I'm a bit late to the party, but I loved episode one. My favourite cake of the evening was the coffee swiss roll, rolled in hazelnut praline - I could have scoffed that!
I needed Mary Berry in my kitchen today - ds1 is 21, and I am baking a cake for him. Sadly I don't bake very often, and so have not got a handle on how long to bake cakes for in my fan oven - that's my excuse, and I am sticking to it - so every cake I make is overbaked and dry. To the extent that ds3 asked if my friend (who baked me a cake, which ds3 had a slice of and then raved about) could bake his birthday cake for him this year - the cheeky sod.
I think I have got it right, this time - on the victoria sponge and the cup cakes. He asked for chocolate cake with coffee icing, but MIL, who is staying with us, can't eat chocolate, so I have forced myself to make a batch of coffee cupcakes too, so she can have cake with the rest of us. I am a martyr, I tell you - an absolute martyr. What makes it worse is that, by some total accident, I made 22 cupcakes - and MIL won't be able to eat all of them, so I am going to be left with cupcakes that will need eating.