Candyman goes for jellyThe Candyman thinks he is in good nick, but hasn't had a cholesterol test lately. He goes to the gym and still fits in his Christmas trousers so I guess he is healthy as any other Northern lad.

This week he managed to plow through some of his Vegas-themed sweeties and almost finish all the jellybeans left in his bowl- at one point he randomly pulled out a fresh, soft jelly doughnut covered in sugar! It looked sooo good I wanted to grab it and eat it whole but resisted as it would go straight to the hips - I haven't done any exercise this week. The j-doughnut was from Marks and Spencer - they do nice things in their fresh bakery section.

Am going for a run today to work off the chocolate cake I indulged in last night and to prepare for the karaoke extravaganza tonight with the Chandler

(Errm...is that a bottle of champagne on his shelf?)

Without Betty & blenderThe first chocolate cake I made without Betty Crocker! All ingredients were individually mixed, with no blender (my arm was hurting) and some Kiwis were laughing at me that I never made a cake from scratch. Who needs to make one from scratch when Betty Crocker's takes 3 minutes to blend and all you have to do is add 2 eggs and some water!? My mother was a working woman!

No ingredients came from a box and luckily there was baking powder or baking soda in the cupboard. It took WAY more time than using a ready mix but was interesting to try. It was delicious but am not sure it came out exactly right as it felt really heavy, not 'moist and delicious' like Miss Crocker promises. (Betty Crocker is a brand of cake mixes in America for all those peeps that don't know who I am referring to)
Stellina and the heckler (BH) enjoyed decorating it and eating it and it was worth all the hard work in the end. I think my next purchase is a blender. I probably have one arm muscle bigger than the other as this weekend I made a banana cake sans blender too. All these cakes are not good for my preparation for the beach in March but I guess that is what flowy sarongs are for.

Nuria's
Baked vegetable lasagna and a yummy and simple vegetable soup served at Nuria's on a cold winter's night. The chef in blue and her assistants behind her. I need to have her over my house now for my version of lasagna. Her's had a bechamel sauce and some butter which mine have neither of. Am making it tomorrow for some friends and a special chocolate cake for a cute 5 year old. I also use no-bake pasta while she did it the old fashioned way and cooked hers. It was delicious! Grazias painting partner.

Betty & I
With a little help from Betty Crocker and the Bunny rabbit, we made 4 cakes to create this 4-0 for Jappy's bday. It had a layer of white icing in between and was decorated with some lovely toppings that I bought at Waitrose.

There were a few glitches before the final product came to fruition e.g. cake sticking to the pan, the cakes exploded in the oven into pimple-like structures so some creative cutting was in order, icing and cake crumbs all over the kitchen, trying to open the door with chocolate frosting covered hands, general icing difficulties, finding chocolate icing on my arm at the club and more... but, the end result looked good and it didn't get jostled too much in the taxi.
Luckily the designer-extraordinaire was in town from Prague to make the '4.' It looked like it would be an arrow with a 0 cake before she stepped in to make a cutout of a 4. Thanks E!
Even the waiters loved it.
The delivery.The birthday boy

Arm Muscle?


I spent the day with Daniel, a talented, young and handsome pastry chef from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel's chic restaurant Foliage. We walked around Chinatown, visited a hidden, sweat-shop-y noodle factory in one of the back alleys and had lunch in a fab new deli. Will post on the noodle factory and the deli later.

After some talk of the splendid deserts that Daniel creates and how some women clients have come back to the kitchen gushing that his chocolat fondant gave them an orgasm I felt a bit inspired. So I decided to make a cake, out of the box! Not the same but still chocolate right? So I said to Daniel, 'I have been meaning to make this cake for ages but did not have a blender.' He looked at me strangely and said, 'Well why not use a spoon or a whisk?' Duh... so this cake mix has been sitting in my cupboard for ages now and it never dawned on me to make it the way my gran always made her cakes with some good old muscle...sometimes we forget what we did before modern gadgetry?!

So off I set, it all was going well, eggs & milk into the bowl, it all smelled chocolate-y, then I needed to add vegetable oil. I picked it out of the cupboard, poured the allocated amount and poured it in - my cake mix then bubbled, started to smell and there were white bits floating around my once lovely brown cake mix. The smell was putrid - I think the oil had gone off and had ruined my cake.

There went the chance of my Daniel and friends tasting my cake and having pure pleasure. So I dumped it down the sink and Rexi turned up with a reduced price Lindt Easter bunny and we ate that instead, ears first of course. Sorry D - will have to make another cake - thx for the cake tins though.

:)