Here at Ebury we love a good birthday celebration. Partially it’s about celebrating another year of our colleagues but mostly it’s about the cake!

It really is no surprise that we love cake, one look at our bookshelves reveals cookbooks of all shapes and sizes that celebrate their deliciousness. Staff can often be seen flicking through books looking for that perfect recipe, whether it’s a Christmas Cake from Delia’s Happy Christmas, a Chocolate Roll from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, Pina Colada Cupcakes from Eat Me!, chocolate treats from Miss Hope’s Chocolate Box or an edible gift from Good Food: 101 Delicious Gifts we have the office sweet tooth covered

This week celebrated the birthday of our Publicity Assistant, Charlotte (and fed our cake addiction) with a Strawberry and Cream White Chocolate Sponge Cake from the Great British Bake Off. And the celebrations continue today with some amazing birthday cupcakes baked by Charlotte’s family.

Birthday Cakes like these and the Great British Bake Off has recently bought out the competitive bakers within Ebury and Friday has become cake day with someone bringing in temping goodies on a weekly basis. With new books due out later this year on cake decorating, I can only image the competition will heat up as the year progresses.

One thing though is certain, fitness books will begin disappearing from the Vermilion bookshelves as we attempt to counter the inevitable effect!

Kasi – Press Officer

Want to know how to make Delia’s Traditional Christmas Pudding? After tips and tricks for the best Traditional Roast Turkey?

Ask Britain’s best-loved cookery writer herself: Delia will be answering all your questions about Christmas cooking on Thursday, 26th November, 12.00-12.45.

Register now to take part! You can either pre-submit your question now or during the chat time on Thursday.*

Browse through Delia’s Happy Christmas book.

There has been a frisson of excitement zinging about the Ebury offices about Delia’s Happy Christmas ever since it was first announced. Most people have a dog eared and brandy smudged copy of Delia’s original Christmas book and have fond memories of perfectly cooked turkeys a la Delia and 1995’s cranberry shortage but when we heard that Delia was to rework most of the recipes and adding 100 brand new ones we were beside ourselves.

When the finished book finally arrived a few weeks ago a brief halt was called to work in the publicity and marketing departments whist we cooed and ahhhed over its lovely white and red cover and stunning photography. We publish a lot of cookbooks at Ebury and there is no end of inspiration for home cooking but of all the books that have come in recently I could not wait to cook from this one. Christmas or no there are so many recipes that you can use year round in this book.

I had a dinner party late last week and when I trawled through all the cook books at home I still couldn’t get past wanting to cook something from this book. Maybe it was something about the nights drawing in but I felt the need for decent winter comfort food and this book is chock full of it.

There was a pescatarian amongst the party so I turned to the seafood section and fell upon the Hot-Smoked Salmon Pie. Since Gruyere and Parmesan were required for the pie I decided to use the rest of the cheese to make Gruyere and Parmesan Allumettes as an alternative to the usual bowl of Kettle chips I shove in bowls whilst I get the first course ready. Delia suggests storing the allumettes in an airtight tin but there was no chance of that! I pulled them out of the oven when my guests arrived and we ate them (all!) warm. The pie was simple to cook and looked stunning when presented (for presented read dumped on a skillet in the middle of the table!). Everyone dived on the pie and it was gone in 20 seconds flat. The wife of the afore mentioned pescatarian said that she gets given a lot of fish pie because of her husband and ‘there are fish pies and fish pies’ but she loved this one and even wanted the recipe. A resounding success.

Although this book is, without a doubt, a book for Christmas, and my family will be having Roast Stuffed Goose with Apples and Prunes in Armagnac this year, I defy you to get your hands on a copy of this book and not want to cook from it right away!

Louise - Marketing Executive

As we near publication of Delia’s Happy Christmas and I have time to reflect over the last few months, I thought it might be interesting to tell you what we have been up to. Like Christmas, the production of a book is all about the planning. First we need 150 recipes. Then we commission a photographer. Finally add a designer.

