Mary Berry's Carrot Cake

Leanne, Anthony, Emma, Carol and Nicki came for tea on Monday with 5 little girls. We HAD to have cake. I've recently been asking the baking queen, Charlotte Gardner, for her all time favourites, and this is one of them. It's possibly the easiest cake I've made in ages and the only frustration is the baking time is 1 hour. It is delicious tho' and was devoured !
Yes, this is another one which will be reproduced soon.

double apple pie

I decided not to purchase a Magimix as a local kitchen emporium, Gill Wing, had exactly the tool I was looking for - a pastry blender. It's very old school but it certainly does the job, and at just a 40th of the price of a Magimix I am very happy thank you.

So for Saturday night I joyfully peeled 2kgs of apple, cooked it up, blended 2/3 of it and then assembled everything inside the glorious pastry case I'd manufactured with aforementioned implement. We then sealed it with pastry on top and Zack painted it with beaten egg. The final product was fabulous. I'd say the only improvement would be to change the ratio of apple that we blended to 50/50 or even 35% mush / 65% solids. Just got to do with texture.

Will make that one again. Yum !

few new items on the horizon

I want to buy a Magimix. I've had them recommended to me many times, but until this year, I haven't had the space to store the thing. I was given a basket full of cooking apples from a local allotment and I would really like to make an apple pie. The recipe that appeals most is a Nigella, and she's always saying 'pulse it in your foodprocessor'.. which I can't do. Not for long. I've found a few websites, with good prices, so that'll be arriving this week.
I bought some ready-to-roll shortcrust pastry yesterday. Made tomato (also from the allotments) and goat's cheese slices this evening. Dull and dreary. I think shortcrust is best suited to quiches and the like.

Almond Fig and Chocolate Cake

Keith was given the very decadent Unwrapped by a friend some years ago. It is incredibly decadent and so I don't make things from it terribly regularly, however, I have for some time now been eye-ing a recipe which has almonds, dried figs and chocolate in it. Today we had a wonderful group of friends for lunch and as I hadn't made any dessert I roped Keith and Zack into the manufacture of this fabulous cake. There's lots of grating and chopping and folding involved, so plenty for little hands to do. Unfortunately I didn't have any Amaretto, but it didn't seem to affect the taste enormously. The finished product was slightly overcooked (a bit brown on the edges), but lovely and crunchy from the fig seeds, and deliciously rich. We served it with chocolate icecream – chocolate overdose, but they'd recommended cream. Pity, I didn't have any.