The Tell-Tale Brownies

You don't understand. Since I made these I haven't been able to stop thinking about them. They sit in the fridge, whispering, calling to me. And I work from home. That's a full working day of gooey whispering coming from the general direction of the kitchen.

Dark chocolate ganache, peanut butter cookie dough, chocolate brownie, smashed together in an unholy threesome.

"It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night."

It's totally my fault. I've been having a crack at cutting some sugar from my diet, being one of those low carb girls who soils herself at the sight of a potato, but baking these was the equivalent of exhuming Dr Atkins corpse and stuffing it into a giant bread roll.

The recipe is here. In mine all the chocolate chips in the brownie mix melted, but it didn't seem to affect the insane levels of fudginess in the final product, so I say go with it.

"Perfect" chocolate chip cookies

I'm not saying these cookies (courtesy of another brilliant meta-recipe by the Guardian's Felicity Cloake) are perfect, but considering they managed to fix a day largely taken up with chores, headaches and an attempt to saw off my own finger with a kitchen knife, they're probably worth making.

Crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle, and about 50 per cent chocolate chips. Pretty damn perfect.

My latest jam...

Some days you just have to stick your middle finger up at all those 'seasonal eating' goodie-two-shoes and go summery. So these are raspberry and coconut cupcakes, complete with hidden surprise.

OMFG secret jam centres! Which depending on how you look at it does a good impression of an open wound or is the perfect way to ruin a new white t-shirt. I like to think the coconut butter cream and toasted coconut flakes make it a little prettier and keep it fenced in, but I ate mine in my pyjamas and like stern horror, so jam spillage/jellied blood aesthetics wasn't really an issue.

If you want to make them yourselves the recipe was adapted from one in The Primrose Bakery Book.

The Pink Monster

When it's someone's birthday, and that someone let you live in their home with their awesome dog and their nice boyfriend and made out like it was no big deal, you need to really go for it with their birthday cake. And so The Pink Monster was born.

At least that's what I started calling it at first, but it sounded just a little bit too much like a particularly brutal sex toy. Same for Pinkzilla, and the Pink Revenge. Eventually it just seemed best to call it Gem's birthday cake.

It only baked it in two 20cm tins, but once they were stacked on top of each other a smeared with a healthy layer of white chocolate buttercream it took on an intimidating air. And I'd made it *so* pink it also looked like a prop cake for a kid's film. Which I consider a good thing, obviously.

Failed porn name aside, it was a success, and Gem loved it, and I figure if I ever get divorced and end up temporarily homeless again then I've bought myself some more spare room time.

Jack and Coke to go

Some people, people who probably kick puppies for fun and throw bricks through old ladies' windows, think cupcakes are sissy. Those people have never had home-made Jack Daniels and coke cupcake. I mean, if you're running away from zombies you need your alcohol to be portable and full of carbs, right?*

Sure, they look innocent enough, all glossy chocolate icing and dense chocolate cake, but put in enough bourbon and people will bite in to them, then look at you like they've been shot. Which is my favourite of all the cake reaction looks.

Full disclosure - you're only meant to put the Jack Daniels in the icing, but when the cakes (made with coca cola and chocolate, so super moist) first come out of the oven I drizzle a bit of booze over them. Most of it evaporates, but it leaves just enough flavour to make people think you're trying to cake rape them.

Oh, you are? Then skip the jelly sweet on top and just stick a couple of rohypnol there instead. I've found it works much better.











*Don't look at me like that. I've got a theme and I'm going to stick with it.

Attack of the robot baker

Basically if they give this thing boobs I am out of a job.

That's right, some genius has invented a baking robot that uses lasers to mix and cut cookies. It's a project from a team at MIT, who surely should be building some sort of ozone layer fixing bot, or an android that can go to weddings for you.

If you're not freaked out enough, there's video evidence below. At least they gave him a jaunty hat.

Totally nailed

If you like burgers and/or brightly coloured fingertips then meet Burgers and Nails

First up, it's pure food porn, burgers from all over the world, snapped indecently close up and oozing cheese. Secondly, each one is held by disembodied but somehow still kind of sexy hands with cute paint jobs. Some are girls, some are boys, half the time you can't tell the difference without checking the caption.

Arty, trashy *and* a tiny bit metrosexual, what's not to love?