Living The Sweet Life

With my Chocolate & Pistachio Mousse Cake & Chocolate & Honeycomb Loaf Cake with Chocolate Sauce.

Hi Friends!

I hope you are all having a lovely week so far? I have just returned back from a quick trip away to the UAE for a quick (and probably last of the year) book tour pit stop and boy, oh BOY am I glad to be back home. I know I say this every single newsy, but life has been well and truly life-ing of late with the constant house moves, and two semi back to back work trips away – I feel a little…out of sorts? A little ungrounded? A little too nomadic for my liking and I cannot tell you how much I am itching to get back into the kitchen and FINALLY bake my kitchen into a total mess.

I managed to squeeze in my first and only bake in the new kitchen before I left for Dubai – which was a little unnerving. Ya know when something is just a little too new that you treat it with extra tender love and care cause you’re worried that you are a big clumsy oaf and you just know you will spill, mark, scratch or dent something if you don’t monitor every breath, blink and movement. Considering James and I both spent pretty much every single penny to our name on the house, and truthfully, never in a million years would I have thought I would have been able to afford and get a mortgage on such a beautiful home, I am being possibly a little too delicate so have shied away from truly letting rip when it comes to baking.

life (and current state of my brain)

BUT my friends, it has been too long. It has been nearly 2 months since I had a kitchen I can call my own, which has meant very minimal baking, which in turn has resulted in very little goods to deliver to you guys BUT most importantly…I am starting to feel a little too healthy. My daily cake consumption is at an all time low. I haven’t been sneaking forkfuls of cake straight out the fridge into the never-ending abyss that is my stomach. My general happiness is feeling a little stale and all I can put that down to is the lack of cake and making I am doing in my life. So, as such, accept my apologies but please also buckle in because we are now on the home straight to CHRISTMAS BABY!

It’s my favourite time of year. The smells. The vibes. The aesthetics. The feelings. The excitement which reaches an all-time peak on Christmas Eve and then inevitably nose dives at about 4pm the next day when you start to realise you have put far too much pressure on Christmas Day being perfect. Will I learn my lesson? No. Do I want to? Again no. Will I be counting down the days to Christmas again come Boxing Day? Yes.

I love that for everyone, Christmas takes on a different meaning. Maybe it’s a quiet gathering with your nearest and dearest friends. Maybe it’s an extended family situation. Perhaps you prefer to avoid the mayhem and celebrate it solo. Maybe the 25^th is just the 25^th. But an Indian Christmas? Well, well, well my friends…

Let me paint you a little picture: I wake up early to start the food prep, my eldest sister Niki pours us each a glass of very cheap Bucks Fizz (£2.99 from Tesco, which yes, does taste more like orange juice than booze but least we are getting our vitamins in early?), I will resume position of Head Chef, she will very dutifully and excellently serve as my Sous Chef (and Christmas DJ – I am strictly Michael Buble or nothing), Kelly B is normally at work in the morning, which leaves my other sister, Sonya, to set up an enormous grazing table in the lounge, and occasionally wander into the kitchen, stir a pot, claim everything looks good and waltzes out with a Christmas cracker hat on her head.

As for my brother, he will waltz down at some point in the late morning nursing a hangover, whilst my Dad (if he is not in Canada where he normally is at this time of year) will be trying to ply everyone with what he calls Chambo (it’s actually Chambord but you try correcting a Ugandan Indian man and see where you get) and facetiming random people who he claims are your family and makes you then endure a pained and strained awkward 5 minute convo with said stranger whilst internally stressing if the brussel sprouts are burnt. AND THIS IS JUST THE MORNING.

The afternoon is chaos.

We all eat far too much of the grazing board which we said was just for light bites and snacks, which means no one wants Christmas dinner until the evening (yay for cold food). Milo (my dog) inevitably eats something he shouldn’t have so requires an emergency vet visit (this has happened 2 out of 4 christmasses so far), my mum returns home from work stressing that we haven’t eaten, we play games, it gets too competitive and the dares for the losers get a little interesting (I slapped a single wax strip onto my brother one year and he’s still scarred from the event), I will ask to watch Home Alone for the gazillionth time which is met with a resounding no, my Aunt and her family will without fail turn up because they have either:

a) forgotten to defrost the turkey (rip xmas 2018),

b) burnt something slash everything,

c) blew a fuse so the oven doesn’t work (hi xmas 2023),

d) fallen out (a classic crimbo tradition)

or e) all of the former.

