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Shattered Glass Cupcakes/courtesy Cico Books

If calories are the only thing standing between you and that cupcake, consider yourself lucky. Ancient Celts didn’t have it so easy.

“The ancient Celts used cakes as way to select people for sacrifice,” says London-based baker Lily Jones, aka: Lily Vanilli, author of “A Zombie Ate my Cupcake” (Cico Books, 2010.) “There’s actually a dead body in the British Museum. He was a sacrifice victim that was selected by a cake. He was preserved in tar.”

Who knew, right? Throughout history, Jones says, many cultures used cakes as symbols of the macabre. She points out that even today we use them ritualistically, for birthdays, weddings (where, notably, a “groom’s cake” is dark and sinister, while the bride’s cake is white and virginal.) In the case of the Celts, the baker would blacken part of the cake, which would be divided at a special ceremony. The person who received the black piece would “volunteer” for sacrifice, Jones says. Which makes you wonder why you’d sidle up to the table in the first place. “I guess the offer of a slice of delicious cake was enough,” she says.

But Jones gives new meaning to the phrase “a cake to die for.” Tired of the pretty but poor tasting cupcakes being hawked on every city street corner, Jones decided to turn the idea on its head: to make delicious cupcakes that looked grotesque. In her world, marzipan fingers protrude from a cocoa powder graveyard, coconut jelly eyeballs jiggle atop white frosting, and cupcake tops blossom into bloody pink brains.

In her London shop, bleeding heart cupcakes are bestsellers, Jones says, and she gets lots of custom orders as well. The weirdest? A woman who asked for a cake that was an exact replica of her boyfriend’s head.

“It was just a head on a plate,” Jones says. “It looked a bit like the movie “Seven” because I delivered it in a cake box. The receptionist recognized him in the box.”

So basically a human sacrifice without the actual sacrifice.

Halloween will find Jones doing a dark, sinister tea party in an East London taxidermy shop. What will she go as to do justice to all her macabre confections? “I don’t know yet,” she says. “I make a pretty good Olive Oil from Popeye.”

for more on Lily Vanilli, see my recent story for AP.

Thomas Zeleninsky

Love the Times piece this week about the eggplant dishes of the Mediterranean. Cinnamon and coriander flavor the Turkish turlu, while the parsley and oregano of Greek briam takes the nose just slightly adrift from the thyme-scented ratatouille. But even more fun is the piece about Bab al Yemen — the gate of Yemen — a restaurant in Brooklyn whose food transports you to the Arabian peninsula.

Australian Chef Ross Dobson

My husband’s cousin Lalita makes a gulab jamun that is soft and crumbly, just sweet enough without tasting candy-like. I have it every time I visit her — in Australia.

Lalita, of course, is Indian, but she and her family are part of the great immigrant culture to be found down under. Along with their food. Greek, Dutch, Syrian, Indian, Italian, Vietnamese, Cantonese…it’s a long list of cultures (okay, and the koalas, too) — that makes Australia so intriguing.

None of this was lost on Sydney’s chef Ross Dobson. Dobson’s new book “Wholesome Kitchen” offers easy, healthy recipes heavily inspired by his country’s rich cultural heritage. Here’s a (lightly edited) Q&A he was kind enough to do with me via email:

HyphenatedChef: What made you think of using a multi-cultural approach to this book?

Dobson: This is how I like to cook and also how I like to eat when I go out. I look to diverse ranges of cultures for inspiration when I cook for myself, cook for others in my café or write recipes for others.

HC: How were you inspired by Australia’s multi-cultural society?

D: I think that forming a close relationship with our neighbors who were new to Australia from Hong Kong was really influential. The food tasted so different from anything else I had ever eaten. We had a very no-frills diet with very little flavour. For example, no one used fresh garlic in their cooking in the 70’s unless, of course, you were not born in Australia. The Italian and Chinese food I ate became a huge inspiration. Once I tried black beans, dim sum, home made salami and fresh parmesan cheese (not in a can!) there was no going back. [Read more →]