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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Here’s another christmassy biscuit…

This time last year my tiny studio turned into a mini biscuit factory. Like my aunts in Austria who bake tons of Christmas biscuits every year I like to carry on the tradition (maybe not as well and in smaller quantities). Unfortunately this year I just haven’t had the time to bake as much (slightly due to the fact that I’ve been baking about 500 biscuits a week at La Cocotte recently) so I came up with this easy but just as delicious recipe.

If you’re having problems finding a gift (or you fancy treating yourself) why not buy some Menu for Hope raffle tickets…you could be in for a chance of winning some once in a life time prizes. And at the same time you’ld be doing something great for the people in Lesotho.

I just want to say THANK YOU to all my readers. Your visits and comments are greatly appreciated (to say the least). I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and munch through lots of delicious dishes. I’ll be tucking into some mince pies and no doubt plenty of other scrummy English things when I get back to the UK.

Chocolate & cinnamon cantucci

240g flour
30g cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
165g sugar
100g dark chocolate, chopped in large chunks
100g hazelnuts
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 160°c. Sieve together flour, cocoa, baking powder and cinnamon. Whisk together eggs and sugar until foamy, add nuts and chopped chocolate followed by flour mixture. Combine, at the end you may need to knead the ingredients together. Divide dough into two parts. Roll each into a log shape. Bake for 35 minutes. Leave to cool and then cut into 5mm slices. Bake again at 160°c for about 15 minutes or until crispy.

The lovely Fanny from Foodbeam sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, asking whether I could participate in the Menu for Hope IV event. Menu for hope is an annual fundraising event masterminded by chez Pim raising money for the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

Each year, food bloggers from all over the world join forces to host the Menu for Hope online raffle, offering an array of delectable culinary prizes. For every US$10, the donor receive a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of their choice. This year, the prizes include once in a lifetime experiences such as touring the elBulli laboratory with Ferran Adrià , dining on a historic British meal prepared by Heston Blumenthal, or joining Harold McGee on a lunch date to satisfy a lifetime’s worth of cooking curiosity. You can also tag along with your favorite blogger on a tour of their favorite markets, restaurants, or even receive a care package fashioned especially for you from your favorite bloggers themselves. All you need is $10 and a bit of luck.

Wanting to do my own bit I’ve submitted two prizes for the raffle…

EU08 Teatime for two at La Cocotte

Pop by La Cocotte, the tastiest bookshop in Paris (as seen in Elle à table, The New York Times, Gourmet Traveller…) for a personal guide to the boutique by me. And after enjoy a cup of tea and our house speciality, coquetine biscuits.

How to enter…
Buy raffle tickets now…
More prizes from around the world at chez Pim…

EU09 A box of coquetines

Les coquetines, the speciality of La Cocotte are delicious artisan made (yes, it’s me who makes them ) shortbread biscuits which are filled with dulce de leche. Packaged in a beautiful handmade origami box these biscuits are the next best thing to visiting La Cocotte, if you can’t make it.

How to enter…
Buy raffle tickets now…
More prizes from around the world at chez Pim…

So get your tickets now. I’ve got my eyes on a few things:

UK33: Heston Blumenthal will cook an historic British menu for 2 at the Hinds Head
EU31: A personal tour of elBulli kitchen laboratory with Ferran Adria
EU11: Foodie week end with French girl Fanny of Foodbeam

Crossing my fingers

Hate to blow my trumpet, but who cares I’m so excited about being on the cover (with my cake) of this month’s Elle à table I just had to share it with you. There’s an 8 page article inside “Christmas dinner with the 4 girls from la Cocotte“. Andrea and I wrote the recipes and made the food (and some food styling). Nathalie did the beautiful interior and prop styling…well worth rushing to your local newsagent and getting a copy now, while there are still some left

So the winner for the first Stop the Traffik chocolate competition is Stephanie from Whisk & Spoon with her very delicious White chocolate & almond tartufi (you can invite me over for dinner anytime A little fairtrade chocolate goodie bag will be winging her way soon.

Thanks again for everyone who supported this event. I was really impressed with effort and time people took. So much so that I’m thinking of hosting it again next year. So keep tuned!

Drum roll, please…here are the absolutely fantastic chocotastic entries for the Stop the Traffik chocolate competition. And what a range there has been. Each entry has had me licking my lips and going yum yum. Thanks to everyone who participated I’m truly impressed with all the effort everyone has made. If I’ve forgotten your entry or made an error, please let me know.

So start drooling over your keyboards (click on each image for the whole entry) and send me your votes to rkhooks@gmail.com by Tuesday 16th October.

P.S. Only one entry per person. I know you guys want to win the goodie bag