To find the National Treasure, Mary Berry's latest series irritating?

[helpmekeepstrong]

As much as I love her, this latest series is really a bit patronising and the recipes are not just pricey but a bit shit in the modern world. Not daring to critique the NT, like. Whaddya think?

I remember MB from back in the day of 'Good Afternoon' < one for the kids >, she's not changed at all.

She presents well and is homely, what's not to love.

Oh and she doesn't like feminism because it's nice to have the door opened for you

Because stopping men opening doors for women is the whole point of feminism

Kundry

She bugs me when she says 'lairs' for 'layers'.

How do you say layers then ? They're pronounced the same

She had polio as a child and it affected her hands. That's why it looks odd when she picks things up/tries food.

So after googling I see they aren't the same but no matter how hard I try when I say them they are the same

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen Lay-ers/lairs Lovely! I can hear you!

I like Mary Berry and all but it really irritates me when she takes a bite of something from the side of her mouth.

It reminds me of a cat eating a sausage.

Her crunching frigging annoys me she said this has a great crunch while crunching on gbbo wanted to punch her in the face actually wanted to punch and old lady in the face dd has been watching her new programme its a bit twee tbh

Ah gosh I love Mary Berry! I have a few of her cookbooks including her latest. It's fantastic, requires the simplest and fewest of ingredients and this dishes are heavenly!

I'm goig to try the sausage lasagne, I'm not sure if it's in her new book but it is on bbc's website.

Oh she had polio didnt know that i assumed she had athritis in her hands

The sausage lasagne was really tasty, I made it this week. Going to try the chicken and asparagus one from this weeks episode too.
I very rarely make anything I see on a cooking programme so anything that adds a few more recipes to the repertoire is fine with me!

"Flour to a chicken sauce tonight, added really at the last minute. That's the kind of technique used by my Mum in the 70's. Things have moved on."

She did say it was old fashioned to add flour. I still use flour, not being keen on adding butter or cream to sauces.

I made the ice cream the other week and it was amazing. I don't have an ice cream maker and her recipe worked perfectly.

I bought the book at the Harrogate Food Show and Mary Berry signed it and put DD and my names on it.

I think we are so used to TV cooks/chefs making something "with a twist" all the time that it makes a change to see someone like Mary Berry go back to basics. I fancy trying out that sausage meat lasagne as well BTW.

My dd baked a cake using her recipe it was vile. I had to explain the all in one method only works if you use candle wax chemical shit like marg. Dd followed the WI sponge method and produced a beautiful cake. She is so upset she thought MB was the best.

I've always assumed she takes sideways bites to avoid dislodging false teeth.

They do look like dentures.

Sometimes the recipes aren't exactly up to modern ideas of nutrition, like the time she made a "healthy" smoothie for her grandchildren and added about a cup of sugar.

Her nails look way too long for cooking too.

Lol at cat and sausage.

KingTut I usually use Stork for baking and my cakes are lovely. I have a bit of a local reputation for my baking and people often ask me to make cakes for birthdays. I always add a bit of vanilla extract to a plain sponge, and I think that makes a huge difference.

And, yes you can use butter to make an all in one mix. It needs to be really soft, that's all.

I watch it for ideas, and her techniques, which are very good, but agree some of the recipes are very old-fashioned with all that flour, butter and cream.

You can make all-in-one cakes with very soft butter, very successfully, but I still think the proper way is best as you don't then get that fizz of too much baking powder.

I add 1tbsp of lemon verbena to my lemon verbena drizzle not her measly tsp (due to misreading a Hugh Furry-Wildebeest recipe, but it was so good it has stuck)

I can't bear when she bites from the side of her mouth, clearly avoiding the falsers at the front. I can practically hear them clicking when she talks.

"but I still think the proper way is best as you don't then get that fizz of too much baking powder."

I don't get that fizz. I do think that B advocates using more baking powder than is necessary in-all-in one mixtures, but I CBA with the old fashioned creaming method any more. It's a waste of electricity (you won't get me doing that lot by hand) and time consuming, and IMO the results aren't any better.

YANBU. She is a lovely lady I'm sure, but I don't actually rate her recipes that highly. I find her cake recipes make really dry cakes but everyone else claims to rave over them. I don't have the same problem with other cooks recipes. I remember her afternoon TV programmes from the 1970's and she has hardly changed, apart from gaining the status of national treasure, the irony being that she was more or less forgotten about by the media for 20 odd years before GBBO started. I also hate that GBBO has become more specialist and less about what ordinary people can knock up in their own kitchen, but that's another story!!

Bun baker - me too wrt using Stork.