"Eat Hearts, Sweethearts" Valentine's CCC

Pots of Tea Among the 'Pots'

Despite the current fascination with anatomy, and trends in 'subverting-the-form' when it comes to old ideas, I have to say Valentine's Day has ALWAYS been about anatomical hearts for me. In one way or another I've worked with Anatomy and Pathology for 10 years so the association has been a long one. I explored actual anatomical heart cakes in my project 'Eat Your Heart Out' (above) but for this CCC I just thought it would be nice to have my Pathology Museum (@BartsPathology) as the venue so that those who had never been could have a sneak peek at this amazing building, amongst the pathological 'pots' after dark...

One of the wonderful specimens under my care

And so it was the Shoreditch CCC sat amidst the real hearts (hearts like the above specimen) with endless cups of tea and delved into topics such as Valentine's dates we'd had in the past, what we planned to do this year and whether or not we'd seen a dead body....

I can't tell you how amazingly imaginative the cakes were and they tasted unbelievable! here's a selection:

Madeleine's 'Hot Date Passion Cake' with sticky date, choc and toffee

Louise's 'Red Velvet Surprise' with gorgeous gooey heart centre

But I think my favourite had to be Valentine-hating Tilly's 'Black Widow' cake (above) which was an incredibly exhilarating choking hazard experience full of chopped up plastic army men!!

We had wonderful 'special guests' in the form of Bethan and colleagues from the publisher Quercus who are of course responsible for making the Clandestine Cake Club cook-book a big success! For a review on that book read the previous post and there's a link to purchase at the top of this page so don't wait too long to get yours!

And I even did a Valentine/Hearts themed quiz with the prize being two lovely AVON lipsticks in the shape of a heart (I am an AVON Lady of course)

All in all it was a fab way to spend an evening a few days before Valentine's Day and we've already started on the next theme "Slice of Life: Dexter Cakes" in March.

Go to www.clandestinecakeclub.com to join the network and see you at an event soon xox

Fancy a Double-D Cup (cake)?
I'm really excited and honoured to be a part of the new campaign from Coppafeel. It's called Cake O'Clock and starts later this month. 
Coppafeel is a breast cancer charity aimed at raising awareness in younger women after its founder, Kristin, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer at just 23. See more info about Kristin on their site: http://www.coppafeel.org/
The Cake O'Clock appeal will aim to get people across the country to have a bake sale and raise money for the charity from November 20th. But it's not just any cakes - it's boob cakes! And why not? Cupcakes come in various sizes, as do boobs. 
One thing I learned from our Eat Your Heart Out 2012 project is that cake is a fantastic way to engage people with a topic that's important. Also, my experience fronting the Shoreditch Clandestine Cake Club has shown me that cake is a sharey-lovely way to get to know people, chat and generally have a good time.
The amazing Miss Insomnia Tulip who created the anatomical breast cake below will be donating one of these to auction off during the event in Islington on the 24th:

I will be making smaller boob cakes but I will be flavouring them Vanilla as it is said that men enjoy vanilla as it reminds them of their mother's breast milk! Who knows if that's true but it's a good experiment to see how many cakes I can flog to the boyfriends of the attendees. All money goes to Coppafeel of course :)
See more info about how you can get involved here:

http://www.coppafeel.org/cakeoclock

Coppafeel have patrons such as Fearne Cotton who are young, funky and stylish and their charity events reflect the youth and enthusiasm of the organisers. Recently, they had a Boobie "Flash Mob" in St Christopher's place off Oxford Street and it looked like so much fun! You can see the footage for yourself:

I was so impressed by this I mentioned it on a recent podcast I did for Londonist Out Loud. I wanted to talk the flash mob for ages but alas we also had to get through various other cake and death topics. If you have an hour and fancy hearing more about Eat Your Heart Out and the other events at the Pathology Museum where I work you can listen here:

http://londonist.com/2012/10/londonistoutloud26oct.php 

I'll be updating with more Cake O'Clock details as I get them but for now please do check out their website. You can apply to have text reminders for boob checks and you can even get your boyfriend involved. I got mine to name my boobs for the purpose of the text reminder and he opted for Mickey and Mallory... What names can you come up with? xox

