After Eight chocolate mint cake

After Eight chocolate mint cake // The Dinner BellWhat this blog is, really, is a series of love letters about the people in my life, and sometimes to vegetables. There’s even one love poem, about speculoos. It’s never truer than with cakes, and a round cake on here is almost always a food-based emotional outpouring, because I’ll only make a big, proper dessert, big enough that it could almost be a weapon, for someone I really care about*.

This one was for the work wife.

It’s weird, the intensity of the relationships you form at work, with people you see more than your housemates and family. The ones that are right there when things go wrong, and bring snacks to remedy it, and the ones that make you cry with hysterical laughter. Continue reading

Salted caramel chocolate layer cake

March and April are always a bit of a family affair.

In the space of six weeks – and this is the just the family we see often – there are five birthdays, two wedding anniversaries and sometimes Easter. In those few weeks, there was wine, and feasts, and games, and more wine. What this also means is many hours of carrying a heavy suitcase around London, hefting it up and down the steps on the underground and dragging it, wheels rattling, over uneven pavements. Continue reading