Homage to GBBO....

Have you been watching the Great British BakeOff Masterclass and last year's competition revisited?  Here at Harrison's Fund we are all addicted, partly because we all hope the brilliance of their baking and the inventiveness of their decoration will rub off on us as the Cake Time Party and the Cake & Craft Sale draws near.

Mary Berry always gives the best simple tips, for example, the times when you completely forget to take the butter out of the fridge to come up to room temperature before beating. Now we know to fill a bowl with baby bath temperature water and pop in the butter cut into cubes for about 10 mins, and it works, we've tested it!

I wonder if anyone's been trying out some of the bakes, rum babas, treacle tarts, plaited loaf, hand raised pie or a fondant fancy?  Love to see some pics.

We enjoyed seeing what the 2011 contestants are up to now, probably most bakers that watched the GBBO last year have bought the Jo Wheatley's Passion for Baking Book but it was great to see so many of the others had found outlets to use their skills, from teaching in college, advising on historic recipes that could be brought up to date and used in a delightful tea shop, to teaching baking classes and becoming a radio presenter.  The common factor between all the bakers was how down to earth they were, how much they loved spending time baking even if it could be stressful, their cameraderie as a group and their ability to shed tears over their bakes including the macaroons!

So there is still time to have a Cake Time Party, small or large, wiz an email to info@harrisonsfund.com and we'll send you a Cake Time Party fundraisers pack to download by return.  And don't forget to take lots of pics so that we can add them to this blog.

make time...

Thame & Claygate... This is your chance to get involved

So who's missing the Great British Bake Off already? Have you been inspired to do some baking? Why not join 'Harrison's Cake Time Party' from the 1st-8th November?

We have a great fundraiser's pack full of useful resources and fun ideas available. From posters and invites to cake stencils and recipes we've got it covered. Whatever you need to hold a Cake Time Party at home or work or for a Cake Sale in a hall we've got everything you need apart from the cake!

If you would like a pack please send us an email via www.harrisonsfund.org, tweet us on Twitter, @harrisonsfund or @jennijjs, and we'll email one out to you.

If you don't have time to host your own Cake Time Party, and haven't been able to persuade a friend to do so for you then we'd like to tell you about two great Cake Time Parties because I know that if you live locally you are just going to want to get involved, if you'd like to bake a cake that would be fabulous, otherwise you can go along and enjoy buying and eating cake, and don't forget that there will be lots of activities for children too.

So here's the details:

10 -12 am 2nd November             John Hampden Primary School, Thame, Oxon
Organiser: Liz Smailes

10.30 - 1pm 3rd November          Holy Trinity Church Hall, Claygate, Surrey
Organiser: Sherry Secker

Hot chocolate on a stick - divine decadence..

If you were thinking of having a cake sale party and wanted something else as well as cakes to sell then look no further.  The lovely Holly Bell @HollyBellMummy, one of the darlings and runner up of the Series 2 Great British Bake Off donated this lovely recipe to Harrison's Fund for their charity Cake Time Recipe Book. You can purchase your copy here. We are offering this recipe to you on our Recipe page as a fantastic, but simple way to add a little extra to your Cake Time Party offering.  I think the only drawback with these is the amount of will power you need to not pop them straight into hot milk!

Katie's cupcakes sales a hit at school...

Earlier in the summer we ran a big awareness campaign supported by the launch of a video featuring Harrison and his family discussing the impact of Harrison's Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy diagnosis.  Since that time we have had so many contacts, donations, and offers to take on a challenge to fundraise for Harrison's Fund that it has really touched everyone close to Harrison and his family.

Yesterday we heard about Katie who has been making cupcakes - and we mean lots of cupcakes! She is selling them at her school to raise money for Harrison's Fund.  Katie is a gorgeous 15 year old from London who attends the Sacred Heart School in Hammersmith.  Katie watched the Harrison's Fund awareness video with her dad Michael and decided she wanted to do something to help. 



Katie loves baking cakes, her speciality is a lovely chocolate one that her Dad is rather partial to, and she is now quite an experienced baker, and decided that this was the way to raise money.  She's teamed up with her friend Louise who also loves to bake and they've raised over £40 on their first day with more days to come.

Here's the 70 cupcakes on their way into school today, don't they look delicious!

From everyone at Harrison's Fund and especially Harrison who always send a big smile to a pretty lady, a big thank you to Katie and her Dad for making time to watch the video together.

If you would like to help Harrison's Fund and join the Cake Time Party, we now have a great support pack complete with invitations, cut out bunting, recipes and lots more that we can email to you. Just send an email to Cake Time and we'll do the rest, and as Mel and Sue say, 1,2,3 let's bake!

Make Time for Cake Time...

Great British Bake Off Darlings support Cake Time Party

It's Tuesday or more precisely it's Great British Bake Off Tuesday, WooHoo!

We're planning to make some Soda Bread using Old Blue Eye's perfect recipe, never fails and then we're going to make some three fruits marmalade, grapefruit, orange, lemon to sell at the weekend at my local producers market, followed by Millionaire's Shortbread which We've never made before but want to try to see if it might also be on the list of bakes for the market.  We will have to try the shortbread so that could just possibly be when we settle down to watch the semis this evening, you've got to have a little something to watch, haven't you, and it is for a good cause, isn't it?

