I can’t believe it is April already though to be honest I am so relieved.  As soon as the clocks go back in October, I am on countdown until they go forward again the following March.  My hubby and I were saying the other day that we should move to Australia for 6 months of the year and then return to the UK for the summer…

Anyway, being a new month means a new book in my Cooking The Books challenge.  This month’s book is Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and the first recipe I wanted to try out was the Lemon Griesetorte.  I’ve no idea what a Griesetorte is but I think it is German or Austrian in origin.  I had never baked one before although a lady brought one along to a Clandestine Cake Club event I went to.  It was absolutely delicious and the lemon flavour was a great hit with all of us.  So, I was keen to try it out myself.

As soon as I realised the cake was in the Special Cakes chapter I began to think, was it included in there because it was complicated? The cake doesn’t contain flour but a small amount of semolina and ground almonds.  It also doesn’t contain fat but you end up putting loads of lemon curd and whipped cream inside it anyway which defeats the object a bit!  But, having said that, it has been one of the most delicious cakes I have tasted and believe you, me I have tasted lots!

So, being as it is the last day of term for me before we break up for the Easter holidays I decided to bake the Griesetorte to take into work to share as an end of term treat with my work colleagues.  I don’t usually work on a Friday so on Wednesday night I was busy in the kitchen getting the cake ready for my last working day on the Thursday.

Heres how I got on:

I got a bit muddled at this stage.  Mary says you also need the grated zest of a lemon but I’d already squeezed the juice out of it first.  Silly me, I should have grated the zest first. It was very difficult trying to take the zest off a squashed lemon!  Not only was it difficult to hold but the leftover juice went on my hand, stinging it!  Ooops!

Now the cake mix had to be transferred to a deep cake tin.  I couldn’t find my deep 8″ cake tin so I got out two sandwich tins instead and thought I’d watch them baking instead as I’d need to adjust the cooking time a bit.  I was worried they wouldn’t rise and turn out like flat pancakes.

I was trying like mad to get the cake baked before my hubby got in from work.  He had promised to call at the supermarket on the way home with some tea for us as he had forgotten to take some pork out of the freezer for me this morning.  I’d got in and panicked as there was nothing much in the fridge.  Luckily the cake was out of the oven and cooling before he arrived back so at least I could use the oven for the dinner!

The cooked cake didn’t look very appetising at all.  When I got them out of the tins onto the wire rack one of them broke in a corner and looked a right old mess.  Thankfully I could tart it up when I filled it.

Mary says as an optional filling you can add some raspberries. along with some double whipped cream and some lemon curd.  The version I tried before didn’t have raspberries but I had some in the fridge so I thought I would use them.  There was also an option to use double the amount of lemon curd and cream to put on the top of the cake.  I chose to just add the filling as I didn’t have enough cream.

I thought the cake looked a bit rustic and messy but this was due to me rushing trying to get everything done before teatime!  As the cake contained fresh cream I put it into an airtight box and it went straight into the fridge.

Well as a result of me rushing off to work this morning the cake stayed put in the fridge and I completely forgot to take it to work! Mary says in the recipe introduction that the cake keeps well, I was relieved as I knew I would have to take it up to school on the Friday on my day off after doing my children’s school run!  All I can say is I hope it tastes ok because it certainly doesn’t look that appetising!

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx