a day ago
Would you eat this? Meet the café owner who sells nothing but food made from insects!
Every home baker has a favourite recipe for muffins, cookies and brownies.
Yet the cakes produced by Nahla Mahmoud are all made with a special ingredient that is definitely not found in most kitchen cupboards.
For the 38-year-old has set up the first business of its kind in Scotland, baking sweet treats from ground-up insects.
And while she acknowledges not everyone will find crickets and mealworms appetising, she hopes to convince people of the benefits and pleasures of putting insects on the menu.
At the moment, her business, the Insect Cafe, sells its products online and at food festivals and farmers' markets.
However, she is now finalising plans for a bricks-and-mortar café in Edinburgh where diners can tuck in to cricket and almond brownies and orange and mealworm muffins.
Other succulent treats available include banana and coconut larva balls and mixed insect ginger cookies.
Savoury items include garlic and herb roasted crickets and spicy peri-peri mealworms.
Ms Mahmoud said: 'There are some people who just love to cook with, and experiment with, new ingredients – and they're usually very excited to try our goods.
'And, of course, there are also people who are simply very uncomfortable with eating insects. It's just not for them. After thinking about it a bit, though, they warm to the idea and are open to trying them.'
The Insect Café buys specially reared insects from farms in England, then processes them in a commercial kitchen in Edinburgh.
Ms Mahmoud, a qualified zoologist and ecologist, said the insects are ground up to make flour.
She added: 'So essentially, although you're eating a cake made out of crickets or mealworms or whatever the insect is, the taste is exactly the same – it just tastes like a cake!'
