61. Fast Flapjacks

I love flapjacks. Making them brings back happy childhood memories of baking them with my Grandma (Grandad Ern's wife). I baked these particular ones more or less as soon as I purchased Mary's book, but hadn't decided to write the blog then. Anyway, I've now made them another two times and here are the results. Rather comically, I misread the cooking instructions the first time round. I put them in at the conventional oven temperature rather then the required fan temperature, and ended up with rather brown, rather tough flapjacks! I still offered them, rather sheepishly, to my colleagues, who said they enjoyed them, chewy or not. Perhaps they were just being kind though. Anyway, it troubled me that I made a pig's ear of something so simple, so I made another batch and put some chocolate chips in, for my A Level students. They were much better, as you can see from the contrasting photos! I do struggle a bit with my patience where the adding of the chocolate chips is concerned: I never leave the mixture to cool down enough, so they tend to melt as soon as I stir them in. But then, wouldn't they do that in the oven anyway? Either way, the end result is the same: chocolate-flavoured flapjacks. It's a good recipe; very simple and if you're in your right mind when dealing with the oven, you can't really go wrong. You do just need to keep an eye on the colour and don't be hesitant about taking them out just because they're still soft and bubbling. They do set!
Baker's verdict: a good staple; easy to make and lovely and buttery.
Husband rating: again, I made these so long ago, he won't remember...
 

60. Cherry and Almond Traybake

I baked this so long ago, in a bid to keep going with my project, that I can remember very little about doing it! We have finally moved into a new home, in a new county, so have spent the last six months doing all the onerous stuff one has to do when moving home, while looking after a toddler. Hence, very little baking has been accomplished, and, as you'll have noted, no blogging whatsoever. But now we're settled (still waiting to start my new job), I'm determined to make room for both aspects of my project and really get cracking on it again. I've missed baking so much!
Anyway, I do remember baking this because I wanted to make some final cakes for my colleagues before I left for pastures new, and traybakes are very colleague-friendly, being easy to portion and serve. I do recall this being easy to make, but drying the rinsed cherries is always a faff. I understand why you need to do it (to stop them sinking to the bottom), I just don't seem to do it very well! The cake, I recall, went down well, and was very moist and tasty. It had the ever-appealing flavour of a Bakewell; cherries and almonds are so lovely together.
Baker's verdict: easy to make and very light and tasty.
Husband rating: not even going to ask - it was too long ago!

59. Mississippi Mud Pie

This bake is on my current list; another one which required some kind of occasion, on the basis that me and Joe couldn't possibly get through this unaided, nor could I really take the leftovers into work. So, some visiting friends were treated to this heart attack on a plate, and very nice it was too. I'd never had 'proper' Mississippi Mud Pie before, so was curious to see what it would be like. I'm seldom disappointed by anything chocolate-related, so was fairly sure it'd be a winner. It started well, with a digestive biscuit base, and certainly did turn out to be a bit cheescakey, without the cheese. The filling was basically oodles of dark chocolate, butter, cream and 5 whole eggs. There will have been more, but that's sufficient to demonstrate how rich and calorific this bake is! It was really easy to make; a surprise ingredient of some instant coffee made the flavour quite interesting and not to everyone's taste, I'd imagine. I found it diminished after the first mouthful.
The pie really slumped once removed from the oven, and actually looked quite a deflated, sorry mess until I put the cream on top. I over-whipped the cream, so it still didn't look aesthetically appealing until I chucked some chocolate flakes at it. Only then did it really look passable as an appetising dessert. I kept it chilled in the fridge until serving, and it was very easy to slice and lovely and firm. It would probably be tastier if it was out of the fridge for a spell though.
Baker's verdict: easy to make and very tasty. I'd try it without the coffee next time, though.
Husband rating: 8/10 - first mouthful was a bit too coffee-ish, but then as it went on you didn't really notice the coffee, and it was a lovely, indulgent, rich chocolatey thing.
 

Elizabeth's First Birthday Cake

Just had to post this as it was my first attempt at doing a 'proper' iced birthday cake. I wanted to be a brilliant mummy and make my daughter's cake myself, even though I have very little experience of decorating cakes (that's my next project once this one's completed!). I used Mary's Victoria Sandwich recipe, filling the cake with buttercream and lemon curd, and then wrestled with the ready-made fondant icing. I'd bought the stuff you needed to mix with water, and spent ages with my Mum trying to roll it out without it sticking to the surface. After failing miserably at this, we resorted to using the ready-to-roll stuff, which looked like it was going to go the same sticky way. However, with a bit of help from husband wielding a spatula, I managed to get it onto the cake. I'd also bought some coloured icing and a cutter kit, so got all polka dot-tastic and made a lovely spotty cake for the special little lady. She was a bit bemused by the whole thing, and didn't eat much of it, but the rest of us enjoyed it, ultra sugary, ultra sweet icing and all (which husband duly peeled off). I now need to buy one of those smoothing things to get a less bobbly finish...

