FOOD

How Israel whetted Georgia’s appetite

INVENTIVE: Georgia Green

BY ADAM CAILLER

WHEN 26-year-old Londoner Georgia Green spent part of her gap year in Israel, little did she know it would have a dramatic effect on her life.

For the former London Jewish Free School pupil fell in love with the food culture.

She told me: “I have always been a big eater, but when I spent a few months in Herzliya, I realised what you could do with the food yourself, such as adding all these new flavours.

“My friend out there used to cook a lot and I really, really enjoyed it.

“If I wasn’t doing what I’m doing now, I probably would have made aliya — that’s still kind of there, but I can’t do what I’m doing now out there.

“They don’t like buttercream in Israel.”

So what exactly does Georgia Green do? Well, the buttercream comment might have given it away.

The daughter of Juliet and David Green makes cakes.

But these aren’t your bog-standard wedding or birthday cakes. They are modern, inventive and Instagram-able cakes for her business, Georgia’s Cakes.

It all began for Georgia when she was asked to make a cake for actor, model and fashion icon Cara Delevingne — who descends from the Anglo-Jewish Faudel-Phillips baronets.

“When my younger sister found out I was going to make this cake, she said that I had get her to tag me on Instagram, except I didn’t even have an account at the time!

“I don’t get phased by meeting famous people, so I walked up to Cara and was like ‘hey, I made this cake for you, can you tag me on Instagram?’

“I set up an account, she tagged me later that day and it got me to around 6,000 followers (she now has more than 94,000 followers).

“The thing with cakes is that, even though it’s food, fashion pages will post them because they are current and pretty to look at.

“ASOS posted some of my Valentine’s cakes to their four million followers, as did River Island. Over time, it has just grown from there.”

Georgia’s grounding in baking came from two contrasting sources — the world famous Le Cordon Bleu and a stint at the famous Carmelli Bakery in London.

She has also had experience at several other bakeries in London.

“During that time, people would ask me to make cakes,” she recalled. “Even though I had done the patisserie training, I realised that people don’t want to eat a posh mousse.

“I would get a mixture of speciality and novelty orders and ended up running a bakery from my home in Golders Green, but it became so busy that I had to hire an external kitchen in Chalk Farm.

“Half of my business is from Instagram — it went from word of mouth to Facebook to Instagram.”

Georgia admits that she is taking things one day at a time, but realises that she has been lucky with her opportunities — one of which was appearing on television show The Generation Game.

But despite that sort of exposure, Georgia has remained grounded.

She describes herself as a shy girl who kept herself to herself growing up, despite now being Instafamous.

She added: “It’s amazing. Jews and food go hand-in-hand and food is a trend now, very much associated to younger people.

“I want to be the next Mary Berry. Bless her, she’s getting old, but she’s the face of baking and it’s 2018. There is definitely room for a young, fresh approach.”

* instagram.com/georgiascakes


Double-Baked Flourless Chocolate-Orange Cake

Ingredients

  • 240g unsalted butter
  • 360g dark chocolate
  • 290g light brown sugar
  • 5 eggs, separated
  • Zest of 2 oranges

Method

Grease and line an 8-inch cake tin and preheat the oven to 180°C. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a microwave or over a bain-marie in a large bowl.

Once melted, add in the sugar and orange zest and stir to combine. Separate the eggs, mix the yolks into the chocolate mix and place the whites into a separate bowl or stand mixer.

Whisk the egg whites until medium/stiff peaks. Gently fold the egg whites through the chocolate mix until fully incorporated.

Pour half the batter into the cake tin and bake for about 30 minutes. Once baked, take out of the oven and pour the remaining mixture in the tin and bake for a further 30-40 minutes, until the top is set, but there’s still a slight wobble in the middle.

Take out of the oven and leave in the tin until cool completely (the middle will sink —this is normal).

Once cooled, take out the tin and dust with icing sugar and decorate with fresh fruit.


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