All Things Dolce

2009-12-01T07:06:00.010Z

Party at the White and York House was fab, the hosts fully kitted the house out in the theme. There were empty milk cartons hanging like patio lanterns, there were sliced beer cans hanging like wind chimes (see pics), CDs dangling from the ceiling, old fashioned cassette tapes unraveled in the toilet, and recycling bag stuff hanging artistically everywhere. Can you guess the theme?

Well it was - RUBBISH. So everyone was asked to dress in rubbish. I had an egg carton tiara with a home made t-shirt with pink paint on it that matched the pink dots I painted on my egg carton hat. Ms White was lovely in her rubbish themed ballet outfit - lots of rolled up plastic bags made into frill and flowers adorned her outfit to make it look like something out of the ballet. And member no. 1 of Alter Ego Diaries - (above) made her tea party outfit using tea bags that she had dyed earlier this week. She even made the tea pot out of paper mache. The tea bags looked great (my pic may be too zoomed out); they were arranged as colorful shoulder pads and decoration for her bustier. Member no. 2 of Alter Ego Diaries was also wearing a stunning Financial Times outfit made of the FT newspaper. It was fab! She made the bustier out of FT paper mache and even had little FT snippets on like nail polish! Love it. You can check out their blog for more fun dressing up stuff.

As usual some peeps didn't wear costumes so donned a Sainsbury's bag or two as a hat or a diaper. It was visually very entertaining. Oh so many great costumes. So, your food waste does not need to just be rubbish: egg cartons, plastic bags, tea bags and more can be transformed into works of art! x

2009-11-30T00:03:00.001Z

Cute cakes from Cake International

Some people are very talented in regards to what they can do with sugar paste. My skills are improving but just need more time and sugar paste (I dropped a large chunk on the floor tonight and had to bin it). I watched a few workshops at the show in Birmingham a few weeks ago and learned a few tricks too. Maybe over Christmas my nephews and I will experiment. Stay tuned!

2009-11-28T11:50:00.000Z

Apple pie, cinnamon and hot chocolate

...with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, eaten in front of a wood fire under a big, woolly blanket is just what the doctor orders for a chilly and windy day like today. Now for that fireplace, we have one but don't think it is fire-safe - boo.

2009-11-25T07:07:00.002Z

The Candy Haul

Our little pumpkin went out for trick-or treating a few short weeks ago. Is it already November 25th?! Look at all the loot he collected. They counted his big brother's candy and there was about 350 pieces of candy! Almost one for every day next year; oh how the dentist must love Halloween. I think a large quantity has already been squirreled away for a children's charity or a big birthday party.

Below: some creatively carved pumpkins along the route. I do love freshly roasted pumpkin seeds with a little bit of salt. Not a fan of the pumpkin pie though, it always just sits at our table and people take a tiny piece of it then it gets left in the fridge for a while hoping to be eaten, Italians don't really do pumpkin unless it is in ravioli, and even then I think that is a recipe from the north.

It is Thanksgiving this weekend in the Excited States of America so am sure there will be a lot of pumpkin pie consumed. Enjoy the holidays to our friends south of the border. Renee, I want a pic of your bird! xo

2009-11-24T08:44:00.015Z

Happy Burfday!

Happy Burfday Big Sister Dolce! Although it is frowned upon to lick your spoon at cooking school, she got away with it as she was a guest for the evening. Big Sister Dolce's birthday gift was a night of cooking: chocolate roulade with a ginger and cream filling and sea bass with gremolata and cannelini beans with a white vinegar and caramelised onion sauce (my favourite part of the meal). We even de-scaled and filleted the fish, now we are ready for a fishing trip!

It was a great evening and she even got to wash the dishes too - that's what happens when you are a guest of honour! Thanks to Leith's Cooking school for being so wonderful.

2009-11-23T08:44:00.000Z

Camden calling

Cute seats in Camden Market for you to eat your food purchased from one of the food stalls; sweet little Vespa butts. We had great dinner at Gilgamesh a while ago for Burger's birthday and Sat. night had some great Indian at Masala Zone for big Sister Dolce's last night in Londontown. All was great at Masala Zone, they have the friendliest staff in all of London - we had the nicest and smiley-ist waiters ever!!

