Catherine Burch of CPM writes:
So when we recently translated and produced a couple of beautiful cake books for Parragon, the recipes and photography inspired us to hold our own bake-off. The challenge was made to all, but in the end only two bakers were willing to put their ingredients on the table and so we set a date for late March, with Jo offering to stand in for Mary Berry.
Paul and I pondered the pages of Baking with Fruit, lingering over the photos, and finally chose our recipes: the Cherry Marble Cake for me, and the Blueberry Crumble with Walnuts for him. So the night before, we got out our wooden spoons and set to work. My cherry marble cake had morphed into a raspberry marble cake, owing to the absence of fresh cherries in the shops. Paul swears that his wife (yes, the chef) went out and left him to bake unaided. The next day we brought in our creations and left everyone with their mouths watering until 11 o'clock, the appointed hour for Jo to arrive.
The raspberry marble cake was gloriously well risen, but the sponge was a little dry and not as sweet as I would have liked. The blueberry crumble was delicious. Paul claimed the walnut crumble mixture had been too sticky to crumble properly but the outcome was crunchy and very tasty. There were thumbs up all round for the cookbook.
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