That 70's Cookbook

I once had a Cadbury’s Chocolate Cookbook, and although I had made very few of the recipes, each one tasted amazing, then one day the book went missing.  Gutted.

So last Christmas my mum hoping to replace the book with the same or an updated version ordered a Cadbury book online, but what arrived was a million times better than could have been expected.  This version of the Cadbury’s Chocolate Cookbook was first published in 1978 and is so deliciously retro it’s impossible to describe, so I will just leave some of my favourite images for you to pleasurably peruse.

I am yet to try any of the recipes but I feel November is the month.  Piping was clearly very big in the 70’s and I really can't wait any longer to whip out my nozzle for a Paradise Ring.  The names are almost as good as the cakes themselves; I especially like...


 Intriguing Peppermint Cake, Shaggy Dog Cake, Krackolates, Ginger Shorties, Frosted Malted Bars and the Snowy Chocolate Ring.

I HAVE to make the Intriguing Peppermint Cake, to be quite honest; I’m intrigued!

Death by Chocolate Orange

Have I told you lately that I love…HALLOWEEN?!?!?

And who could love it more than the dentist?  Hundred of children gorging themselves on sweet will do wonders, I imagine, to boost business.  On Halloween night, one snack sized Milky Way just isn’t enough, and the importance of flavour combinations goes out the window, Haribo Tangfastics are munched up in mouths still coated with Mars bars and sprinkling the inside of a Snickers bar with Nerds seem like an everyday thing to do.

So for these cakes we have, vanilla sponge with a raspberry centre, cream cheese icing, topped with a slice of Terry’s Chocolate Orange...not forgetting the all important dousing of red food colouring blood, when using this much food colouring it is also a good idea to mix it with flavouring first to mask any taste the colouring might have (or just use a fruit compote like I wish I’d done).

My experiments, Pasta Girl and Tree Boy, were both impressed, and if it’s good enough for them, I am certain it will be good enough for the little brats come OCTOBER 31^st!!

I ♥ Halloween Cupcakes 

This is Halloween: Part 2

Perhaps it's a bit weird that I am listening to Angela Lansbury singing We Need a Little Christmas while I post this, but Halloween is all about the weird so I figure it's perfectly acceptable!.. Right?

I am so proud of my little room, and more so now it's been Halloween-afied..  

The first step of making wonderful cakes is good music.. but when creating Halloween cakes music isn't enough.. you need to dance naked in the moonlight, sleep under a barbie dressed as Lady Gaga with surrounding bats and turn you room into a fire hazard by placing candles anywhere you can think of.

Doll in a wedding dress in essential.. Harry Potter wand.. black lace.. giant spider.. 

My Jewelled Pumpkin Patch!

This is Halloween: Part 1

HALLOWEEN!!!

No one does Halloween better than the Spellman family!  Valery as a duck, HILARIOUS!

Growing up on the British Island of Guernsey I could only dream of Halloween decorations like that had in Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

I'd love to!

The river of Candy Corn!  Dear Americans, us English don't even have Candy Corn!!

There are literally millions of screenshot I want to use, I really want Orange candles and autumnal garlands and a coffin for my talking cat to sit in, oh and endless amounts of dry ice.

Who want to come Halloween carolling with me?  "OHH have a happy happy happy Halloween!!

My Favourite ever Sabrina line "Delilah!  My name's not Delilah it's Fred!  Don't make me turn this car around! BRRRRRLLLLLLLLLRRRRRRRRR!!!!"

Back to Basics

Having entered the month of Halloween, my favourite holiday, I am already stressing about what to wear for the various costume parties, decorating my room, and cupcake ideas.  My next post will be about my love for all things witchy, but right now I want to revel in the idea of simple baking perfection.

If you watched this season of The Great British Bake-off you will know it was won by Jo, due to her simple recipes with exceptional flavours, rather than Holly with her amazing technical abilities or Mary-Ann with her experimental baking.  Who doesn’t love a Classic Victoria Sponge?  The art comes in making something simple taste exceptional, which I have recently learnt to do in my Italian cooking lessons. 

With chocolate cake just having the chocolate flavour guarantees most people will like it no matter what your baking abilities are, however I have found it to be one of the most difficult cakes to get right, and it’s something I am always trying to improve.  Not to play around with flavours but just to do simple well. 

These chocolate cakes are the best I have produced for a long time and achieve a blog post because of a new accidently method.  When I tasted the mixture just before putting it into the cases it tasted horrible, I was gutted and couldn’t understand why.  Then I realised I never added the sugar, “SHH-UGAR!” I exclaimed, so I added it there and then, and the end, I can’t say I had much faith in them but they were amazing, lighter and better risen then ever before.  Curiouser and curiouser.

This was supposed to be a short post like the old days…but when your passionate about something, simple isn’t always easy to achieve, as my Halloween costume will undoubtedly prove.

Anna's Cupcakes

This week I was asked by my Italian housemate, Anna to teach her how to bake cupcakes.  I agreed on the condition that she in turn teaches me to cook Italian food, and so a beautiful friendship was formed.

Group decorating is one of my favourite things to do, for some reason the pressure is removed and the motivation becomes fitting as many sugary decorations on top of the cakes as possible. 

With the Meadham Kirchhoff S/S12 show as my last post, timing couldn’t be better.  Their show was all protesting the ways women get coloured with an expectation to be pretty and girly and with all the random decorations I had I felt we could do the same about cakes.   They are always marketed toward women, whenever you see them in stores and cafes they are topped with flowers or glitter, and if you go into the supermarket with the intention of making your our the supermarkets limited decorations are always in pastel colours, and so various influences force cupcakes to be a girl confection.

p.s. my male housemate was the one that ate most of them

There were further accidental coincidences with the MK12 show during the baking lesson.  I put on one of Tavi Gevinson’s playlist from 8tracks, as is becoming a tradition of my baking, and the first song that played?  Miss World by Hole, the same song that opened the runway show!  Then when the baking was finished, we both sat down with big mugs of tea to enjoy our creations, here my Italian co-baker explained; that she felt strange because while decorating and taking photo’s of the cakes she had been very serious but now eating the cupcakes with all their sugar toppings she felt like doing the can-can.  Without knowing she had just related her first cupcake experience with the opening to MK12 show.  Perfect!

Thank you Anna for helping my fill these cakes and picture with happy memories xxx