58. Pecan Pie

I can't recall why I decided to make this: it wasn't next on my list in the pie section. I do know I wanted to bake something which we could share with the family when we visited though, and I'd never made, or even eaten, one of these before. It looked as though it would present moderate challenge, and I was looking forward to tasting it.
To begin, I made a sweet pastry, which included an egg yolk and icing sugar. Once made, it needed to be refrigerated for about half an hour, so I got on and made the filling while I waited for the pastry to chill. The key ingredient, aside from the pecans, is maple syrup. I had no idea how expensive this stuff is! It took me ages to even find it in the supermarket, and when I did, I was faced with the choice of buying the expensive 'good' stuff, or a cheaper version, which wasn't actually pure maple syrup. I had to opt for the proper stuff, of course, and I'm sure it makes all the difference. Don't think I'll be making too many of these though!
The filling was pretty easy to make, and very runny. Once the pastry had been baked blind, I poured the mixture in on top of the pecan nuts which I had fairly carefully arranged on the pastry. I put a baking tray underneath the flan case, as I felt sure some of the mixture would leak out, and I was right. It only needed to be baked for just over half an hour, and certainly smelt good when I removed it from the oven.
The pie was tasty, but because we'd never had it before, we didn't really know what to expect from the texture. We sampled a piece warm from the oven and found it very 'eggy' and soft. It reminded me of a custard tart, texture-wise. I'm not a fan of those. I was worried I'd not cooked it for long enough, but a bit of research reassured my that it was meant to be like that. It was lovely with vanilla ice cream, and also went down well with the family, who had it cold.
Baker's verdict: fairly straightforward to make; tasty apart from the slightly eggy flavour. The texture of the filling was a bit off-putting.
Husband rating: 7.5/10 - a bit eggy, but lovely taste of maple syrup and the pecans were very nice in it.
 

57. Cupcakes

These were baked for my A Level students and were meant to be Valentines' Day chocolate cupcakes, complete with fondant love hearts. Unfortunately my cutters didn't arrive on time, and when I started baking, I realised I didn't have enough cocoa powder to make them chocolatey! So they turned into vanilla cupcakes with chocolate butter icing instead.
They were very simple to make, following the all-in-one method again. They got a reasonable rise, but these are a bit denser than fairy cakes, although not quite as dense as muffins. I need to get myself an ice cream scoop for even portions, as invariably I end up with buns which are all different sizes. It was harder to divide the mixture because I'd made double the quantity as well, but they didn't turn out too bad really.
Icing the cakes was very time-consuming. I was trying to go for a decent finish, but cake decorating isn't my forte so it took ages. I also found that despite plenty of mixing, there were still lumps of icing sugar flecking the mixture. Schoolboy error: I forgot to sift it first! You couldn't really tell once I'd smoothed the icing, but it was annoying all the same.
Baker's verdict: easy to make, classic tasty cupcakes. The students enjoyed them!
Husband rating: can't remember what they were like; it was too long ago!
 

56. Butterfly Buns

These were an impromptu bake after promising cake to a friend who was visiting with her baby. With a short timescale and small window of opportunity in which to bake something, I at first thought of knocking up a Victoria Sandwich, but really wanted to do something else from the book. Happily I stumbled across these and knew they'd be pretty straightforward.
The first part was easy; following the all-in-one method, they were all mixed and in the oven within half an hour. Once cooled, I set to work on the icing. Husband had stolen one, so I reduced the amount of icing, but even then there seemed like an enormous amount for a dozen small buns! I used 300g of icing sugar (and made a right dusty mess of the kitchen, I can tell you)! The icing needed to be piped onto the buns once their tops had been sliced off and halved to make butterfly wings. 

Husband requested I added some jam to some of the buns, which I thought was a rather splendid idea. I did try to pipe generously, but was still left with lots of buttercream in the piping bag. Nothing for it but to squeeze it into my own cake-hole and worry about what effect the sugar might have on me just before bed! I decided to omit the dusting of icing sugar over the top; aesthetically a lovely idea, but one really can have too much sweetness.
Baker's verdict: easy to make; very tasty. Went down well with everyone who tried them. Especially the ones with jam added.
Husband rating: 7/10 - nice sponge bun cake thing; bit too much buttercream for me but other than that, quite enjoyable.