CHOCOLATE & MARSHMALLOW PIZZA

I've been feeling like this: dessert pizza.

MACADAMIA MARZIPAN CHOCOLATES

Yet again, my head can't really cope with definitiveness too well; and it's overwhelmed by flashes from distant places in space, plus the past and the future (although I wouldn't know for sure, I had enough self-proclaimed witchcraft and wizardry, and cooking lessons, and bruises, for a lifetime), and I don't know if our nordic escapes will soon be a distant memory too, but here's to marzipan chocolate, best enjoyed in the 9pm sun in squatted military areas where cannabis trade is a thing; and to not being alone; and welfare pack lunches and mind-blowing banana eating techniques; to design museums and art galleries but also cake giving and post card shopping; and, please, to the hopefully several more escapes to come (to Disneyland too, with lucky rabbits), and if they don't have marzipan chocolate there it's fine, I'll bring along a Bonus Pig bag full of it.

CHOCOLATE CHIP BANANA LOAF CAKE

These days I sometimes feel like a little ghost, even though I’m not gone just yet; and I’ve been filling time with things I don’t mind, like Icelandic coffee, and English shoes, and Scottish pop bands, and Japanese cameras, for Irish adventures. I plan to add my art galleries too, especially those ones that stock American-style banana bread; but just in case all the above gets too expensive (plus Russia. Alaska. Disneyland. Outer space) and I really can’t spare that two pounds fifty for a slice: bakers gonna bake. Chocolate chip banana cake.

СМЕТАННИК - RUSSIAN SOUR CREAM CAKE

Season 8, Episode 11 of “Vegan cakes and things” takes us all the way to Russia via a stream of black, deep sleep, mustard shoes, bus travellers, gifts of corner shops, no-need-to-fight’s, Soviet nursery rhymes that come to you in your dreams and blenders melting down upon attempting to combine utter madness and the cure for the illness of living. One may argue there must have obviously been some miscommunication between my head and reality; but this sweet and light and fluffy multi-layer sour cream cake is real enough to me.

ROCKY ROAD SALAMI

When it doesn’t really matter whether changing the past was ever a real thing, you’ve got to focus on this more or less expected time of year, which turns out to be all about juggling Pexmas parties and slow-cooked death and retarded cookies and tarots, present shopping and present giving and present receiving, cake receiving and coffee receiving, and sharing, photo boothing, hair cutting and more or less extensive hair dying (yet, no flamboyaging), mulled whining and vintage weighing and recipe improvising, for cake giving; and if you stopped for half a second and looked in the mirror between each ing (or, if you were to spend four hours at the hairdresser’s sat in front of one of said mirrors), you would be astounded to find you could well be a red-haired modern-day version of Anna Karerinina because you’re smiley like that (and only worryingly less photogenic); but then again, why would you stop for even half a second, when the cross that you bear is half as heavy as you run around pushed by the cold wind, and amazing ventures and adventures await, and there’s the new best Engl-alian cake setting in the fridge, ready to be shared like your own special version of gold or frankincense or myrrh, except it’s made of Italian chocolate and English tea biscuits and a bucketload of Canadian marshmallows because you’ve got to make the most of what you’ve got, to wake that winter sun at last.

ORANGE LIQUEUR CHOCOLATE CAKE

For the highly praised column, CAKES FOR DAVES
and in the very special occasion of Dave (my fave)'s birthday which is today, not tomorrow. Today:

MOST HAPPIEST BIRTHDAY

I like you more than biscuit spread

& I hope you never ever drown

☀☀☀☀❤☀

WHITE CHOCOLATE BISCOFF BARS

Urban legends have it that I tend to opt for the easy way out and hide and avoid and deny and forget and more or less gracefully dodge bullets and steer away from sticky situations (unless it’s bubble-gum-flavour-ice-lolly sticky situations. In which particular case, I’m game) and my abilities as a most talented escape artist have been reported on on numerous occasions.

In my defense, the quiet (or, nothingness) after the madness pompously rolled out the red carpet for my head to wave goodbye to reality and set sail for dreams; and for this very reason dreaded deadly blood tests at seven in the morning have resulted in robotic I-have-convinced-myself-I-am-still-asleep-and-that’s-not-really-a-needle type behaviours that cause slight perplexity in hospitals; post-delivery client amends with a deadline of yesterday in mystical tales of guardian angels named Shane; and mooncake moulds missing in action and monthly expeditions to the strip and one birthday cake training session too many (however: I am so loved) in the creation of chocolate & biscuit spread bars that take less than one German experimental music album to whip up and if they didn’t dramatically worsen biscuit spread addiction and cause fatness and a spotty face you would think they are a gift from the empyrean because they’re delicious like that.

Now before I make my easy way out of this too, to go stuff myself with biscuit spread bars, I wish to share with posterity one last pearl of wisdom: the easy way out and white chocolate Biscoff bars is better than no way out and no white chocolate Biscoff bars.

