Mrs Birks Blogs

Ever since I got my copy of Martha Collison's Twist a few weeks ago (just £5 on Amazon at the time), I have been really keen to try some of the recipes.  It is a great book to have in a collection of baking books and, as the name suggests, you can try different things to create a 'twist'.  It is fast becoming a favourite. The first thing I tried was the Mango and Lime Meringue Pie.  I love a Meringue Pie, the lemon variety was my absolute favourite dessert as a child and this version brought back memories of Sunday afternoons.  The recipe had different stages, as you'd imagine, plenty of chilling time for pastry and later for the curd.  It was my first time 'blind baking' even though I've had a pot of baking beads in the cupboard for several years, which meant the pastry was lovely and crisp (although the top edge was slightly overdone on one side and next time I would watch it more closely).  The curd was also a first.  Last time I tried a lemon one, I

Bundt cakes are impressive, especially if you've got a super fancy tin.  At Christmas time, Bundt cakes seem particularly festive covered in a little icing sugar.  In fact, that is one of the many impressive things about Bundt cakes - they can have as little or as much decoration as you want, the tin does the hard work, so you don't have to! Talking of Bundt tins, they can be a bit pricey.  I was lucky in that I was given a well used one from my Mum.  It is a bit battered and a simple design but it did the job for my first ever Bundt bake.  Choosing the recipe was a little more difficult, having overdosed on chocolate over Christmas, I wanted to do something different, so spent some time trawling Internet recipes. I decided on this Lime and Blueberry recipe by Mary Berry. After a Christmas with a few satsumas as the only fruit, I tried to convince myself that a punnet of blueberries made for a slightly healthier cake.  The recipe suggests that you line the tin with str