We then try and squeeze 12 people around a 6 people dining table, Michael Buble is turned off in favour of Bollywood and old Bhangra songs and what started off as a lovely, modest affair turns into animalistic carnage come 8pm thanks to the old Chambo.

Goodness gracious, I love Indian Christmas.

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Back onto normal programming, I return with a double serving of chocolate filth cause that’s just what I do best.

• Having just returned from Dubai and NOT experiencing the viral pistachio filled chocolate, I wanted to get back and make a cakey take on it. First up, we have my Chocolate & Pistachio Mousse Cake. A 4 layered bonanza which is going to be the centrepiece and crowning glory for any of your future festive soirees – it makes for the perfect make ahead dessert and can be served up in scoops as a help yourself situation from a large bowl or set in a tin for perfect slices of chocolatey pistachio goodness. It’s got cake, it’s got mousse, it’s got pistachio smothered kataifi (finely shredded filo) and a sumptuously soft chocolate ganache layer to top. This tastes even better the next day, eaten straight out of the serving dish for breakfast and washed down with coffee. Don’t judge. Just grab a fork and come join me.

• The one and only bake I have been able to make in my new kitchen before I went away was my Chocolate & Honeycomb Loaf with Chocolate Sauce. This uses my All Things Butter Chocolate in the recipe but I’ve included a little substitution for those of you who can’t get your hands on it. The recipe is incredibly versatile, and the same batter can be used to make cupcakes/muffins – all the timings for variations are included below. The sponge is incredibly moist and moreish, and the honeycomb whipped cream goes a little TOO HARD. Topping a slice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and drowning it in hot chocolate sauce??? I just. I can’t. You need. Right now.

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Let’s dive headfirst into this week’s chocolatey goodness. I PROMISE you that there will be other things other than just chocolate on the menu in the forthcoming weeks as we get stuck into the festive baking but for now, as the days get shorter, the weather gets colder – all I want, need and crave is anything warming, anything comforting and anything chocolatey.

And talking of, first up we have my Chocolate & Pistachio Mousse Cake. I am somehow part of the small contingent who has yet to try the viral chocolate & pistachio bars – whether that be the real thing (I could not locate it for the life of me in Dubai) or the homemade version. A negative trait of mine is that if everyone is doing something, I will be damned if I join the crowd. Like you know Game of Thrones? Yup, never seen it. Harry Potter? Only watched it for the first time 2 years back. Does this stubbornness serve me in any sort of way? Absolutely not but here we are. So with that in mind, I am taking the essence of the aforementioned viral trend and making it into something completely different.

I did something similar a few months back in the newsy where I made a cake with a pistachio mousse in the middle which was DREAMY but here we are keeping the idea much more on brand. Whether you decide to make this as a 9 inch cake like I have, in a rectangular baking tin or decide to serve it up as a scoopable pudding, I promise, you and whoever you decide to share it with (no judgement if you choose to demolish solo), will love you forever.

a multitasking queen

We have a super moist, deliciously intense, filthily chocolatey sponge which is liberally soaked in a hot chocolate syrup, topped with a lighter than air chocolate mousse, layered with toasted shredded filo smothered in pistachio cream and then glazed in a velvety soft chocolate ganache. Left to set until you get perfect slices of edible heaven – she not only looks the part but tastes it too. Fudgey, dense in the right way, crunchy in the best way, smooth in every way. This is *the* sweet treat you have been dreaming about. Look at her. See! I wasn’t lying!

Would I say this is a top 5 bake of the year for me? VERY MUCH SO. If the idea of layering this cake and leaving it to set brings you out in a mild sweat, you can skip the sponge and set the mousse in dessert glasses, top with the pistachio cream and finish with the chocolate ganache for individual portions. Mix and match the layers, make them all, make just the one – whatever you do, do yourself a favour and save this recipe. I PROMISE YOU, this will be one of the first things that make my bakery menu whenever (manifesting for 2026) it opens.

Recipe Makes: 1 x 23 cm / 9 inch cake

Recipe Serves: 8