It was a great evening followed by La Clique (get tickets!!!) and some dancing in Soho with Quinn Snr who was also in town. The only thing was there was a disgusting display of Booze Britain when the two jerks at the restaurant were sleeping and falling off their chairs at the table behind us, they were a such a horrible display of drunkenness - they couldn't speak or keep their eyes open. Why go to a restaurant? Go to a bar and sleep in the corner there dumb-asses!

I haven't been to Masala Zone in ages but will surely return shortly as their Thalis are scrumptious and those lovely smiley waiters were such a treat!

2009-11-22T19:05:00.000Z

No bribes! Cupcake feedback

I wish everyone would be as nice as this and take their time to email me feedback! And I didn't even have to pay him! Thanks Anthony, will slip you that tenner via Paypal ;)

From: Anthony Hawgood
"Kate gave me one of your cakes to try yesterday with my mid-morning cup of tea and I can honestly say it was heaven! I thought of the ad where the whole world stops because the person is eating a piece of cake...that’s how I felt! The cake itself was substantial without being heavy (there’s nothing worse than “too doughy”!) and the icing was real melt-in-the mouth (made with real butter?)

The other great thing about these cupcakes is that they’re not too sweet!

Thank you for the best cupcake experience I’ve ever had.

2009-11-19T11:46:00.000Z

Today's Le Dolci News

We spent a lovely morning (nice and early!) at the Covent Garden Flower Market buying supplies and on our way picked up a copy of the Wood & Vale newspaper and LeDolci's Lisa was the pg. 3 girl! Our story was on page 3 with a snap of me and some cakes and cupcakes. The journalist and photographer were super lovely!

x

2009-11-18T23:18:00.002Z

Check out Springwise.com!

Le Dolci had a piece on the new biz on the world famous newsletter, which I read religiously. Along with George the Greek (in Toronto!), who spotted it on there before I did. It is a great weekly read and everyone should sign up! Thanks Springwise! Check out the piece here!

2009-11-16T20:45:00.002Z

Kate & Armand's Cupcakes (that they didn't get to try!)

Kate was in a meeting and her team devoured them, she only found out later while on the train when one of her colleagues said, 'yummy cupcakes' and Armand from Brands2Life was sick so I sent his batch to Jake at Response Photographic to be photographed professionally. Even Kevin there was tempted to eat them before Jake photographs them tomorrow morning!

Kate's Cupcakes (that she didn't get to try!)

2009-11-13T17:28:00.001Z

Launching today - Le Dolci.co.uk !

Le Dolci, London's newest cupcakery and its only weekly Cake Club! After a few months of doing cupcake towers for friends' weddings, I decided to start my own business making cakes and cupcakes!

Le Dolci offers London's only weekly cake drop service (large and small boxes filled with cakes, scones, brownies, biscotti and more) and I do cupcake treats! I do specially tailored cupcakes for corporate clients/journalists/musicians - e.g. A PR agency recently sent a box of our cupcakes tot the Guardian and they gave us a 9/10!

I make homemade sugar decorations of guitars, stilettos, handbags, beer bottles, hearts, baby booties and more! So cakes/cupcakes can be tailored to any occasion.

There is a gallery with some images on the brand new site www.ledolci.co.uk and more to follow in the next few weeks. Enjoy and please pass the word on to other cake addicts or give our cakes a try!

2009-11-11T14:54:00.000Z

SIGEP in January

Looking forward to this trade show in Rimini, Italy and seeing family that live there. My favourite baking cousin and lovely wife from Toronto are also joining in the fun. I think all those Saturday's hanging around in my uncle's bakery (Tempo Bakery) watching the cake decorating, eating gelato, testing pastries and being a pest to my Aunt had had a deeper effect than I thought. The did let me use the cash register if I was extra well behaved, oh what a treat that was!

SIGEP is the International Exhibition - Artisan Production of Gelato, Pastry,
Confectionery and Bakery - I hope I can taste test!

