Good morning, friends! And welcome to another Good Things Gathered post. This week’s good things are all about the delicious and delectable and very, very British!

I don’t watch much T.V., but when I do it’s often on the BritBox App. On there, they have several tv series with British cooking icon Mary Berry, my current favorite being “Mary Berry’s Absolute Favorites.” They also got the series “Mary Berry’s Country House Secrets” about food in Britain’s most gracious country estates– including Highclere Castle of Downton Abbey fame. For Americans, we know Mary Berry best from her appearances in the earlier seasons of The Great British Baking Show.

And so, with all that in mind– here are a few of my Good Things Gathered!~

1. Baking With Mary Berry and Cooking With Mary Berry are now available in paperback, and I was happy to find both these copies at my local bookstore. I love those both books have some very classic British dishes included, and I know I can rest assured that if Mary is giving the recipe, it’ll be good! I love that her recipes are pretty simple and straight forward. She doesnt send you scrambling here and there for exotic spices that will cost a lot and then sit going stale in your cupboard since you only use it for one dish. I’m very interested in making her version of ‘fish and chips’ sometime soon, and I love all the desserts found in her baking cookbook! Several of them are so very traditionally English and I’ve never tried them before. I’m very much looking forward to it!

2) Speaking of traditional British desserts, for Easter (as I wrote about in a previous post) I baked a Victoria Sponge cake. They are so decadent, but SO good! I even froze some of ours to make it last a little longer. I’ve got a slice of it shown in today’s post banner, because it is just SO pretty! Mary Berry has a recipe included in her baking book, but I noticed that it doesn’t include the butter cream and is only jam. She also suggest an alternative to the jam by using lemon curd as the filling and putting a bit of lemon peel into the cake rounds. It sounds wonderful and I’m definitely going to try it!

3) Another good thing I’ve been enjoying as the days get warmer is homemade ice coffee. It is SO simple to make, basically— just ice and a bit of half and half with your leftover coffee made in the morning. I usually have a cup first thing, but if there’s a bit left in the pot later on in the day, I’ll pour it over ice and add some half and half to have an ‘iced coffee’ as good as anything you’d pay $5 for at the local coffee shop! I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here before (apologies if I have!) but it took me way too long in life to figure this out, haha!

Anyhow….these are just a few Good Things that I’ve got to share with you this week. I hope that you enjoy them, and now I’m very much in the mood for something sweet! Have you ever cooked or baked with a Mary Berry book? Do you have a favorite old fashioned dessert that you like to make?

I hope you are well and hope you have a wonderful weekend. Have a great Friday as well!

Til next time–

Take Joy!
H

PS-

Before we go! I thought I’d share with you a bit of an episode with Mary Berry (Mary Berry’s Absolute Favourites) to get you in the baking mood! This one is a lemon meringue pie– YUM!