LIQUORICE BAKED DOUGHNUTS

The Book of Cake is the book I should have written in the past two weeks or so as I was once again unconsciously sliding my way to self-sabotage, one mouthful of fried plantain at a time, and it should have been a sacred book with an austere but not too daunting cover and vintage-looking brownish pages because we have decided that’s in fashion this season (even in the UK), and you would find it inside drawers in bed side tables in hotel rooms.

In this book of cake, it is written that it’s completely fine to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown as you spot a metaphor being translated into a simile in a learning session guide in Brazilian Portuguese and to take a day off work just so that you can go for lunch with someone from work and so is to burst into tears right in the middle of Regent Street on a Sunday afternoon because you’ll be turning thirty in a second but your mum and dad still sponsor all your clothes and drain unblockers and maple syrup; because The Book of Cake suggests that whatever happens, you eventually get a grip and bake your life away and make those liquorice doughnuts that you had decided to bake on that one night out with the other two musketeers; and put to good use the precious liquorice root powder that your mamma hunted down for you in Italy (and chocolate. There’s got to be chocolate); and why not, consider patenting and marketing them as ‘Pontefract Doughnuts’ or ‘Rough Doughnuts’ or ‘David (Francis Wilson) Doughnuts’, as they may well make you rich and famous and people would want to own a 1% share of your baking business.

What The Book of Cake in essence teaches you, is that sometimes you’ve got to allow yourself to help and be helped; to take two lemon sweets from the meeting room (one for Dave); to let the boys wait in an orderly queue, although not for unreasonably long; to pay bills and use vouchers; to treat someone with overpriced organic pizza squares; to be treated with Indian samosas, lunch-packed especially for your cab ride home; and to make cake for people that are all special like that and may not even realise it; because as it turns out, sometimes you can be quite difficult to read, kind of like a book that was never written.

The Book of Cake was also never written (neither was The Book of James for that matter), but if it ever will be, the very last verses would read something very pregnant and introspective, such as, 
‘Create a little bit of havoc
but then make cake
share it with loved ones
and go fix your stupid head’.
Amen.

PEANUT MUDDY BUDDIES

Life sometimes assumes the form of a weird tragicomedy in multiple acts, one of those ones where the characters are impeccably dressed but wear funny shoes and constantly use puns and say the word amazing one time too many and compliment each other’s hair (not yours).

In cases like this, it may happen that you more or less suddenly just lose the plot.

Whether this is irreversible or not, it’s too early to say; but warning signs in no particular order include having three-and-a-half-hour motion graphics tutorials on Thursday nights to learn how to bring into existence videos of hand-drawn badgers performing an eternal dance on the screen of an anachronistic Victorian cinema, saving them as looping GIFs named ‘badgerLove5’ (it did take 5 attempts. After Effects wouldn’t accept the fact that it had to be forever), and finally publishing them on a vegan baking blog because it makes perfect sense to feature a dancing badger called James side by side with ninety-one respectable recipes of egg-and-dairy-free cake (fine, no honey either); also going food shopping for the week and coming back with two monster jars of peanut butter, a pack of gum and a box of cereal; and spending sunny Saturday afternoons handcrafting heart-shaped peanut butter chips from cocoa butter because who gives a duck about having a pool.

But then again, when the aforementioned jars of peanut butter and the aforementioned box of cereal and last but not least the homemade peanut butter chips with an embarrassing shape are finally put to good use (on a sunny Sunday afternoon) and they turn into some badass nutty Muddy Buddies, you just end up munching on them peacefully sitting on your sofa and secretly imagine their name being pronounced condescendingly with an upper middle class accent, and you also come to the conclusion that after all you don’t really mind having lost the plot, if this means that you get to write your own new one, where at this one unforeseen point in the story two people wake to find each other on the very same page.

BLACK BEAN CHOCOLATE CAKE

A cake for that one time I stopped drawing because I was filling paper with weird shapes and not trees and the sun and the birds; for the novel I wrote when I was eight; for the most terrible nightmares of snakes and monsters (and for waking up from them on command); for the curliest hair; for not listening to my mum; for having thought for half a second that someone who undervalues invisibility could be a better version of me; a cake for master plans and for not having one; for making someone coffee without a reason, for things that happen in due course, for illusions, robots, badgers, business cards, birthday cards, ellipses.

A cake for James and me.

NANAIMO BARS

To try and lift up the London fog.

MANGO SORBET WITH CHOCOLATE

Spring really should sort itself out and shut the doors to winter once and for all, like the Stalinist Russian regime that rules my brain shuts tries but miserably fails to shut the doors to people who never opened theirs to me. But whether you too are a miserable Londoner who struggles to enjoy ten minutes of warmth and sun per day, or you live in a normal place where seasons are a thing, you can still relish some delicious raw fruity sorbet with a crunchy dark chocolate topping. It’s ready in an instant and provides instant peace for your tummy and soul, and who gives half a duck about doors or seasons or wastage of feelings after all.

