Forget-Me-Not in Cabaret

The deliciously naughty flapper performs a dazzling collection of charming period songs that will romance your heart and tickle your fancy! Accompanied on the piano by the equally delicious and masterly composer Paul Lewis.

Saturday 22nd August 09
Old Needlemakers Café, West Street, Lewes
Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm performance
(Food and bar available)
Tickets £12 available from Old Needlemakers Café
Tel 01273 486258

For the more adventurous dress cabaret camp or art deco.

“Clever and catchy songs performed by a hugely talented cabaret star’’ “Anything but forgettable”

Photo by Penelope Coleman

I will be wearing my top hat mentioned in previous blog!

Silk

I have just finished reading this beautiful novel “Silk” by Alessandro Baricco. It delivered on every promise made by the glowing reviews within its covers and I was truly touched by this literary gem. As the story centred on a young silk breeder in France in 1861 it made me realize that I had never really given a thought to the art of making silk. I think it’s a bit like stories I have heard of city kids who think milk comes from Tesco’s but don’t actually know it comes from cows grazing in the countryside! Well back in my brain somewhere I knew that silk didn’t come from Harrods but from little worms, but I sort of didn’t understand the complexities of its production and the fact it was first developed in ancient China, possibly as early as 6000 BC and definitely by 3000 BC. “Silk” focuses on the story of Hervé Joncour whose job was dealing in silkworms, oh and his most haunting love story of heartbreaking quality. I’m still none the wiser about the actual production method from this book but it has given me a healthy respect for this most glorious material, and I am simply blown away by the very invention of it and the fact that entire communities were and still are dependent on its production... all beginning with a by-product of the little silkworm!
Then as luck should have it I found this vintage black silk top hat in an antique market in Arundel just after I had put Alessandro Baricco’s book down. I don’t think I have ever seen a top hat for sale in such excellent condition as they are often dented or moth eaten. We think it dates back to the 30s, and the deal was sealed by its coming in a proper top hat box and a 1940s glass and silver cake stand being thrown in for free. (Pics of my cake stand later!) On the first try of the top hat it fitted so perfectly, I wanted to burst into song: “Come to the cabaret old chum” and start dancing the Charleston! I am a hat girl and I’m lucky enough that I can wear most hats without looking stupid, mind you I can’t guarantee what they might do for my behaviour! I am totally in love with my top hat and it will get good use in my various shows. The silk makes the hat shimmer and due to some recent research on the internet (so I don’t remain ignorant forever!) I now understand that silk fibres have a triangular cross section with rounded corners. This reflects light at many different angles, thus giving silk a natural shine!!!!!

What Wikipedia has to say on silk production:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk

Winchester we Love You!

Last night we performed my show "Ising on the Cake - The Chocolate Experience" in the beautiful mediaeval city of Winchester at The Discovery Centre. The audience was brilliant and totally embraced the show, good fun and lots of chocolate were had by all. On the way home Paul and I were chatting about the show and we were tickled pink by the reaction to Paul's song "Soprano in the Shower."
Paul wrote this amazing cabaret song for me after hearing me do my vocal warm-ups in the shower! This has become a firm favourite in my sets and I'm often asked to sing it again (I think that might be due to people double checking what they really heard!!!!)
We will be recording this gorgeous song very soon but for now here are the lyrics especially for our Winchester fans xxx

Soprano in The Shower

There's a Soprano in the shower, it's soprano shower hour, tra, la, la, ha, ha,ha, ha, haaa
The sound of vocal warm ups in it has him steamier by the minute, tra, la, la, ha,ha,ha,ha, haaa.
The thought of diva moist and singing has his head and senses ringing,

And his thoughts are those of sinning in the spray.
He don't know how to stop him rushing into where the waters gushing,

If you ask me if I'm blushing: I should say!

There's a soprano in the shower, it's soprano shower hour,tra, la,la,ha,ha,ha,ha,haaa.
The thought of his soprano in it makes him hotter by the minute, tra, la, la, ha, ha, ha, haaa.
The sounds of high notes while I'm soaping has his racing brain a-hoping

That we might be soon eloping far away.
He can not wait a minute longer for his sexy singer-songer,

He wants wedding dinga-dongas right away!

Ming,ming,ming,ming,
Me,me,me.,me,meeee,
Maw,maw,maw,maaaaw,
Ma,ma,ma,ma,ma,ma!
Ah............................
Ming.ming,ming,ming,
Me,me,me,me, meeee,
Maw, maw,maw, maw (Sharon has a "When Harry met Sally" moment!)
More soap please!

