by Jenny Colgan
Carefully place the coated hell cake in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.
Meanwhile, temper the chocolate for the chocolate shards. Chop the chocolate into equal pieces, and place half in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Allow to slowly melt. Once melted, take the bowl off the heat and add the remaining half of chopped chocolate. Mix into the melted chocolate until everything has melted and allow to cool to 86°F. (Use a thermometer to measure this.) Once it reaches temperature, it’s ready to use. Spread most of the tempered chocolate onto silicon paper and leave to cool completely—once cooled, it should snap into shards. Pour a few tablespoons of the chocolate mixture in a piping bag with a small nozzle and pipe “tartarus” on the silicon paper—leave this to cool too.
Add another coating of ganache (using it all up) to the hell cake to get very straight sides, and return to the freezer for 15 minutes.
Remove the cake from the freezer, warm the glaze in a small pan, and carefully pour the glaze over the hell cake and smooth.
Heat the glaze with a blow-dryer so it is very shiny and even.
Place the “tartarus” piped chocolate nameplate on the cake.
Insert straws into the hell cake, to hold the heaven cakes in place. Cut the straws off to a suitable height. Place the stack of heaven cakes onto the hell cake, secured with the straws.
Pipe swirls of meringue over the gap between the heaven and hell cakes, then toast the meringue with a chefs’ blow torch.
Finish the cake with shards of tempered chocolate around the edges.
Finally add gold leaf to the heaven cakes to decorate.
Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe
A Novel with Recipes
Jenny Colgan
International Bestseller
A sweet and satisfying novel of how delicious it is to discover your dreams.
Issy Randall can bake. No, Issy can create stunning, mouthwateringly divine cakes. After a childhood spent in her beloved Grampa Joe’s bakery, she has undoubtedly inherited his talent. She’s much better at baking than she is at filing, so when she’s laid off from her desk job, Issy decides to open her own little café. But she soon learns that her piece-of-cake plan will take all of her courage and confectionary talent to avert disaster.
Funny and sharp, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café is about how life might not always taste like what you expect, but there’s always room for dessert!
Praise for Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe:
“Sheer indulgence from start to finish.” —Sophie Kinsella
For more Jenny Colgan books, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
Sweetshop of Dreams
A Novel with Recipes
Jenny Colgan
International Bestseller
Rosie is about to get a taste of the sweet life.
Rosie Hopkins’s life is…comfortable. She has a steady nursing job, a nice apartment in London, and Gerard, her loyal (if a bit boring) boyfriend. And even though she might like to pursue a more rewarding career, and Gerard doesn’t seem to have any plans to propose, Rosie’s not complaining. After all, things could be worse. Right?
It certainly seems that way when Rosie’s mother sends her out to the country to care for her ailing great aunt Lilian. Rosie is shocked to find that the elderly woman, who lives alone, is barely mobile and eats only sweets from her shuttered candy shop. But as Rosie gets Lilian back on her feet, explores the wonders of the old-fashioned sweetshop, and gets to know the mysterious and solitary Stephen, she starts to think that settling for what’s comfortable might not be so great after all.
Praise for Meet Me at the Cupcake Café:
“Colgan folds in a colorful cast of characters and whips up an easy, sweet read.” —USA Today
“A satisfying read.” —Publishers Weekly
For more Jenny Colgan books, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
Jenny Colgan is the bestselling author of more than eleven novels, including Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams and Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe. She also writes regularly for the Guardian and the Times, as well as the BBC’s Doctor Who. She is married with three children and lives in London and Cannes, where she bakes, drinks pink wine, and plays the piano to an extremely disappointing standard.