Of course it’s not that simple, but this is where we start – putting the team together. Delia knew exactly who she wanted to work with so my first step was to contact everybody and ensure they were all available during the key dates – photography, layout stage and proof checking. We cleared two weeks in everybody’s schedule for the photography (no easy task as the team was based across three different continents) and this gave me a firm date to work to – so that I could work out the production schedule. It’s best to work backwards from the publication date, but when I did this, I realised that we should have begun work a month ago. Oh well, production will just have to print the book quicker! One other question arose – props for the shoot. Our shoot was just after Christmas so the props stylist had to hunt high and low for these unseasonal items. He did a great job and we recreated Christmas in May for the book.

Christmas means turkey

The next key stage is the heart of the book – the recipes. We used a number of recipes from Delia’s original Christmas book – classics such as Roast Turkey, Traditional Christmas Pudding and Christmas Cake. Delia also wrote many new recipes – Chestnut Cupcakes, for example. These little cakes have become so popular that it seemed entirely appropriate to have a festive version. The Last-Minute Christmas chapter was also a very modern addition, and how useful it will be. We also needed to ensure that all the older recipes were updated where necessary – for example, with the advent of vac-packed or frozen chestnuts, we no longer need to laboriously cook and peel them. A little less butter here and there, a few recipes re-tested and all the suppliers contacted to ensure that we have all the correct contact addresses and delivery dates.

The last few weeks

As we approach the publication date, it’s time to negotiate the huge internal and external interest in this book. Our sales, marketing and publicity departments needed jacket proofs, recipe lists, sample pages. Then, we finalise the jacket finishes and bindings with the designer and our production department. We mock up a bookshelf, inserting our book jacket into a photograph of a shop display of best-selling hardbacks to see how ours compares. Stunning – its simple elegance really makes it stand out against the usual autumn list of celebrity biographies and chef cookbooks. We’re all really excited.

Muna - Editorial Director

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I have a dark and shameful secret that none of my friends know but that all of my work colleagues now know about. I have to take a deep breath before saying it…

My name is Louise and I am addicted to baking.

I find it incredibly relaxing. If you had come to my house last night you would have found me in a pair of thai fisherman’s trousers, a hoody, a pair of big fluffy socks and an apron humming along to music and baking my little heart out. Bliss! I realised the true extent of my problem when a recently I was asked by someone what I wanted for my birthday and I said kitchen scales. Not because I don’t have some but because I don’t feel that mine are satisfying enough to use – ideally I’d like to have one of those immensely satisfying ones with the actual weights that balance it out.

I can’t bake all the time because I am only 5”1 and if I baked and then ate all of the fruits of my labours I would be the size of a house so I have had to find a slightly cleverer outlet for my baking passion. When I first arrived at Ebury I was sort of put in change of the getting of birthday cakes and I used to beetle off to the nearest deli and get the nicest, biggest looking one they had but about a year ago they stopped making them and then I saw my in. I started baking the birthday cakes myself…its my absolute favourite thing…I want more people to join my department so that I have more cakes to make. The best thing about making cakes for a load of people is that you really can’t eat half of it – you get to try it and then the rest is magiced away saving you from yourself.

Ebury is the perfect place to work for a baking addict. With such an amazing range of cookbooks I have no end of recipes to try out and as we are all foodies that work here pretty much I also get everyone’s family recipes – of particular note is Caroline Craig’s Mum’s carrot cake – perfection (and one of your five a day!). What more could you want?

Today sees the release of Delia’s Complete How to Cook and when the stunning looking brick of a book came in I immediately hatched a plan to make a cake from it for a colleague who helpfully has her birthday on publication date. After carting the said huge bible home I came across what can only be described at the perfect classic sponge with a modern twist – A Classic Sponge Cake with Passion Fruit Filling. Within an hour I was standing looking at a perfect sponge and battling with my will power not to just eat it all and bake another one.

You’ll be glad to hear it (and its scrummy icing) did survive and made it into the office where it lasted for exactly 2 minutes before being guzzled up. I guess that’s all the praise a baking addict needs to keep her addiction thriving…

So if I have made you a cake for your birthday please don’t say thank you…just eat and I will be pleased.

Louise - Marketing Coordinator