Pink party popcorn

 

Last month my daughter celebrated her 10th birthday – quite the milestone! It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate with friends again this year, after a very long break from social gatherings, and we hosted a tropical disco party complete with a flamingo cake to mark the occasion.

 

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Chocolate layer cake with dark chocolate ganache

Ottolenghi chocolate cake.

 

Helloo there. Welcome to March (say whaat?!) and my first blog post for the month. It’s a rather celebratory post and this recipe is inspired by one of my personal foodie icons, Yotam Ottolenghi. This easy chocolate cake recipe is adapted very slightly from one that appears in his book “Sweet” (co-written with Helen Goh) and the reason for this cake post is that this week Cupcakes and Couscous celebrates its fifth anniversary!

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How to make easy rainbow meringues (and a rainbow cake!)

Chocolate cake topped with meringues.

Crisp, white meringues are one my favourite things to make, but a few weeks ago I tried something a little different by adding some colours to the mix! The reason? I wanted to top my daughter’s rainbow birthday cake with rainbow meringues. I had so many party guests (well, the parents) asking me for the recipe that I have decided to pop it on the blog this week along with my go-to meringue recipe. I am also sharing a few tips for making your own rainbow cake.

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A fairy party (and a fairy cake!)

 

If there was ever a good time to haul out some banal clichés then this must be it. “Time flies.” “They grow up so fast.” How often we use these timeworn phrases, and yet how true they are. As I write this, almost exactly 4 years ago to the hour my precious daughter arrived into the world. I remember it like it was yesterday, (which is impressive as I often struggle to remember what I was doing last week!). My bright, funny, sweet girl who knows exactly what she likes and wants… which is handy as I knew for months that she had her heart set on a fairy birthday party this year. Oh yes, one of the many things I love about her is that she knows her own mind, and once it is made up she usually sticks to her guns. Luckily this also meant that I had quite a while to mull over cake ideas before settling on this one.

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A Paddington Bear party and marmalade sandwich cookies

I am no stranger to long stints in the kitchen, but as I write this I feel as though I am still recovering from the cooking marathon that happened this past weekend. It was all for a very special reason though, as I was preparing for my daughters 2nd birthday party!

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