience many of these as me and my Dad polished off a significant amount before he even got to them!

76. Date and Walnut Traybake

Another one made after my brush with the date bars (of which I made two batches because they were very nice) and a desire to experiment further with the delicious toffee-ness of the flavour they give to bakes. Again, I forgot to photograph my efforts here, mainly because I baked it to take to Devon to visit Joe's family, so it was baked and packaged in a bit of a frenzy. I do, however, have some leftovers in the freezer (some of which I ate this week), so I'll try to add a photo when they come out.
This was quite a straightforward bake, but one of the things I'm learning about using dates (and subsequently, dried apricots) is that they often need a bit of cooking in a pan with water to make them a bit squidgy and release their flavour. So that needed doing, and then cooling, before assembling the remaining cake ingredients. It took 1 hour and 10 minutes to bake at quite a low temperature, and smelt lovely. I didn't bother with the icing (lemon and icing sugar, with walnuts on top) because of the time and travel constraints. I expect it would've made it a little bit more palatable to those who aren't huge lovers of the strong cinnamon flavour and the dark muscovado sugar in the cake.
Baker's verdict: quite straightforward to make; was tasty enough but really heavy. Would work better as a dessert with custard than as a cake for afternoon tea.
Husband rating: 5/10 - feel bad giving that harsh score: it's more that it wasn't to my taste because of the cinnamon flavour but if something says it's walnut and date, you expect that to be the main thing and I didn't get any of them.

75. Double Chocolate Cookies

I have no photographic evidence of these beauties, and thus had forgotten that I'd even made them, but I had a recollection of baking something that Joe and his colleagues found absolutely delicious, and these were that something. They were extremely easy to make, and were always going to be good (if baked for the right length of time) because of the inclusion of condensed milk and chocolate rather than cocoa powder. I'm learning that chocolate fayre is really, really good if it is made with actual chocolate - there's a depth of flavour there which cocoa powder doesn't provide. Anyway, the recommended baking time for these is 15 minutes. I baked them for 10 and stood my ground. I've learnt that biscuits will always be soft as long as they are warm and to have faith that they're sufficiently baked. I was spot on this time; the cookies retained their softness and were properly chewy, like a great cookie should be.
Baker's verdict: ever so easy to make and really lovely. I'd definitely make these again.
Husband rating: 8.5/10 - really cocoa-ey, good chocolate cookie and very moreish.