APPLE BUCKWHEAT CAKE

Getting ill on weekends seems to be my favourite thing to do in the world, and when you don’t have any sort of contact with human beings of any sort for three and a half days, and you stay all curled up in bed like an amoeba for three and a half days, then it’s quite understandable that you kind of wish you were home where caring human beings feed you ice cream and you don’t have to go out to buy carrots with a fever and toilet paper and that sort of things. So now that I am apparently succeeding in defeating disease, I gathered all the strength I had left (just enough to grate an apple to be precise) and baked something kind of home-related. Buckwheat flour is very common where I’m from in Northern Italy so here’s a buckwheat flour cake. It’s very light and moist because of the apple and apple puree and it’s usually served with a redcurrant or blueberry or raspberry jam filling. Now I am known for being a fan of sweet chocolateyness so to the redcurrant jam I added some chocolate filling. Sorry Italian food police. This is so good and sticky and chocolatey.

MINI BOSTON CREAM PIES

I don’t usually get emotional about things (she says, then cries her heart out watching The Muppets Christmas Carol. Why did you have to die, Tiny Tim, although you don’t actually die). However lately I’ve been in this funny mystical mood as a result of which I am quite at peace with the universe and most its inhabitants. Officially surviving the winter (only JUST) has helped, and so has the prospect of squatting in lovely new one-bedroom flats in Bermondsey, thanks Alex I love you too.

But let’s get to the cake part shall we. Well it so happens that this introspective state I am in has led me to fond memories of the best trip ever to America last year, and to this rainy day in Cambridge, Massachusetts after a gourmet dinner of watery salad (don’t ask). Adam who is known for being a part-time guardian angel promptly saved me from everlasting grumpiness and took me to Veggie Galaxy where I had this massive slice of Boston cream pie.

So here’s me sharing the recipe for a mini version of it (I’m only small), and celebrating that one day and today and everything in-between. Like trips with people I care loads about, and being upset about turning a quarter of a century old, and the longest darkest winters; almost running away from everything; people sticking with me even though I can’t possibly figure out why, the view of Tower Bridge from the bus in the morning, going to work only to make friends, nice songs, lunch breaks, ideas, little white fluffy dogs and the calming verse from the age of break – ‘something good will come from nothing’.

OREO RICE KRISPY SQUARES

If it so happens that one evening you decide that sometimes there is beauty in the world surrounding you, you should wake up in the morning and celebrate with some noteworthy treats. Well it's this remarkable Rice Krispy square recipe that has brought me joy once again, this time via an upgrade. I know they're like the deities of all Rice Krispy squares, so where do you even start improving them one may say, but sometimes unexpected upgrades come to you like a deus ex machina plus this is Oreos we're talking about. Make sure you're fine with sugar rushes and cow exploitation in Oreo factories and go for it. At least no bees were blindfolded or earmuffed or tapped on the shoulder in the process.

WHITE CHOCOLATE CHESTNUT THUMBPRINT COOKIES

They say it’s all about the little things so I say, make a toast to Pret coffees on the house, pack your wardrobe with pretty summer dresses, buy Lego notebooks for your friends, read Italian patisserie recipe books until you feel the urge to bake enough crostata to feed an army, and if all this is still not enough to fill the hole in your heart, then go fill your stomach (it works just as well). May I suggest that you make chocolatey hazelnutty chestnut flour cookies that are so delicious and that you can share with the whole universe as they are vegan and gluten-free and no Oreo-manufacturing Scottish cows were harmed in the process.

At your service.

MEXICAN CHOCOLATE BEETROOT MUFFINS

I say brace yourselves, I chopped my hair off and made badass spicy chocolate vegan muffins.

PANPAPATO - ITALIAN CHRISTMAS CAKE

After a ski trip from which I will never recover and one Christmas party too many, I am very much looking forward to going home and stuffing my face with Christmas cakes of every origin and kind.

This one I’m sharing with you today (metaphorically sharing. Soz) is from Ferrara in the North of Italy. It’s called Panpapato (it’s the funniest name and it always takes me a good five minutes to spell it properly without adding extra pa’s in it. HA) and it’s full of nuts and yummy things and so rich and the most delicious. In fact, my dad posted a homemade one to me about a month ago because I couldn’t wait until Christmas. Miss impatient. Now I’m not saying this is better than my dad’s because my dad is the cake master but what you can do is make this one and then ask your dad to make another one and post it to you and you eat them both and happy days.

TURKISH DELIGHT CAKE

Back from my beloved Birmingham with my belly full of vegan brownies and ice cream and apple crumble I stop by the Turkish supermarket and get a box of rose Turkish Delight to munch on the way home (about half a minute away. But I can eat several hundreds kilos of Turkish Delight in half a minute, you should know). The rest goes on this pretty cake, for Amber's birthday. It is. Good.

PUMPKIN SWIRL BROWNIES

I was trying to come up with a very descriptive way of presenting my new favourite pumpkin thing in the world right here but perhaps there’s no need to because PUMPKIN SWIRL BROWNIES.

<3.