Mary Berry: The Queen Of British Baking - The Biography

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Yes. After blind baking the pastry, assemble the quiche. Let the filling freeze solid in the freezer, then cover it well with plastic wrap and aluminium foil. Freeze for up to 3 months. Bake from frozen for 35 to 40 minutes.To freeze after baking, wrap well and freeze for up to 3 months. Then cover with foil and reheat for 30 to 40 minutes until hot. Useful equipment Sandwiched together with raspberry jam and dusted on the top with caster sugar, the cake possibly started out in the nursery, according to English Heritage. In the early Victorian period, afternoon tea consisted of seed cake and fruit cake but for safety reasons the Victoria Sponge was prepared to stop youngsters choking on pieces of fruit or seeds. I highly recommend giving Mary’s recipe a go as it is, including the homemade pastry (it really is easy). But it’s no crime to use frozen shortcrust pastry or a frozen or refrigerated pastry case if you prefer. The flavors are incredible, but it’s those different textures coming together that make this dessert super delicious. Every bite feels like the first!

You can find Mary Berry's Victoria Sandwich cake recipe here, and you can catch up with Celebrity Best Home Cook on Saturdays at 12pm at or on BBC iPlayer. If you can't get hold of cream of tartar, you can use 1 tsp lemon juice or 1 tsp white vinegar instead. Only Fools And Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst achieves newfound success in America as he's deemed 'best actor ever' by Frasier co-star Kelsey Grammer Fun fact: A traditional quiche lorraine (from the Lorraine region of France) was just bacon, eggs and cream in an open pastry case. No cheese! Sometimes (horror of horrors) there was even no bacon! About the ingredients The bananas in the loaf keep it fresh for several days at room temperature in a cake tin. Do not store your banana loaf in the fridge as it will harden and become stale.Step 2: Add 3 tablespoons cold water and process again until you have a pastry ball. If the pastry doesn’t quite form a ball, just add a little more flour and bring it together with your hands. If not using a food processor, simply do this whole part by hand (don’t worry, it’s easy too). A. If you are making a sponge cake, it should be springy to the touch and shrinking slightly from the sides of the tin. You should aim for a cake that is pale and golden brown in colour. If you are making a fruit cake, gently insert a fine skewer which will come out clean if the cake is properly cooked. The cake should be light brown for a light fruit cake and dark brown for a traditional rich fruit cake. Sprinkling almonds on the top with either apricot jam or a dusting of icing sugar makes for a very good looking mince pie.

A great British classic, the Victoria Sponge was named after Queen Victoria who was widely thought to have enjoyed a slice at afternoon tea.Nowadays, the classic mincemeat ingredients are a lot sweeter and include a variety of fruits such as apples, dried raisins, lemon, currants and brandy. But like all long-serving recipes, they can be open for interpretation. Here are some tasty additions to jazz up your shop bought mincemeat... Leave your eggs out a room temperature for at least 2 hours. They will whip so much better when they are not cold from the fridge. The Palace were expecting a hatchet job, but the sheer maliciousness of the claims in Omid Scobie's book has left them all reeling, writes REBECCA ENGLISH

We talked to our baking experts to find out what their top tips were for mince pie pastry additions. Suggestions included lard in the pastry, marzipan balls and icing sugar in the flour. But our favourite was tangerine rind. This citrus twist tastes delicious and makes for a ‘zingy outer shell’. The mince pie filling The Queen then joked: 'You have to be very agile. I remember doing it 100 years ago... it's quite difficult to get it right.'Camilla isn't the only member of the Windsor family enjoying the tennis on Wednesday, with Princess Anne's daughter Zara Tindall was also at the All England Club this afternoon with husband Mike. Remove the bacon using a slotted spoon. Drain on kitchen paper to absorb excess fat. Leave the juices in the pan. A. Your oven was too hot, the whites were not whisked enough or maybe you have used oiled greaseproof paper? Despite its prim and proper name ( your majesty…) , this cake is made with very basic ingredients, which is probably why it became such a popular dessert. I can almost guarantee you have every ingredient you need already in your house! Make sure you follow the reheating instructions on the box. Of course, you could always simply dust them with icing sugar and serve with a sprig of holly, while throwing another log on the fire and listening to Silent Night.

This all-in-one method can take as little as five minutes, and those eating the cake would never be able to tell. Less time baking and more timing eating cake in front of Netflix? We're in. Queen Camilla had a front row seat to the action on Centre Court within the Royal Box she sat next to her sister Annabel Elliot. And as Ons Jabeur took on Elena Rybakina in the women's quarter finals, Her Majesty's facial expressions suggested she was absolutely enthralled. Tunisia's Jabeur beat Kazakhstan's Rybakina in a bitterly fought match, and will sail through to the semi finals later this week. LOOKS DELICIOUS: A good pud should look amazing without loads of effort. Think about size, shape and colour. If you want your shop-bought mince pies to create a real wow factor with your guests, try some of the following ideas. Mulled wine, port, hot chocolate (family-friendly or with a splash of rum), sloe or damson gin are always well received with mince pies – as is a nice cup of refreshing Earl Grey tea. I prefer mine served with clotted cream or Cumberland rum butter – a combination of dark brown muscovado sugar, butter, rum and a hint of nutmeg.Add the softened butter, eggs and any extracts then top with the sugar, flour and ground cinnamon. Beat with an electric hand mixer until the batter is smooth, using a spatula to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl as needed. Their love of bananas lasts all of two seconds before they ignore them completely… meaning I now have a bowl of brown ripe bananas that need to be used up or binned. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220°C (fan 200°C/425°F/Gas 7). Blind bake the pastry case. Mary says she is really looking forward to The Big Cake Show which runs 28, 29 & 30 March at Exeter’s West Point and so are we. We are looking forward to welcoming our Queen of Baking to the West Country, we are looking forward to learning more about upcoming baking trends and to eating cake! Place the 12 large pastry circles into the bun tin. Add a teaspoon of mincemeat to each bottom. Don't overfill or they'll spill over. Then place one of the stars on top of each.