Eric Lanlard is a man with a message: always use the best ingredients. 'People are so strange,’ the French master patissier says. 'They spend hours making a celebration cake but spoil it with the worst chocolate.’ We are sitting in Lanlard’s cake emporium and cafe in Battersea, south London. On the counters violently coloured cupcakes vie for attention with delicate traditional tarts, intricate petits fours and creamy cheesecakes. Cake Boy, which Lanlard opened in 2007, produces 1,500 small cakes a day, many destined for his other London shop, Cox, Cookies and Cake, a collaboration with the shoe designer Patrick Cox.
I am here to talk about celebration cakes, and it seems Lanlard, 42, who produces 20 bespoke cakes a month, is not impressed with British traditions. When he first set up in business in 1995, 'People were coming to me and saying, “Please can you make my wedding cake as usually they taste horrible.” People don’t want fruitcake – it’s because there are so many bad ones around, but a good fruitcake is brilliant.’
Plain white iced cakes are still in demand, as are tiered stands of cupcakes, which became popular in the mid-2000s. Mention of these prompts eye-rolling from Lanlard; he feels they lack visual excitement – unlike, for example, his signature creation, the tower of desserts.
'I do a selection of eight, things like cheesecake, chocolate mousses,’ he says. 'We use a chocolate-covered stand, too. It smells amazing – and it’s a great conversation-starter.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/8340436/Eric-Lanlard-Fabulous...
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