Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Comfort Food Book Party

After seeing a few of my snaps from the party Jamie Oliver threw to celebrate his latest book Jamie’s Comfort Food on Instagram, a lot of you wanted to wanted to hear a bit more about the party, so today I thought I’d share a few of the snaps I took not really to document the event, but to practice with my new camera. I apologise in advance for all the things I was too busy eating and drinking to properly photograph!

Celebration Cakes from Jamie's Comfort Food
Rachel Phipps & Jamie Oliver
#jamiescomfortfood

Jamie Oliver's Drinks Tube
Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Comfort Food Book Party Food

As well as to celebrate Jamie’s Comfort Food, the party doubled up as a bit of a digital food media networking event designed so that us bloggers, Youtubers and Instagrammers could meet, network and catch up while stuffing our faces with starter sized canapés and some delicious cocktails from the Drinks Tube Team. True to digital form, you can search the #jamiescomfortfood hashtag on Instagram to see all of our party snaps!  

Asian Bun Garnishes
Crispy Fried Pork Belly

All of the food was from the book, and I honestly can’t wait to have a flip through my new copy. I’m in France at the moment (this is a scheduled post) and I have it with me, so no doubt I’ve already earmarked a whole host of treats to tuck into. Sorry I did not photograph the finished product (as I said, too busy stuffing my face!) but my favourite bite of the evening were the steamed buns stuffed with crispy pork belly, punchy garnishes and a good squirt of hoisin sauce. I’ve already decided that I’ll be making these first!

Vegetable Curry from Jamie's Comfort Food

We also had these lovely vegetable curry bowls. However, the stand out for me was the look of shock and horror on my friend Tess’ face (check out her blog, her recipes and amazing and her date night columns for Grazia hilarious) when she ate the chilli slice off of the top and found out that it was hotter than expected! 

Andy Appleton & Gennaro Contaldo

The excellent Andy Appleton (head chef of Fifteen in Cornwall) and the unbeatable Gennaro Contaldo were working the pasta station. It was great to catch up over something that was not a brace of dead pheasants! (Click through for the last time I met up with this pair, and for their pheasant cooking tips).

Andy Appleton filling ravioli at Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Comfort Food book party
Gennaro Contaldo making ravioli
Gennaro Contaldo cutting ravioli
Jamie's Comfort Food Marshmallow Celebration Cake
Building Jamie Oliver's Marshmallow Cake

Okay, so I know the only reason you’re really reading this post is to hear more about the celebration cakes we had at the party, and that you’ll no doubt recognise from the TV show. Obviously I zeroed in on the chocolate celebration cake which was very, very rich but delicious none the less. I loved the layer of chocolate rice that really gave it an extra special crunch, even if I did only make it a layer and a half through my massive slice! You can find the recipe for it over on Jamie’s website. The Hummingbird Cake from the TV show and the party is can also be found there; it was certainly the must beautiful of a very photogenic bunch! 

Black Forest Cake from Jamie's Comfort Food
Assembling Jamie Oliver's Black Forest Cake

Another recipe I’m going to have to hunt down from the book to reproduce is this black forest cake that Jamie’s head pastry chef Ed Loftus is putting the finishing touches to here. Okay, so I may have been stealing the cream and cherries off of the top of the nearest one while I was chatting to Andy about the Cornwall restaurant towards the end of the party… you can’t take me anywhere! 

Book Customisation at Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Comfort Food Book Party

My favourite souvenir from the party has to be my copy of Jamie’s Comfort Food. Not only is it signed (I have a thing for signed cookbooks), but graffiti artist Barnaby Purdy was jazzing up our books so everyone who was at the party had theirs as a little bit more special than the millions of copies of the book that have no doubt already been sold. My pastel blue, black striped tiger emblazoned volume is going to take up pride of place on my bookshelf! 

Thank you so much to the whole Jamie Oliver and Recipease Notting Hill team for such an amazing evening off food and fun. For those of you who already have the book, I’d love to hear your favourite recipes from it! And for a little sneak peak of the book, there are a few more recipes from it on Jamie’s website

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