2009-11-09T22:44:00.001Z

Exeter Street Bakery's Chocolate Bread

Did I already blog about how delicious the chocolate bread is from Exeter Street Bakery? It is a simple pleasure! And their slogan is parfait - TRADITIONAL BAKING, PERFECTLY DONE. What more could you ask for? I have brought a few customers to the place and they are all regulars now.

2009-11-05T07:20:00.003Z

www.LeDolci.co.uk Cupcake photos! Our new website coming soon (hopefully tomorrow!) but call for any cake addictions that need to be satisfied! 077 3292 3331

Thanks to Shoot Experience for the Shout out today!

New Website coming soon!

2009-11-04T16:10:00.001Z

More www.LeDolci.co.uk products for your cake addictions-website should be up today!

Banana and chocolate gift - unwrap and eat!

A double dipped (Dairy Queen style!) chocolate cake! Or, the giant turd (as Bunny calls it!)

Banana loaf - this is like a meal - 6 bananas per loaf.

Everyone needs to donate their ripe bananas to me now.

2009-11-03T23:57:00.002Z

Two of Le Dolci's latest cakes

Chocolate coconut

Double chocolate brownie

2009-11-02T07:03:00.000Z

East Side

Another trip to Quinny's favourite place - the East Side! She loves hanging with the scensters there in her gold trainers, indie t-shirts and funky haircut. I love her vintage wardrobe too, although sometimes it smells a little ;)

This time it was dinner at Red and Green Mexican - excellent Margaritas! I usually don't like Mexican drinks as in my experience you get one at the start of dinner and there is usually so much alcohol in it that on an empty stomach I can get quite tipsy even before the tortilla chips and salsa arrive. But this one was made to perfection. Mr. B is the Mexican expert, having lived in Mexico, well Southern California but close enough and he said the food was great; I agreed and I am not a Mex-pert. One thing to highlight was that it was served by the friendliest waitress ever.

Seriously she must have just arrived in London or won the lottery that day as she was so attentive, kind, sweet and very lovely. We had loads of little tapas: mexican fish cakes, chili chicken wings, calamar fritto (fried calamari) refried beans (!) and freshly made tortilla chips with spicy salsa and guacamole. It had to be topped off with Dulces (dessert); we ordered the Ancho chili and Valhorona chocolate pot dessert! Divine and such a nice combination. A must visit if you are hanging with Ali at some obscure pub off of Brick Lane.

2009-11-01T19:45:00.001Z

Jack of all trades

When starting a business you have to be a jack of all trades and try and do all of the things needed to get it off the ground. With Le Dolci I am reading a few books to help but one thing that I have had to brush up on is my photography skills for website photos. Luckily I have learned a few tricks along the way from people who are great photographers -Erin, Faraz -thank you! So here is my chocolate cake photographed in 2 ways. There have been lots of photo shoots and lots of cakes made in my humble home all for the sake of building imagery for the website.

In turn, there have been a lot of leftovers for visitors to enjoy. I wish I could drop them off at the local school but am sure if I dropped off cakes at the school I may be put on some 'special list' for crazy child thieves or something. I guess my friends and I will just have to get fat; all in the name of helping the website look good!

Hope you all had a great Halloween, my nephew counted and he got 210 candies in his little trick or treat round last night. That is almost one candy for every day next year!!!!!!

Enjoy thea pic of my favourite Czech Republic resident in her Halloween gear. She is the ghost of a semi-decapitated 18th C. chamber maid. No Jack-o-lanterns this year only some pumpkins on tables at the wonderful venue for our grand Halloween party which was held at The Troxy, a 1930’s art deco Grade II listed building. An amazing space!

2009-10-31T19:45:00.000Z

You won't be hungry after this - introducing the Yankee Doodle Noodle Casserole!

The Creative has been here enjoying the sights and sounds of LondonTown this weekend. She gave me this horrifically trailer park trashy recipe from her days working for Old Dutch potato chips. Needless to say, this recipe came down from their website when the Creative got her hands on the account.