There's a soprano in the shower, it's soprano shower hour, tra,la,la,ha,ha,ha,ha,haaa.
At sounds of singing in the water he has thoughts he didn't oughta, tra,la,la,ha,ha,ha,haaa.
He loves me hot and really steaming, that's what gets him freely dreaming

And his passions all a-teeming wanting more.
I am his frothing soaping songbird, I'm his loving all night long bird,
And for him I'm not the wrong bird,

And for him I'm not the wrong bird,

No for him I'm not the wrong bird that's for sure!

(Copyright 2008 Paul Lewis)

Thank you
I would like to thank Dawn from Le Salon du Chocolat for supplying chocolates to the audience. We chocoholic ladies are cooking up a plan to work together in the future, it will be a real chocolaty affair so watch this space...
Here is Dawn's website
http://www.lesalonduchocolat.co.uk/
Winchester Discovery Centre, you rock. The staff were all so friendly, professional and helpful. A big THANK YOU for all your support on the day and of course for booking my show.
www.discoverycentres.co.uk/winchester

Phew. I think I'll go have a lie down now!

“Storm in a Teacup”

A delightful interactive cupcake making extravaganza!

Sharon Elizabeth cupcake maker and singer extraordinaire will embrace the deco theme and demonstrate how to make her gorgeous “Silver Screen Stars” cupcake collection while singing hits from the 1920s-30s. You will learn top baking tips, get a chance to try your hand at decorating a cupcake and be thoroughly entertained by Sharon Elizabeth, who will be accompanied by masterly composer Paul Lewis on the piano.

• Rendezvous •

mdtea
38 Upper St. James’s Street, Brighton, BN2 1JN
Tuesday 1st September 09
Meet and greet 6.30pm -7.00pm, 7.00 pm start
Tickets £35 available @ mdtea
Booking essential as there are limited places!!!
Tickets include bubbles on arrival, substantial nibbles, cupcake, a cup of mdtea exclusive tea and a goody bag to take home.

***Bring an apron, teacup and saucer and a sense of fun.
***Embrace the 1920s-30s theme and dress in deco style.

The last ‘Storm in a Teacup’ event was a sell-out festival prize winner.
We would like to advise you that the event may be filmed by Channel 5.

I am really looking forward to this event. I love deco
and I love cupcakes.

mdtea is the perfect venue and the owners Maggie and Helen
are terrific gals to be working with. It's going to be a fun night!!!!

www.sharonelizabeth.co.nz

Toffee Apple Crumble Cupcake (makes 12)

In February I performed "Storm in a Teacup" in the English Flower Garden at Hamilton Gardens in New Zealand. To connect with the garden I themed the cupcake-making demonstration around culinary inspiration from my English childhood. It was a delightful afternoon, the weather was perfect, the event was a sellout and all the participants were gorgeous. One of the highlights for me would have to be witnessing the only gent proudly icing his cupcake while telling me had never done this before (he was about 70!)

This cupcake is a combination of two happy childhood memories. Firstly buying toffee apples that gleamed like precious gems in the sunshine at the village fete. Always impossible to eat and a real hazard when you had wiggly teeth, but somehow with sheer determination and the deliciously sweet and sour combination spurring me on I'd eventually get down to the core! Secondly eating my Mum's classic Sunday roast followed by the equally classic English pud, apple crumble. Ah, what simple bliss.

In this recipe I opted for using chewy milk toffees as I wanted a lovely gooey finish and I didn't want to damage any teeth!

Ingredients
2 small eating apples grated with skin on – I like red apples for colour
125g melted butter
½ cup of raw sugar
1 beaten egg
1 ½ cup plain flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
2 tsp of cinnamon
8 chewy toffees (each toffee chopped into 8 pieces)

Crumble Topping
25g butter
½ cup sieved plain flour
1 tbsp of brown sugar

Toffee Sauce
5 chewy toffees and 1 tbsp of milk

Method
1 Make crumble topping first – In a medium bowl combine the flour and sugar. Cut the butter into small piece and drop it into the flour and sugar mix. Rub in the butter until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Set aside.

2 In a medium bowl combine apple and sugar. Stir until sugar has dissolved.
3Add butter and egg to the apple and sugar mix. Stir until combined.

4 Sieve all dry ingredients in a separate bowl then gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet mix. Only stir until all ingredients are combined.
5 Spoon mixture into cupcake cases set in a muffin tin. Evenly distribute toffee pieces amongst the cupcakes and with your finger, gently push the toffee pieces into the cake mix so the toffee is just covered.

6 Top each cupcake with a desert spoon of crumble topping.
7 Bake for 25 mins in a 180°c fan bake oven/gas mark 4. Cupcakes are cooked when the crumble is slightly golden.
8 Place the remaining toffees into a heavy bottomed saucepan. On a medium heat melt the toffees and slowly stir in the milk. You will end up with a toffee sauce. Dribble sauce over each cooked cupcake while they are still warm and in the tin. Remove cupcakes from tin and cool on a wire rack.

