I introduce myself a little bit more. Cake Pops and Film Premieres

People always ask me if I've found a way to combine my love of cooking with my love of acting. The answer has always been “No, sadly not!”. But last year Fate dealt me a lucky hand and found a way to do it! 

And that's what I'm going to share with you today, lovely Steemies. No recipe today, but a foodie experience. 

So to start off with, here's a film trailer for you to watch:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utxdXqMl54U

Did you spot anyone familiar at 0:52?! Don't get too excited, I'm only in Dartmoor Killing very briefly, but it was a really fun feature to be a part of. The film had its international premiere on Dartmoor National Park (UK), a grand event that took place over three nights and brought together hundreds of film-goers, cast and crew.

 Here's a picture of beautiful Dartmoor.

 Knowing I was a chef, the director asked me if I'd be interested in running the desserts stall at the three premiere nights, and of course I jumped at the chance. It had to be something that was easy to offer and easy for the punters to eat- no dishes, mess, heat requirements, cutlery. There was going to be 200+ people per night, and at the time I didn't have access to a professional kitchen, so it needed to be something I could make at home and transport to the site. 

My first thought (mainly because I love eating them- what better excuse?!) was macarons. Hmm...bit too tricky making hundreds! My next idea, and the one that stuck, was cake pops, except I'd never made one in my life! But they were the ideal things; hand-held, served unheated, easy to make in large batches, easy to make different flavours, pretty to look at and something a bit unusual. The fun part was coming up with a  list of possible flavours; the hard part was choosing which to make! The other hard part was taste-testing all of them...SO hard ;)

 These are some of the pops during the taste-testing.

 In the end I chose five flavours:  

• Banoffee: sponge, banana, caramel and a banana chip 
• Lemon Meringue: sponge, lemon juice/zest, meringue pieces 
• Eton Mess: sponge, freeze-dried strawberries, meringue pieces 
• Apple Crumble: sponge, dried apple, crumble topping 
• Nutella: sponge, nutella, hazelnuts 

The first four I chose because they're classic desserts. Nutella I chose just because it was too damn tasty! 

I made 500, 100 of each flavour. By the end of it, my hand got stuck in a ball shape from all the work...not really. It was hard work, I was working all hours, but it was fun. I had help from my little kitchen elves to wrap them up and put ribbon round them.

 I was really happy with the result- the cake pops went down a treat and I got some really lovely feedback. It was such a fantastic event and I'm so glad that I was given the opportunity to be a part of it. It was such a huge success that it won 'Premiere of the Year' at the 2016 Screen Awards. Amazing! 

That's all for today! See you soon Steemies! XXX

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