A classic to keep for that special romantic din din when you need to impress.

Ingredients:

Cooked macaroni
Can of sweet corn nibblets
Beef Jerky cut into bite sized pieces
Shredded cheddar cheese
Cheese puffs/ Cheesies
Coat all of the above in a whole lotta Ranch dressing, pour into a casserole dish and crumble a whole bag of Old Dutch Potato chips on top -no need to bake! Serve at room temperature. MMmmmmmmm........TPT dinner.

Ok, back from being sick in the toilet!!

2009-10-30T00:01:00.000Z

The Christmas collection

A snowy cupcake with a little snowman! Only 9 weeks til Christmas. I think we should worry about Halloween first. Mr. B is making a Halloween themed dinner on Sunday, I think there was talk of 'Bloody' Marys and a Witches Beef Stew...yum!

2009-10-29T15:59:00.001Z

Today's lunch

MENU DU JOUR

SMOKED SALMON AVEC CARAMELISED ONIONS, BROCCOLI

WITH CHILI AND GARLIC OIL
LE CREATIVE AND I ENJOYED IT WITH HOMEMADE CHICKEN LIVER PATE AUJOURDHUI

ALL FRESHLY MADE IN THE KITCHEN LAST NIGHT

2009-10-28T07:10:00.002Z

The Perfect Smoked Salmon and Dill Twice Baked Souffle

It is delicious and I could've eaten 10 of these but I only made two. Next time I will make more and eat them all myself. These ones were filled with smoked salmon and dill and cooked in a bain marie (a roasting ray of water in the oven). They were the perfect accompaniment to the duck I made, yes I made duck and it was delicious. I am now officially a duck fan. Here is the recipe for anyone who wishes to try them at home, more on the duck later...

Twice Baked Souffles:

55 g Butter
45g Flour
290ml Milk
3 eggs -separated
110g -Smoked Salmon - chopped
2 tbsps freshly chopped dill
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the cream sauce

55ml of dry white wine
50ml double cream
1 tbsp freshly chopped dill
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180degrees
Melt the butter and brush the timbale moulds/ramekins (I think you could also use a cupcake tray), allow the butter to set and then brush again
Add the flour to the butter left in the saucepan, cook for 1min. Remove from the heat and gradually add the milk, sirring all the time. Retrun to the heat and bring to a boil, sirring continuously, simmer for 1 minute on lower heat. Tip it in a large bowl and let it cool slightly.
Add the egg yolks, salmon and dill to the sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
Whisk the egg whies in a separate bowl until peaks form on your beater and then fold into your first mixture. Fold gently so it remains light and fluffy!
Divide the mix to the individual timbales/ramekins (or maybe the cupcake tin - I will ask if this is doable?!) and bake in a bain marie (roasting tin half filled with hot water -which cooks the eggs slowly) for 25min - or until they have puffed up and are brown on top - kinda golden brown like when you are making a cake.
After you remove them from the oven, let them sink down and cool down. Run a knife around the edges and turn hem upside down onto a ovenproof dish (do this while they are still warm-ish)
Cover and put them aside until you are ready to serve them. Then when you are you bake them a second time for 15 min to cook them through/warm them up again.

For the sauce

Put the wine into a pan and reduce it by boiling it (you must always boil alcohol when you are cooking with it). Once it has boiled, remove from the heat and add the double cream, dill and salt and pepper. Pour over your souffles or even your duck - it is yummy!

2009-10-27T07:27:00.010Z

Fantastic Formosa

My favourite part of the evening, apart from the food, at Formosa Dining Rooms is when my Cupcake Pimp (he has got me 3 orders so far!) was moving around the lentils on his plate scrunching his face, squinting and asking, 'what are these things, are they vegetables?'

