Guinness & chocolate cake for breakfast

I walked to the tube today*, so was feeling pretty virtuous...
So virtuous that I was about to buy a breakfast croissant from the cafe.

But thank goodness I didn't, because Nigel had brought
in an ENORMOUS Guinness and chocolate cake.

His sister Hilary made it for him for his birthday,
and it tastes absolutely amazing.

We are calling it the breakfast of champions.

*It's a 15 minute bus ride usually, honest.

Vanilla choc chip cookies

Very simple, but very tasty, here are some vanilla choc chip cookies...

I roughly chopped a bar of dark chocolate rather than using choc chips,
as then you get nice big chunks of gooey chocolate.

I also added some chopped brazil nuts, almonds and hazelnuts
for added crunch and flavour.

Double choc cookies for Catrin

Here are some double chocolate cookies I made for
Atb creative director Catrin's birthday...


The recipe is from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook and
contains a mere 450g of dark chocolate for 12 cookies.

Yep, they're pretty hardcore... the perfect accompaniment
to a poster advocating excessive alcohol consumption.

Ever happy to pose for a photo, here's Cookieface.

Chocolate chilli macaroons

And another first this month: macaroons.

I followed Hugh F-W's recipe for easy chocolate macaroons

in Guardian Weekend magazine, so these are a kind of rustic version

of le macaron... not quite Laduree standard.

I also took the liberty of adding a bit of chilli powder to the

macaroon dough and the ganache.

They tasted good, but are not the most attractive thing I have

ever made.... next time I'm going to try to make the real thing.

Catrin joins the shoe club

Now Catrin loooves shoes... we all know that... so what

better birthday treat than double chocolate dancing shoe cookies?

You make some chocolate-rich cookie dough, chill it in the

fridge, then roll it out and use a shoe-shaped cookie cutter.

Then you bake them, let them cool, and slather them with
melted chocolate. 85% cocoa if possible...

Then the fun part... who knew you could dye caster sugar

with food colouring? Thanks "Cupcakes Cheesecakes Cookies

By The Australian Women's Weekly". And thanks to Jez &

Tanya who bought me the book for Christmas!

You add some strategically-placed silver and gold balls,

then the coloured sugar... and then... because I'm obsessed

with edible glitter and sparkling vampires and they weren't

quite ridiculous-looking enough... I scattered a whole load of

holographic glitter all over them.

Catrin was very pleased to finally be a part of the shoe club...
And check out those Louboutins!

Thanks to David Reffell for the marvellously surreal pics.
Check out his other work here.

The devil eats food cake: Arthur's birthday

Arthur is a big chocolate fan, so a rich devil's food cake was

the perfect choice for her birthday...

You have to cook a huge chocolate cake, whose 'secret' ingredient

is chocolate custard, then leave it to cool... before cutting into

layers. Next, mix up a huge batch of chocolate icing and then

cement it all together...

I wasn't sure if that was quite enough chocolate, so I added

some dark chocolate shavings for good measure.

The cake weighed about 4 stone, but I managed to transport it into

the office intact before it was attacked with Sandra's scary knife.

Most importantly, it went down very well with cake face.

Chocolate chilli cupcakes

I made these for Lindsey's surprise 30th birthday party.

Mini chocolate brownie cupcakes with a big hit of hot chilli powder.

I added the red sparkles for extra dramatic effect.

As you can see, Catrin was so taken aback (and loaded with Prosecco),

that the camera shook a little when the box was opened.

Glossy double choc cupcakes

Old phone pic no. 3

These were some double choc cupcakes I made for
Joey and Andrew's joint birthday a few years ago...

I think they were choc fudge cakes with a glossy dark chocolate ganache icing.

WARNING: Though silver balls look cool, they can take a tooth out.