Manchester’s favourite naughty dessert cafe has reopened its doors this week with a brand new pancake menu.
Not content with celebrating on just one day, the team is stretching Shrove Tuesday out into the whole week, serving up delightful late-night pancake stacks loaded with the likes of blueberry crumble, maple syrup, Kinderella cream and hot fudge from 4pm.
After that, they’ll be launching a new birthday-themed menu from 7 March to celebrate the cafe’s 7th anniversary with plans to introduce more cakes, cookies, gelato and brownies as the weeks go on.
Image: The Manc Eats
Black Milk loyalists will be happy to know that the famous milkshakes are staying, and pancakes will become a regular feature of the menu going forward too.
The brand is also working on a special new flavour of its lauded cream spreads, due to be released this spring.
Bosses have used the closure to give the site an overhaul: refreshing the interior with new ‘chocolate bar’ tiling, replacing the patterned wallpaper with fresh, neutral pale pink walls and installing a brand new kitchen for their new head baker, Kendra Groves.
ADVERTISEMENT
An award-winning pastry chef, Kendra has recently moved to Manchester from Queensland, Australia to take on the role, having previously run her own bespoke cake business Wild Child Cakes back home.
As Wild Child Cakes, she has baked up some crazily Instagrammable and colourful creations, decorated with everything from ‘drunken Barbies’ clutching miniature bottles of Absolut vodka, to festive dragons and gnomes – so we’re very excited to see what she’s going to create for them here in Manchester.
She tells us that for Black Milk’s birthday week, she’s planning on creating a huge “five-tier extravaganza” combining “lots of colour, sprinkles, and things like that.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Old school flavours will be the order of the day, with the buttery, vanilla birthday favourite that is funfetti due to make an appearance – perhaps crossed in some way with every Mancunian sweet tooth’s other obsession, Lotus Biscoff.
This week, the cafe will only be open during the evenings as they get settled back in with their new team.
Doors will open 4pm until 8pm from now until Friday, then on the weekend a soft launch for the site will see opening hours run from 12-8pm.
Feature image – The Manc Eats
News
Victim named and murder investigation launched after young woman is killed in Newton Heath stabbing
Emily Sergeant
The victim of a street stabbing in Newton Heath this week has been named for the first time as a murder investigation continues.
It comes after officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) responded to reports of a disturbance at around 2am yesterday (Thursday 15 October) on Dorking Avenue, in the Newton Heath area of Manchester, and when they arrived on the scene, they found a woman in her 20s with serious injuries that were ‘consistent with a stabbing’.
Despite best efforts of all emergency services involved, the young woman was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.
As the murder investigation progresses, the woman has now been publicly named and a photo of her has been released for the first time.
She has been named as 26-year-old Alisha Samuels.
At this time, one man, aged 25, has been arrested on suspicion of murder, and a man and woman, aged 61 and 38, have been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, and they all remain in custody – with officers continuing their enquiries to establish the full circumstances of this incident.
Alisha’s family have asked for privacy whilst they deal with the devastating loss of their loved one, GMP has stated.
“We are continuing to urge people who may have information in relation to this incident to please come forward to support our investigation and bring justice for Alisha,” the police force said in a public appeal.
Anyone who may have witnessed the incident, or has mobile phone, CCTV, or doorbell footage, is urged to call GMP on 0161 856 5464, or contact them via the Major Incident Public Portal here.
Alternatively, you can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111
Featured Image – GMP (Family Handout)
News
Former supply teacher jailed for multiple upskirting and AI sex offences across Greater Manchester
Emily Sergeant
A former supply teacher has been jailed for multiple upskirting and AI sex offences in schools across Greater Manchester.
Abusali Rahman – a British national of Bangladeshi ethnicity from Salford – appeared in Bolton Crown Court this week for his sentencing after first being charged with, and then pleading guilty to, several offences.
The offences are including, but not limited to, 12 counts of taking an indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child (images obtained by upskirting), three counts of making indecent photograph / pseudo-photograph of a child (making AI-generated images), and one count of attempting to meet girl under 16 following sexual grooming.
The offences are alleged to have taken place between December 2023 and June 2025, according to Greater Manchester Police (GMP).
Twelve girls have been identified in relation to the upskirting offences – aged between 13 and 16 at the time of the alleged offending – at seven high schools in three Greater Manchester boroughs (Bury, Bolton, and Salford).
GMP says it has remained in close contact with the schools, local authorities, and other partners throughout the investigation to ensure all appropriate support is in place for those who need it.
Additionally, the court also heard how Rahman amassed a collection of images of young girls, using AI and other methods to sexualise them.
The images numbered more than 300 in total, ranging from Category A to Category C classifications, and Rahman would post these on social media, often alongside humiliating and disgusting captions.
Rahman was sentenced to six years in prison, and will also be subject to a 20-year Sexual Harm Protection Order.
A former supply teacher has been jailed for child sex offences in schools across Greater Manchester / Credit: GMP
Detective Constable Lisa McGaffin, from GMP’s Bolton Child Protection Team, described Rahman’s crimes as ‘absolutely abhorrent’.
“My thoughts throughout this process have always been with the young girls who have been subject to such indignity,” DC McGaffin said following the sentencing this week. “Their welfare and support will always be a priority for us.
“While working as a teacher – someone who young children should trust and be safe with – Rahman repeatedly took secret photos for his own sick gratification, before posting images online which showed his total disregard for the girls’ respect and dignity.
Georgina Pellant -
2nd March 2022 