I was laughing a bit as I think he said that in his culture vegetables are for the poor - a sign of wealth and prosperity is a meal with lots of meat! Fair enough, but I guess he may need more pulses in his life. Well thanks to the CP I am now supplying a few places in NW London so am excited about that. Perhaps I can make him a meat-inspired or lentil cupcake as a special thanks ;)

The Formosa Dining room is connected to one of my favourite pubs, the Prince Alfred -which we call the Alice in Wonderland pub as it has so many little rooms with doors that you have to bend down to get into and out of. It is another classic London pub, in a gorgeous listed building and the food at the Formosa was divine. I had the sea bass with a savoury cabbage and cream sauce with carrots, CP had the lamb steak with lentils and we were both completely satisfied. We ended the meal with the best Sticky Toffee pudding in London. It was a very filling meal and again service was great, maybe the winds are changing in LondonTown?!

My photographs above are terrible but if you are in Little Venice and want a nice meal in a great restaurant and then want to pop into a great pub for a few drinks afterwards then you shall head in this direction. Only one stop from Paddington peeps and they have a fabulous photo of the canal stretching along the whole back of the restaurant!

From their website: Built in 1863 with a beautiful exterior, the Prince Alfred is a classic example of the traditional plate glass & wood favoured by the Victorians. The inside of the pub is no less striking with the bar area being divided into 5 separate atmospheric "snugs" by original listed wooden panels.

2009-10-26T07:21:00.013Z

Art & Oriel

I have had a great week and weekend, especially for a foodie as I have been out almost every day trying a new restaurant. It is not good for the pocketbook but I am sure that food critic job will come along soon!

One of my stops this week was a visit to the Saatchi Gallery - a must see when in London and lunch with the lovely Dane, Mrs. B at Cafe Oriel on Sloane Square. Stepping into Cafe Oriel is like stepping into a French Brasserie in Paris, I loved it. I am definitely going there when I feel like I need a little bit of Paris love. Even our waitress gave us a little bit of French attitude. I had a crab salad, which I loved (I love fresh crab) and Mrs. B had the soup of the day which was a lovely tomato one.

I didn't take any snaps in Oriel, I was most likely too hungry but close your eyes and pretend you are in Paris wearing a red, French beret having just been to the Louvre (you skipped the 3 hr queue in this imagination) and stepped into one of their quaint corner brasseries in the trendy Le Marais district, you're with a mysterious and handsome French man who is smoking a cigarette and stares at you with smoldering eyes from across the table while you both sip on some delicious Bordeaux - (errm....back in the room) it is just like that. Although this one is full of Sloaney Ponies with very large diamonds draped on them and we weren't speaking French, although technically we could be.

Merci pour un grande jour ensemble Mrs. B!

2009-10-24T07:43:00.001+01:00

What do you think? Feedback please?

Le Dolci -Menu

Cupcake Classics

• Viva Vanilla –our best seller - a smooth and creamy vanilla cupcake

• Ciao Coco –classic, rich chocolate cupcake

• Limone L’amour– everyone loves luscious lemons and when in season, we use Sicilian lemons

Le Dolci ‘s Cupcakes with a twist

• The Hangover Cupcake -cupcake with crunched up pretzels, chocolate chips, coffee grinds and a hint of Tabasco - topped with a coke bottle or optional bacon bits (for a severe hangover)

• The Ladies Who Lunch Cupcake - champagne infused vanilla bundles of goodness

• The SAD Cupcake – add a bit of sunshine to your day with this bright yellow cream cheese frosted cupcake filled with natural sources of pick me tryptophan (serotonin booster) from bananas and nuts with a sprinkling of vitamin D

• The Sicilian Cannoli - a fresh ricotta and chocolate chip infused cupcake with a hint of pistachio, Palermo style (a homage to the Mafia Motherland)

• The Better than Botox Cupcake - a soy infused cupcake with blackberries, blueberries and pomegranate

• The Gym Bunny - a bran and granola cupcake with raisins and honey perfect for after work-out revitalization, no frosting equals less calories

• The Break Up Wake Up - white and dark chocolate chips, milk chocolate chunk, almonds and hazelnut with a sprinkle of fairy dust to change your luck in love!

• Great White North - crunchy apples, fireplace roasted cinnamon, mini marshmallows and Canadian maple syrup cupcakes with a sprinkle of snowy white icing sugar (a homage to my Canadian homeland)