Mary Berry’s super simple hack is ideal for when you want to plan a special evening without having to spend hours in the kitchen.
Dame Mary Berry has revealed the time-saving hack that she swears by to help make prepping for big dinner parties easier to manage. In her new TV series Foolproof Dinners, Mary solves celebrities’ ‘dinnertime dilemmas’, including sharing advice for making dinner parties less stressful.
Mary explains that this is ‘something she’s been passionate about for years’ and wants to encourage people to understand that if you’re cooking something special that doesn’t mean you need to ‘make everything on the day’ as this is going to leave you feeling more stressed and shorter on time.
She explains: “Make full use of your freezer. If you know somebody’s coming at the weekend and you’ve got time on a particular day, you can make ahead and you can freeze it or make some for now and some for another day.
In her new show, Mary spends time with Countryfile’s Hamza Yassin who is looking for a girlfriend and wants to woo her with food.Mary explained: “He loves fish, so we did a sensational halibut dish with clam sauce. I then brought him a decadent chocolate cake which is perfect for impressing a love interest and he loved it!”
She then explained that if Yassin wanted to recreate this dish, he could opt to make the chocolate cake in advance, freeze it, and then decorate it on the day. Mary added that it’s important not to worry about ‘taking shortcuts’ and said: “You know, if time is short, buy a packet of pre-cooked lentils or buy a packet of puff pastry. Don’t feel guilty when you do these things.”
In another episode, where Mary visited her ‘dear friend’ Sue Perkins at home, she shared some tips for keeping dishes simple.She explained: “In the kitchen Sue’s issue is that she’s a very good cook, and knowledgeable about food but she sometimes over complicates things when hosting a crowd.
“She is very well travelled, and she’s learned about different foods wherever she has gone but she never follows a recipe which can often lead to disasters. We created an impressive rhubarb plate pie with homemade pastry that Sue just loved.”
