I’ve been illustrating recipe ideas for my next cookbook (just for fun, they won’t be in the book): pastry creams, mousses and lots of other delicious treats.

Tags: cookbook, illustrations, michael joseph, penguin

On Friday the 22nd October I got to show the a few select Parisians how to make some delicious teatime treats at the hippest store in town, Colette. Recipes from my second book ‘Je fais mes pâtes à tartiner’ were made into delicious delicacies (petits fours, mini triffles and little dainty sandwiches).

Photos by Colette.

Keep reading…

Tags: books, Colette, Marabout, Paris, Pâtes à tartiner

I finally bit the bullet and decided to try and photograph a soufflé. Already not an easy thing to make, let alone simple to photograph. Basically it involves setting everything up perfectly ( I did a few shots before hand with a dummy soufflé), making more than one example and shooting SUPER quick.

Making a soufflé and seeing it deflate feels pretty similar to doing an event. You spend ages doing the preparation but once it comes out of the oven, the result is a bit short lived. Still worth it. The cloud like texture with the rich chocolate taste is quite divine.

A few tips:

•    Make sure to butter and dust with sugar or cocoa your ramekins well. Don’t forget to clean the edges. Badly buttered and cleaned ramekins may result in the mixture sticking and not being able to rise properly.
•    Don’t forget to preheat your oven to the right temperature. Too hot and the soufflés will crack at the top, burn on the outside and be raw inside. Too cold the soufflés won’t rise properly.
•    Instead of using sugar to dust the ramekins you can also try cocoa powder, cocoa mixed with ground cinammon or other spices. Or mix the sugar with the cocoa powder to keep that crunch.

Chocolate & banana soufflé

5                     egg whites
1.5oz/40g                sugar
2                     pinches of salt
—-
2                          egg yolks
2 tbsp                 sugar
2 ripe bananas

—
3.5oz/100g                chocolate
1.5oz/50g                butter
—
Soft butter and sugar to dust your ramekins.

8 ramekins

Preheat your oven to 350°F/175°c. Butter the ramekins with a pastry brush and dust with sugar (use granulated or raw cane sugar). Make sure to tap all excess sugar off. Clean the edges of the ramekin.
Place the chocolate, butter and water in a metal or glass bowl. Place a pot of water on a low heat and put the bowl with chocolate on top of the pot. The bowl should not be in contact with the water.
In blender whizz together the egg yolks, bananas and 2 tbsp of sugar until you have a smooth mixture. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with the sugar and salt until you have medium stiff peaks or can make a wobbly bird beak with the eggwhites.
Once the chocolate mixture is melted. Beat in the egg yolks. Loosen up the mixture by adding some of the beaten eggwhites. Mix together. Using a spatula fold in the chocolate mixture into the eggwhites. Work quickly. Pour the mixture into the ramekins and bake for 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Tags: soufflé, technique, the school of life

After ‘khooking’ up a storm for the past several years in Paris I went back to my London roots with a mouth-watering “mash up” meal on

The unique dinner showcased a range of tasty ideas using food, music and the arts as forms of expression. For this scrumptious supper, I combined far Eastern flavours from PikPikZoo, Hong Kong based illustrators with a hint of more local flavour in the form of a musical mash up by Joseph Seresin.

Of course, I added my own creative touch to the 6-course dinner (paired with wine). Click here for menu.

The festive feast took place at the private dinner club The Loft.

The Loft is a private supper club and personal test kitchen of Nuno Mendes, one of London’s innovative & revolutionary chefs (El Bulli trained & previous head chef of Bacchus, London). He will be opening his next restaurant, Viajante at the Bethnal Green Town Hall in 2010.

Joseph Seresin runs by day a bespoke creative studio whose ethos is to provide a tailored solution to your project with a range of creative services encompassing anything from brand identity through to one-off illustrated pieces. At night however he is known to put his creative talents to spinning tasty tunes in hip places from London to Ibiza.

PikPik Zoo are Hong Kong based design duo Zoe Lydia and Miss Kate. Touring the world (New York, London, Paris, Stockholm & Hong Kong) with their PikPik Panda character they’ve been spreading their philosophy of we care, we share.

If you are on a picture and you want it to be removed, please send me an email.

Photos from event taken by Bronia Stewart.

Tags: food design, Joseph Seresin, mash up, PikPikZoo, secret, the Loft, underground

This is just a quickie post to wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS. For this years Christmas post the most fashionable cake of the year definetly had to be in the picture. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to give you the recipe but it’s quite simple. Just take your favourite chocolate cake recipe add a pinch of cinammon and cardomam. Bake in cupcake forms and ice with a simple blend of icing sugar with freshly squeezed orange juice. If you have a great spiced chocolate cake recipe, please let me know.

Hope to see you in the New Year!

Tags: cupcakes, seasonal, spicy