Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book - Mary Berry

...most used recipe book The Mary Berry's ultimate cake book.

Usually when I look at, or buy a recipe book there are half a dozen recipes in there that I really want to try. With this one there are over 200 hundred recipes in the book - all falling into my favourite food category - and there are half a dozen that I don't want to try. So already the odds are well in its favour.

The book is divided into sections starting ...
.../> The great thing about Mary Berry is that she is a very 'sensible' cook. By that I mean that you see so many recipe books that insist that you cream the sugar and marg together then sift everything else in, simply because that is the way it has always been done. Mary only insists that you do this if it serves a genuine purpose like making butter cream you have to sift the cocoa in or it doesn't mix properly. Other than that she is very much a ... more

I am not a particularly good cook, but I am a fairly enthusiastic one (every now and then) and so I do love recipe books. I have many, many recipe books in my kitchen at home but probably only use 3 or 4 of them on a regular basis. This review is on my most used recipe book The Mary Berry's ultimate cake book.

Usually when I look at, or buy a recipe book there are half a dozen recipes in there that I really want to try. With this one there are over 200 hundred recipes in the book - all falling into my favourite food category - and there are half a dozen that I don't want to try. So already the odds are well in its favour.

The book is divided into sections starting with the usual blurb that you find in these books that no-one ever reads about what equipment you will need and what to do if it all goes horribly wrong - which believe me with this book is almost impossible.

The great thing about Mary Berry is that she is a very 'sensible' cook. By that I mean that you see so many recipe books that insist that you cream the sugar and marg together then sift everything else in, simply because that is the way it has always been done. Mary only insists that you do this if it serves a genuine purpose like making butter cream you have to sift the cocoa in or it doesn't mix properly. Other than that she is very much a bung it in and mix it all up - let the food mixer do the hard work so you don't have to. My sort of cook!!!

The first chapter, and possibly one of the most used is entitled Glorious Chocolate Cakes. Need I say more - everything from Black Forest Gateau to chocolate and walnut brownies to a very sickly looking Chocolate Mousse Cake.

This is followed in Chapter 2 by meringues, I don't use this one much but did make a fantastic Lemon meringue pie for dinner the other week.

The most useful section if you are catering for a lot of kids or bake sales is the traybake section in chapter 3. Essentially you line a baking tin 30' x 23' (available through Lakeland ltd www.lakeland.co.uk at £8.95) and make the mixture up. The basic mixture is 8oz marg, 8oz caster sugar, 10oz SR flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 4 eggs and 4 tablespoons of milk, but there are many varieties like Gingerbread, spiced carrot, apple etc. The real gem of these is that you leave it to cool in the tin, you can ice or decorate it in the tin, then you cut it into 20 or so small squares when it is set, lift them out and they are all ready to go. Fantastic and they do go down really well at charity events and make loads of money.

Chapter 4 is Celebration cakes - they have the usual christmas cake collection in here which I always use and it comes out really well, but then this is followed by an enormous (serves about 100), I will NEVER make this cake, but boy it looks amazing American chocolate wedding cake. I think it is the separating 30 eggs that puts me off making this cake - that and it not fitting in the oven.

Chapter 5 is cheesecakes, including some American baked cheesecakes. These are great for summer barbeques, but only small pieces because they are incredibly rich.

Chapter 6 is scones and Teabreads - not alot I can say about that one really except cheese scones for tea - mmmm.

Chapter 7 is biscuits and shortbread, this includes the millionaires shortbread (with caramel and chocolate on top) which I really must get round to making one day and the basic shortbread is a real favourite with my kids.

Chapter 8 is continental cakes so has things like Sachertorte (chocolate again!) and Lemon griesstorte which is really lovely (filled with fresh cream and raspberries) and the old favourite of danish pastries.

Chapter 9 is another well used chapter of family cakes - the usual victoria sponge, swiss rolls and a gorgeous crunchy top lemon cake.

Chapter 10 follows this up with more firm family favourites with little cakes and yeasted buns, great for lunch boxes and for the kids to help with.

Chapter 11 is Bazaars and Fetes - this includes things like the French Apple Tart which if my family would leave it alone long enough to reach the bazaar would be fine

Chapter 12 is no-bake cakes and cakes for children to make we made some peppermint creams the other day with the kids so they really love this section.

Chapter 13 I think was put in to make sure there were 14 chapters in the book, as it is Cakes and Biscuits for presents which to me is pretty much the same as Chapter 11.

Chapter 14 is the final chapter and is entitled Healthy Cakes and Biscuits - this is, in Mary Berrys own words (well almost) not exactly true. She refers to them as healthy as part of a well balance diet, as she uses less refined flours and 'a little' less sugar and fat. Also some of these recipes have fruit or veg in them.

On the whole an excellent book - all of my friends now have a copy as they got fed up with copying out the recipes and I thought it was only fair that I share this gem with my ciao friends as well.

I got mine from Lakeland years ago but I think they have now moved on in favour of Nigella, but it is available from Amazon at £10.49. I am sure you will come across cheap copies in some of these bargain bookshops coming up to christmas and if you take my recommendation I hope you enjoy them all.

 

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