Pinch Perfect

Mary Berry’s apple and walnut cake is a deep round cake with 100g of chopped walnuts and 100g of sultanas in the batter. A layer of 400g grated cooking apples runs through the middle. It bakes at 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4 for 1¼ to 1½ hours. Berry’s own title is Apple and Cinnamon Cake, in Baking …

Mary Berry’s cheese and chive scones are made with mature Cheddar, Parmesan, garlic and 6 tablespoons of snipped chives in a mustard-spiked scone dough. They bake at 220°C/200°C fan/Gas 7 for 25 minutes. One batch serves 10 to 12. She calls them Cheese and Garlic Tear-and-Share Scones in Foolproof Cooking (2016), though the chives are …

Mary Berry’s Victoria sponge traybake is an all-in-one sponge baked in a 30 x 23cm tin and cut into 27 slices. Each one is split and filled with jam-glazed strawberries, whipped cream and crème fraîche. It bakes at 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4 for 35 minutes. The recipe isn’t strictly Berry’s. It appears in her Absolute Favourites …

Mary Berry’s vanilla traybake is an all-in-one sponge made with butter, caster sugar, self-raising flour, 4 large eggs and milk. It bakes at 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4 for 35 to 40 minutes in a 30 x 23cm tin. It cuts into 21 pieces. Berry calls it the Basic All-in-one Sponge Traybake, and says it’s the simplest …

Mary Berry’s chocolate loaf cake is a brownie mixture baked in two small loaf tins. It’s made with ground almonds, cocoa, light muscovado sugar, baking spread and white chocolate chips. It bakes at 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4 for about an hour. It appears in the 2023 edition of her Baking Bible and not in the 2010 …

Mary Berry’s New York cheesecake is a baked cheesecake of full-fat cream cheese, sour cream, vanilla and a tablespoon of flour. The base is digestives crushed with demerara sugar. It bakes at 160°C/140°C fan/Gas 3 for about 40 minutes. It comes from Mary 90 (2025), where she calls it her version of the classic vanilla …

Mary Berry’s chocolate buttercream is made with 225g softened butter, 300g icing sugar, 3 tablespoons of sifted cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons of milk. Everything goes into a food processor together. One minute of whizzing is all it takes. The recipe comes from the chocolate yoghurt cake in Simple Comforts (2020), where it fills and …

Mary Berry’s rhubarb muffins use self-raising flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, full-fat yoghurt and melted butter. Raw rhubarb goes in at the last moment, in 1cm pieces. They bake at 200°C (fan 180°C/Gas 6) for about 25 minutes and make 12. Berry has no rhubarb muffin in her books, so this is built from two of …

Mary Berry’s soda bread is a yeast-free loaf made with equal weights of plain white and wholemeal flour. It takes bicarbonate of soda, salt, rubbed-in butter and 400ml of buttermilk. It bakes at 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6 for 30 to 35 minutes. Berry’s headnote in Cooks the Perfect (2014) calls it a loaf for days when …

Mary Berry’s lemon drizzle traybake is an all-in-one sponge under a crunchy lemon sugar crust. It’s made with softened butter, caster sugar, self-raising flour, 4 large eggs and the rind of 2 lemons. It bakes at 160°C/Fan 140°C/Gas 3 for 35 to 40 minutes. Berry calls it a top favourite in Baking Bible (2010) and …