WE'VE just had word that MilkJam, the excitingly sweet mash-up between Claire ‘Ginger’s Comfort Emporium’ Kelsey, Charlotte ‘BakeOrama’ O’Toole (formerly cakemaster of Home Sweet Home) and Nicki ‘Lush Brownies’ Griffiths’, have found a semi-permanent home within the St James Building at 85 Oxford Street, which they are hoping to open in July for a period of twelve months.
The new cafe will be perilously close to a branch of Patisserie Valerie, but the talent behind MilkJam have no fear
They plan to serve their candied collaborative concoctions to the public to sit in or take away, bringing their sweet treats together in a variety of ways; handmade ice cream – both hard scoop and soft serve - with homemade toppings and sauces; high quality milkshakes; over fifteen varieties of brownies and blondies; magnificent cakes and the eponymous milk jam – a toffee similar to dulce de leche but slightly less sweet. Takk Coffee House has also been working on a cold brew which is going to be bottled especially for MilkJam.
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We caught up with Charlotte under a cloud of icing sugar and edible glitter at their development kitchen in Old Granada Studios, where she told us: “We’re still looking for permanent premises, but it’s nice that there are three of us and we’re all excited to try different stuff out and see if it works.”
Sounds like the kind of experiment we'd like to be caught up in.
READ MORE: Push Up The Milkjam - three of the city's finest pudding pushers join forces
The trio have put their creative skills together with ideas for the fit-out which aims to be somewhere nice for folk to sit with a quirky, modern and retro feel. The ground floor cafe will seat up to 30 people but there will also be a huge space downstairs where they plan to put on special events, supperclubs and pudding parties.
The new cafe will be perilously close to a branch of Patisserie Valerie, but the talent behind MilkJam have no fear, as everything they create will include fudge, toffee, caramel, toppings and ice cream bases made fresh from scratch by hand.
Oh we love abit of sweet talk.
Keep your eye on their twitter @MilkJam for more updates and a firm opening date.
MilkJam's First Banquet
We popped along to MilkJam’s inaugural pudding-pushers banquet, which they put on in conjunction with Deliveroo Manchester, in the basement of Old Granada Studios on Thursday 2 June. This was a double triathlon of decadence in the form of a six course dessert feast with matching cocktails – similar to the type of event they’ll be putting on when they open their new cafe on Oxford Road in July.
Each course was like a challenge to fit as many sweet elements as possible into one dish, as well as sit down on long candy strewn tables with our elasticated-waisted pants. We thought you might enjoy looking at the images as there are no calories in a photograph.
The first course was a malted milk screwball which guests had to assemble themselves. A Willy Wonka style contraption released a screwball into the bottom of the cup, then guests could choose a squeeze of homemade sauce (there were four, but we didn’t read them all after picking up ‘peanut butter’ first – always the winner.) Over to Claire Kelsey at the MilkJam Mr Whippy machine where she expertly piped a twirl of malted milk ice cream, leaving you to top with your own choice of homemade sprinkles.
Course two was a baked sweet potato donut with speculoos and sour apple which came with a grasshopper cocktail of crème de menthe and cream.
By dessert three, resistance was futile, so we surrendered ourselves to a double chocolate Clementine brownie ice cream sandwich, which took longer to say than to eat. This was washed down with a hefty alcoholic mixture of booze and ginger.
White chocolate coconut cheesecake profiterole with rainbow lemon curd had all the crackling, squashy, creamy perfection you’d hope for. To match this, they sent over a glass of fizz with strawberry bubbles.
Penultimate pudding was glass of marble beer topped with chocolate ice cream, before they sent us on our way with a box of brownies and a bottle of cold brew by Takk Coffee House... straight to the hospital.
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