Can be served warm with ice cream or custard or serve cold as is.

There’s a Little Bit of Bad in Every Good Little Girl.

What’s on the piano is going to be a regular feature of my blog and I couldn’t think of a more lovely way to start than with this piece with its beautiful deco cover. I have to admit this piece is on our piano more for its ornamental value rather than something I am currently learning and then this got me musing about old sheet music and the value of it in my life. My show Forget-Me-Not was inspired by a box of music which my Dad gave me having found it in a garage. Further songs for the show were found in a Salvation Army store in New Zealand for an absolute pittance and then Paul and I wrote the rest. To me old sheet music is real treasure in so many ways, and not only for musical reasons.

Firstly I love the feel of old sheet music and the smell of the aged ink and paper with its mustiness reminiscent of times gone by, (or it can just be a sign of bad storage which isn’t so nice!) Some copies can be so fragile it’s like holding enormous butterfly wings, and from the numerous repairs you can tell it was a much loved and cherished piece. The covers often have glorious pictures of beguiling flappers, movie stars or stout German women in breeches from the Edwardian era, so they become great reference material for costumes. Then I think about the people who used the music before me with their names proudly inscribed in ink on the covers. My imagination runs wild here with visions of old fashioned music teachers in woollen suits pounding the keys on the humble school upright! Or more romantic visions of the cosy 1950s family sing-a-longs with Dad at the piano abundantly playing and Mum and the children all rosy cheeked singing in harmony. It interests me to read their personal script notes in the score or alternative words to the ones written. One copy I have of the National anthem has had “God Save the King” changed to “God Save the Queen.” I think that’s quite sweet as it could be rather embarrassing if you were invited to sing at the local Proms and got it wrong! I wonder how the songs were used: just for pleasure and sheer joy or for performance in amateur or professional productions? Who listened?
On my treasure hunting trips I often find huge bundles of music dumped unceremoniously on the floor all marked with the same name. As I search through it is like taking a glimpse into the previous owner’s musical soul. Mmmmmm. What would someone make of my sheet music collection with its opera arias, theatre songs and cheeky cabaret numbers such as “Soprano in the Shower,” (a song Paul wrote for me to perform)? Then the title of the song I began with comes to mind. Perhaps they would conclude... “There’s a Little Bit of Bad in Every Good Little Girl.”

Enough of this musing... I can tell these ramblings could go on forever so I think it is time I get on with using some of this sheet music!

Tra la la x

Help me Heather Mills, I need cake!

Yesterday I persuaded my sweetheart Paul to come with me and pay a visit to our newest local dining experience, V Bites. Heather Mills’ brain-child, a vegan restaurant or as she likes to call it, “a vegan community café.” The fact that I got Paul into a vegan restaurant is a huge testimony to his love for me as he is barely tolerant of vegetarianism let alone vegan! My quest was simple. I needed cake and unfortunately I have to cut back on my dairy at the mo because of the dreaded ‘M’.* ‘M’ makes my staccato notes stick and my voice not as clear as it should be. So for the time being I am avoiding dairy which is a known cause for ‘M’ and the thought of visiting Heather Mills for cake felt like I was about to be shown the Holy Grail. As we readied ourselves to set out on a blustery, damp Saturday afternoon I felt slight trepidation. What shoes do I wear? Will my basket be frisked to reveal my 1970s Spanish tooled leather bag? Best not wear my original 1930s mink-tail hat! These were all real thoughts. I gave myself a stern talking to and told myself to “shut-up” and “don’t stereotype, you need cake.” This isn’t a review of V Bites, I am simply interested in dairy free-cake though.... the 8 waiting staff that pounced on you if you so much as moved, numerous yummy mummies with their broods and bold bright buggies, hip grandies and daddies telling their offspring to “hurry up and eat your fish fingers” were quite frankly overwhelming! I was then taken to a room with its “moving travelator of delights”(as it is described on the V Bites website) and was rather shocked to see a sushi bar-style conveyor belt circulating various dry looking uncovered slices while people sat around the bar sipping their soy espresso. Number 1 thought: This is only going to dry out the slices further and number 2: With so many people breathing over these slices in this little room is this really a healthy alternative? The numerous big round cakes under cover looked a tad boring and insipid. Oh Heather, I wanted to be seduced, I wanted to salivate with yearning, I wanted you to save me from my love of dairy. I’m not even going to go into how I was served my cake. To say it was a complicated process is enough. I chose a cake that was under cover. Cherry, Plum and Almond Cake. As it was served it quite literally fell apart on my plate. Paul and I have often noticed that vegan cakes don’t seem to hang together. Well of course that’s one of the jobs of the trusty egg. I wanted to take a picture especially with the wiggly whirl of spraycan soya cream all over it but quite frankly I was scared to get my camera out with the restaurant owner’s high profile and on account of the pouncing waiting staff!

