Chocolate heaven - with Cadburys and Lily Vanilli

Mention the name Lily Vanilli to any foodies or East London hipsters and they’ll gush about her decadent, abstract and beautifully designed cakes.

The 29-year-old artisan baker owns a quirky cake shop just off London's infamous Columbia Road – after just five minutes in her kitsch space I felt like I'd walked into a cafe in uber-cool Williamsburg, New York.

Lily bakes for the likes of Elton John, Stella McCartney and the mistress of baking herself Nigella Lawson.
She’s a cool customer and has a great personality and style to boot.

A selection of Lily's cakes

I was invited to the Lily Vanilli bakery by Cadburys - who asked Lily to use her creative skills to make them a show-stopping dessert. After all, that’s what she does best.

Using vanilla floured Crispellos Lily created a chocolate tower masterpiece. Which, is not only a visual wow but is sure to taste amazing. Everyone loves the good ol' profiterole stack, or a croque-en-bouche for the more cultured amongst us, so Lily decided to re-create that.

Despite looking grand and extravagant the Crispellos Tower is actually really easy to make. So, if you fancy showing off in front of dinner guests in the run-up to Christmas this is desert to do it.

Lily explained to me: “It looks so impressive and tastes amazing, so it works on both levels. There’s no point in having a cake that looks sensational but tastes bland.

“A traditional French croque-en-bouche is made by stacking profiteroles in a cone-shaped mould and setting them in place with caramel.

“The Crispellos tower saves you having to faff around with hot caramel, which can burn your fingers.”

Lily and her chocolate masterpiece

Ingredients:

- Bags of Cadbury Crispelloa - the taller you want your masterpiece the more bags you’ll need
- 250g of milk or dark chocolate (depending on your taste preferences)
- Eye catching decorations – real fruit like raspberries, blueberries, cherries look great or edible decorations such as flowers, glitter and gold leaves. Use your imagination the wilder the better.

Method:

1. The first step is to melt the milk/ dark chocolate, this will be your glue to stick the Crispello’s together as you stack them on top of each other
2. The easiest way to do this is to break the chocolate into small chucks, put in a glass or metal dish and melt over a pan of boiling water.

3. Then you simply dip the base of each Crispello into the melted chocolate and stick on top of another piece to form a pyramid.

Lily melting her chocolate ready to start crafting her tower

4. Probably the easiest way is to start with a large square base, of say, 20-30 Crispellos and then add smaller and smaller layers until you reach a peak at the top.

5. Finally, when you are happy with your tower, it’s the fun part. Get experimental and creative adding lots of decorations.
6. Simply dip the bottom of each decoration into the melted chocolate and stick to the pyramid. Easy.

I’d be pretty impressed if someone made this party piece for me at a dinner soirée… beats soggy trifle any day.

A smaller version decorated with edible flowers and wafers

To make your own Cadbury Crispello Tower visit www.facebook.com/cadburyuk for the recipe and tips.

Good luck and shhhh... no-one needs to know how easy this amazing looking croque-en-bouche really is.