Green & Black's - where it all began

Okay okay, not quite. I got into baking ever so slightly before that, but this 16th birthday present has, for almost 3 years, just about solely dictated my use of the oven, my chocolate consumption and unfortunately, my waistline. It was sometime about a year to so ago, when I was just a mere 20-something recipes into the book, that for some crazy reason I decided "hell, let's bake EVERY SINGLE recipe in here". And so it was done.

First aim in life: bake every single recipe from the Green & Black's cookbook (second aim in life: own a Mercedes SLK).

Today, after a few (thousand?) hours of mixing, folding, melting, rolling, frying, whipping, a fair few kilos of 70% chocolate, many a run of the dishwasher, and lots and lots of trips to ASDA, I am proud to say that I have slaved my way through 72 recipes, with 25 to go. It's a pity that I started blogging so late in my journey, but never fear, for as an end of first-year-of-uni present, my lovely friend gave me the "101 Best Loved Chocolate Recipies" by Hotel Chocolat. These include dishes like 'White Chocolate and Truffle Risotto' and the 'Truffle Reviver' (which uses Champagne chocolate truffles as its main ingredient). And me being me, I'm determined to bake my way through them too. Bastard.

Now, this seems to be turning into a rant against baking, but actually, I love it. I love Green & Black's. I love the small of freshly baked cookies. I love the happiness that spreads through the room when you walk in with a tin of brownies under your arm.

The Green & Black's cookbook is sectioned into an assortment of chocolate-inspired moods, from Magical recipes for impressive entertaining, to Old Timers that will 'never let you down', to Create a Stir recipes that include Chilli Vodka Chocolates! It's taught me alot; like how you can put chocolate into pretty much any dish in the world and pass it off as 'mystical', and that there is much, much more to your average chocolate sponge cake.

Hopefully this blog will share my kitchen experience, and then my guilt of aimlessly baking and cooking with no results to show for it will reside. Then maybe I can concentrate on something (arguably) useful, like my degree.

Lesson learned today: baking isn't a waste of time. Not if you blog about it.

Bon appetit!
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