Lily Vanilli, aka Lily Jones, is a baker and cake designer. Originally a graphic designer, she began baking as a hobby and then started selling her cakes at Swanfield market near Brick Lane. Her cakes are made by hand in her own kitchen in East London, and are available online at www.lilyvanilli.com.
She is known for her unusual recipes and designs spectacular cakes and other edible treats, such as the marzipan insects she made for an Alexander McQueen film project, or the blood and gore cupcakes created for Maaike Meeking’s show at London Fashion Week. A Zombie Ate My Cupcake! is her first book.
Your new book, A Zombie Ate My Cupcake! includes recipes with names like Undead Gingerbread, Zombie Hands and Ghastly Ghouls. How did you come up with the idea of making grotesque desserts?
I have always had a fascination with horror and love comic book illustration. This book was a combination of that love and a backlash against all the pretty pink style over substance cupcakes that look glittery, but tasteless. None of the desserts in the book are so gross that they would turn your stomach (I hope!) - its just my dark and twisted humour combined with some really good cake recipes.
Can you talk about the process of putting the book together and testing recipes?The recipes are some of my tried and tested favourite recipes and a couple of new ones just for the book - then the cake designs were just the result of brainstorming, experimenting and choosing the ones that came out well. I read a lot of food history and science news so I got a few ideas from there (eg: the raspberry space cakes). But then a lot of the designs I actually made for the first time for the photo shoot for the book - I just used the ones I liked in practise - its funny because now when I get an order for them I use the book to remind me how to make them!
You take basic cupcakes and make them into amazing edible sculptures that are true works of art. How did you learn to bake?I'm a self taught baker and I've only just learnt how to make things with gumpaste and marzipan, etc. in the last year and a half - as soon as I realised the potential there is in terms of creativity! There are so many amazing edible materials that I got excited by the possibility that you could make anything - and make it very realistic. I think baking can be very artistic - in terms of flavour and developing recipes as much as appearance - its a combination of science and art - and when you consider cake design it also becomes about architecture, painting and sculpture.
You recently worked on an art installation for which you baked 5,000 cupcakes, each cake making up a pixel in a giant image. How did you handle baking so many cupcakes?
I had help! I hired an army of four of my friends (two of whom are talented bakers - the other two helping with printing the pixels and logistics) we hired in extra ovens, equipment and hit the cash and carry hard! Our car was sagging with flour and eggs. The real challenge was time - we had 6 days to source & hire everything & then bake & print the pixels & deliver - I didn't sleep for 3 days and 3 nights straight.
What has been the most creative or fun commission you've been approached to do?
I can't choose! I like a challenge and I like doing something new each time. I'm working on a very special event at the moment for the launch of the book here (in Harrods). It's an installation of a feast of zombies - with cakes from the book as the food. Paul Parker, who illustrated the book, is designing a setting of a haunted house and we are going to have some really fun surprises.
Where will you be on Halloween?
There will be a very macabre extra special dark tea party at Viktor Wynds Little Shop of Horrors here in London. I will also be selling cakes from the book exclusively in Harrods for the Halloween season.
A Zombie Ate My Cupcake! and will be featured in the Harrods Stationery Department on October 29th from 1-2pm as LilyVanilli delivers a book signing with a difference supported by Punchdrunk Theatre Group and set designer Mark Connell. The scene will be set with a feast of zombies, played by members of Punchdrunk,seated at a table designed by set designer Mark Connell, featuring all the cakes from the book laid out in a feast style.
Open to the public - visitors will be served by a realistic a spooky zombie waiter in coat and tails and can have their picture taken seated at the dinner table having a tea party with zombies. A huge image of a haunted house interior will provide the backdrop – designed by Paul Parker who illustrated the book. The feast event will launch the book but will also celebrate the new Lily Vanilli counter in the Harrods Food Hall patisserie, where Lily Vanilli cakes and will now be exclusively
available all year round – cake from the book will also be available at the counter from Oct 24th – 31st.
Interview by Marny Smith, marny.smith@rylandpeters.com
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