The verdict
I sooooo wanted this to be a heavenly experience but the cake was what I call “claggy” and it seemed to stick to the inside of my mouth and it wasn't that memorable. As I write today I do remember the wonderful crunch of the almonds on the top of the cake and the tartness of the plum; that’s about it. I don’t like to be negative but this is how it was for me. On the upside my moccacino was superb, the experience only cost me a fiver, (moccacino, tea and one slice of cake,) I really liked the soya cream though there was just a bit too much, and once I got used to all the waiting staff I found them very friendly and helpful and I was even told by one that he wasn’t vegan and yes, his shoes were leather. Heather Mills has catered very well for parents of young children and dryly we commented “well she is getting them young” with V Bites being next to the children’s playground. We felt a little saddened that small children were being told by their parents they were eating something that they are not. Not very truthful is it? The Santa Clause myth seems pale compared to this. I personally liked being in an environment where I didn’t have to explain I couldn’t eat dairy and could trust what I was being given. I can also forgive a lot of what I experienced due to the simple fact that this is a new business. But... if I visit my community vegan café again it won’t be with Paul. Paul would prefer to stay at home and drink his tea with milk and eat my cakes laden with dairy.

Conclusion
So after this experience I’d better get experimenting as it looks like I have to save myself. Surely there is a way to make a mouth-watering, seductive cake that won’t cause the dreaded ‘M’ ?


*M meaning mucus, the enemy of the singer... I couldn’t bear to write it in the blog!

This is My Chocolate Fudge Cake Recipe!

During my show "Ising on the Cake" I make my favourite chocolate fudge cake and I am often asked for the recipe. I think this a totally wonderful cake. We are like old friends, I have made it for years and it never fails to impress. It is so rich, moist and easy to make. It's a real keeper too - store in the fridge.

The pic of me with the cake is at my first ever "Ising on the Cake" 4 years ago almost to the day.... Wow!

For vintage fans, the dress I am wearing is an original 1950s number I bought in Greenwich Market to wear to a 21st birthday party 18 years ago, which is also when I learnt how to make the cake. Gosh that shows my age!

So here it is, enjoy!

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Cake
5 size 7 eggs
2 cups of caster sugar
1½ cups of mayonnaise
2 ½ cups of plain flour
¾ cup of cocoa powder
2 tea spoons of baking powder
2 tea spoons of bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup of tepid water

Icing
250g of soft room temperature butter
500g of icing sugar
¾ cup of cocoa powder
Hot water from the kettle, just off the boil
Tin – Round spring loaded 22cm. Line with baking paper. Oven 145°c

Method
1 Whisk eggs and sugar on high speed for the length of one song! The eggs and sugar should be white and fluffy.
2 Mix in mayonnaise on a slow speed until combined.
3 Sieve all dry ingredients and add to the egg mix. Combine on slow speed and gradually add the water. Give the bowl a scrape and re-mix on a medium speed until all ingredients are well combined and smooth.
4 Pour cake mix into a prepared tin (I line with greaseproof paper) and bake cake in the middle of the oven for 1 hour and 20-25mins. Test with a cake tester. Cake is cooked when the cake tester comes out clean.
5 Once cake is cool make icing. On a slow speed beat soft room temperature butter with sieved icing sugar and cocoa powder. Gradually add the hot water (should be around ¼ cup) as the ingredients combine. Once all ingredients are bound together whip the icing, scrape the bowl and then whip again. Ice cake - as seen in the show!

Ising on the Cake!

My fingers hover over the keyboard... where do I start? I have a feeling of being at a first counselling session (not that I have had that many!) So much to say, unravel, will I look like an idiot, why would anyone read my blog? Then my optimistic side says " Nothing ventured nothing gained." Most of my life revolves around me pushing boundaries and being cheeky. With a gratifying sigh (sigh) it all seems like a brilliant idea and my words begin to flow.

So what's this"Ising on The Cake" all about?

Well I don't actually sing on a cake. That would be rather silly and I would make my dress all sticky! But I do have a one-woman show where I sing everything from Dean Martin to grand opera while making and icing a chocolate cake and telling my life story. The best bit is I actually get paid to do it! I LOVE singing and cake making. Cue website www.sharonelizabeth.co.nz

Through my blogs I want to let you into my crazy world of being a singing cake maker, share my recipes, my music, boast about my retro finds, share my thoughts, display my hats and hopefully inspire the odd person to sing and bake. "A cake infused with love and music has got to taste better hasn't it?"

So there we are. It is the 10th of July 2009 and I have entered the blogging world!

Sharon Elizabeth xxx