EYHO - Funeral Biscuits

A Sugar & Spice (and not-so-nice) History of Funeral Biscuits

As part of my involvement in Eat Your Heart Out 2012, I gave a lecture and presentation to over 100 journalists on press night. The lecture was about one of my favourite topics - Victorian Funeral Biscuits - and was based on an article I wrote a while back. It was entitled 'Mourning Coffee' and was all about the link between cake (or various sweet foods) and death...yes, there IS one! You can read the full article here: http://www.afternoon-tease.blogspot.co.uk/p/mourning-coffee.html and do e-mail me if you have any questions.
The above biscuits were made by Tasha and Fi of the food curiosity company Animal Vegetable Mineral and we gave them out during the first British Biscuit Festival. She recreated the recipe for the press night so as well as anatomical cakes and lots of Kraken Rum, the attendees had them to try as well. Spoilt!

It's Halloween tomorrow (my favourite holiday) so expect many more posts about my random spokky baking adventures over the next few days.
www.avmcuriosities.com
www.krakenrum.com
Until next time xox

My 'Tease Maid' Necklace

Bete Noire Jewellery

As part of Eat Your Heart Out 2012 I was asked to do several broadcast interviews. I wanted to make sure I had a personalised necklace from the fantastic Beth Noire to wear and many people asked me where it was from so here is the link: http://www.betenoirejewellery.com

I opted for the large double heart version and of course I chose Tease Maid to personalise it:

It's the cutest thing I've ever seen - I literally squealed when I opened it (and honestly squealing is NOT something I would ever do without good reason!) Look at the tiny spoon and sugar cubes! I'm just in love with it and have already decided on other things I want to buy and in fact a friend of mine, Zoe, has purchased one too :)

I also did a radio podcast interview for Londonist Out Loud and I wore the necklace then (and yes I do realise that people couldn't see it on the radio...) so I'll pop the link here for you in case you want to hear me discuss flagellation, scousers, cake and drilling holes in someone's head. Random, - but these are the things I know about......
http://londonist.com/2012/10/londonistoutloud26oct.php
This is a fairly short post as I'm recovering from the incredible #EYHO - I'm having a nice day off, baking Halloween goodies and watching Addams Family in preparation for Halloween, so expect more soon xox

Eat Your Heart Out 26th-28th October

Official EYHO Shoot!
I was so honoured to be a part of the photoshoot for the event which is going to combine cake and Pathology and is happening at my pathology museum (St Bart's) this October (for full details click on the tab at the top of the page).


Here is an example of the pics:

Photos: @NathanPask. Styling: @katieantoniou @shinythoughts

Hair: @Holly_Rudge.  Make-up: @EmAlexandraMUA
 

Edible necklace by Miss Insomnia Tulip: @missinsomniatul

I'm with a cake made by Lashanthie Chandrapala of 'Leshie Loves Cake' (orders to leshielovescake@gmail.com) which looked exactly like flesh with a syringe in but smelt divine and was difficult to resist while trying to pose...!
Other contributions will include those below:

STD Box Set by Two Little Cats



'Fungus Toe Cookies' by Nevie Pie Cakes

Breast Anatomy cupcake by M.I Tulip (The Biscuit Barrel)

The aim of the event is to combine my two loves: Pathology and baking into one large public engagement extravaganza to teach people about medicine, anatomy and disease in a totally new way. Co-curated with the notorious Miss Cakehead (http://evilcakes.wordpress.com/), who I previously worked with on the Resident Evil 6 launch, this is going to be an incredibly unique experience so get yourself down. If you'd like to volunteer in some way, contact me the teasemaid@gmail.com xox

Two Little Cats  - jenni.powell@yahoo.co.uk
Nevie Pie Cakes - nevie-pie@hotmail.ac.uk 
The Biscuit Barrel - orders@thebiscuitbarrel.com
Katie Antoniou - http://www.katieantoniou.com/
Nathan Pask - http://nathanpask.com/