So while We're thinking about my baking we want to also thank Cathryn Dresser and Sarah-Jane Willis, everyones darlings and the great british public's star bakers from this series of Great British Bake Off for supporting Harrison's Cake Time Party with a fabulous recipe for Rhubarb Upside Down Cake, which we think may well be next on our baking list!  Lovely to have fruit in cake, makes it so easy to be sure they are virtuous, healthy and calorie free as they must be part of your five a day, don't you agree?

So do have a look at their recipe here and don't forget to let us know about your party so that we can add it to the news and we can cover the country in cake.

Make Time for Cake Time....

GBBO's John Whaite supports Cake Time Party

Another Great British Bake Off contestant John Whaite has agreed to support Harrison's Cake Time Party. John is now in the last 4 of the contest and was Star Baker in the second episode when their technical challenge was Paul Hollywood's daunting eight strand loaf.

You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWhaiteBakes and do take a look at John Whaite's blog 

So his recipe is for a gorgeous Coffee & Walnut Cake which has a lovely rich flavour great for a morning Cake Time Party, but then maybe it would be just as delicious at Tea Time, and then again, I think it would also be perfect made as a square cake and cut into neat little squares to eat with a glass of something bubbly.  So there you are perfect anytime of day.

Danny the Baker supports Cake Time Party!

How exciting was last night's episode of The Great British Bake Off!  Admitedly no blood, or only briefly, phew! But two contestants leaving, the lovely Sarah-Jane and Ryan, very sad, we're going to miss them...a lot.

Danny the Baker, pulled out all the stops, used her injecting technique to good advantage, and came out as *Star Baker*.  Well Done Danny, so well deserved!

We are thrilled that Danny has agreed to support the Harrison's Cake Time Party and has shared 2 fabulous brownie recipes, take a look at the Recipe tab for these. Do also follow her on Twitter @DannytheBaker and her blog Baking As Therapy

We also thank Danny for her kind message: "Good Luck with your venture.  I've looked after boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and it is indeed a tragedy for the boy and the family.
Best Wishes
Danny"

Tea Party Cake Ideas - my favourites!

Tea Party Cake Ideas - my favourites!

I thought it might be an idea to suggest some cake ideas suitable for the different times that you could have a Cake Time Party.  So I'm starting off with a traditional Tea Party.

An experienced cook or if you're in a rush and prefer to pop out to buy some cakes, my suggestions would beany of these:

• Cupcakes, dainty and pretty with lots of colour
• Macaroons, they can also be in different flavours and colours but my ultimate favourite is Chocolate with a ganache filling.
• Coffee Eclairs, actually not as difficult to make as you would think.
• Shortbread, lots of different flavour combinations work well
• Millionaires Shortbread, very decadent and delicious
• Battenburg, not to be taken on to bake by the faint hearted!

If you'd like to bake some simpler but equally delicious cakes then I'd suggest:

• Chocolate Cake, Harrison's Favourite
• Coffee and Walnut Cake
• Apple Cake
• Chocolate Brownies
• Cookies that have a nice squidgy centre
• Victoria Sandwich with Cream and Fruit

What do you think?  Let me know if you have other suggestions.  A lot of these recipes are in the Cake Time Book but I will also be adding some to the recipe page here so do keep having a little look for updates here.

Happy Baking and Cake Eating!  Make Time.....

Italian Apple Cake

So who's still making a strudel for their Cake Time Party

Having watched last night's episode of Great British Bake Off, strudel has been very firmly crossed off my list of things to bake!  All the contestants are really good bakers, far better than me, and if they're struggling then I'm going to stick to Beeny's Brownies and the Chewychocchip Cookies which are chocolaty, chewy and just plain yummy.

You can find the recipe for Beeny's Brownies on the Recipe page of this blog, but we haven't posted the Cookies one yet.

If you want to see what they look like, have a look at Harrison's Bake-Off blog where some really keen bakers are baking a new recipe each week out of the Harrison's Cake Time Cook Book and then posting pictures of their creations for everyone to see. If you want to join in and get lots of baking practice in before your Cake Time Party, you will need to buy the cook book - just click on Buy Cake Time Cook Book to get your copy and then just join in - they're really nice bakers and not a bit scary!
happy Baking!

Cake Time Party Takes Off

Natasha Stringer was a finalist in this year's Great British Bake Off and she's given us a wonderful Lemon, Passion fruit and Elderflower cake recipe for you to try as part of your Harrison's Cake Time Party menu - thank you Tasha it looks fab & tastes even better!
It's a 3 layered vanilla sponge, with lemon curd between one layer and passion fruit jam and butter cream between the next layer. The cake's decorated with a simple cream cheese and mascarpone frosting, flavoured with elderflower cordial, a subtle but fresh flavour.
Go on, you know you want to!
Natasha also writes a lovely food blog  that's full of fabulous cake recipes, just click on Tasha's Temptations to have a look and find more of her fantastic cake recipes.