Some recent cupcake'ing fun

This was my dinner a couple of weeks ago in Peter Jones when I went to collect my brand new blowtorch. The cake was nice and fresh, but the topping was like a hard fondant - not really worth the calories. But the view from the upper floor restaurant is fabulous!

A rather delicious cupcake from yesterday's visit to the Skin exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. The cake was the best thing about the trip. The exhibition was rather boring and then someone made me spend what felt like HOURS in the bookshop. The blueberry cupcake was from the Peyton & Byrne cafe in the foyer. The frosting was luscious - melt in the mouth mousse-like texture and incredibly fruity and flavoursome. The cake itself was plain vanilla I think. I have a feeling all the cakes are vanilla, and its just the frostings that are flavoured - they are very tasty though.

We also visited the Peyton & Byrne cafe briefly last weekend - we were meant to go to see the Skin exhibition but were a bit late but managed to pick up a couple of cupcakes and a cup of coffee.

I opted for a lemon cupcake and Manny had a chocolate one. The frosting on Manny's was like a ganache and fantastic. My cupcake was very tasty, but a little old - perhaps not fresh that day.

Next up from a recent(ish) trip to the delightful Ms Cupcake's stall at Greenwich Market. I'd been off work sick for nearly two weeks, only leaving the house to go to the doctors but on one of last days off I managed to drag myself out to see Ms C and it was totally worth it.

I had a cherry bakewell which was amazingly fruity and moist, and Manny had the rolo which was was absolutely gorgeous (I had allowed a wee bite).

As I've said before I am really amazed at how gorgeous Ms Cupcake's vegan cupcakes are - they are so moist and tasty - unlike some of the other vegan cupcakes I've tried.

If you're a cupcake lover I recommend you give them a try asap to see if you agree with me. I'm pretty sure you will.

I can't remember if I mentioned these when I bought them a couple of months ago but just in case check out my gorgeous Matryoshka measuring cups from Fred (which I bought via Amazon). They are adorable and look ever so cute in my kitchen. The only thing I've used them to make so far was my attempt at the chocolate vegan cupcakes from the Bleeding Heart Bakery's cookbook which alas ended up straight in the bin. I was a bit disappointed at the time but now I read online that the books been the cause of many problems for people so its not just me. This is the second incredibly disappointing baking book I've got this year and is now unfortunately relegated to my "looks pretty but don't use" along with Eat Me (yuk). I also feel a bit disheartened when I keep reading that these books are meant to be inspiration rather than baking books - I buy books for recipes. I think the same has to be said of my recent Lily Vanili book - more inspiration than recipe based with the 5 recipes it contains.

Finally, and I have to really admit to being an utterly bad person here. About 3 months ago I received a lovely package from the lovely Tram at Sweetdee's Cupcakes and I totally forgot to blog about them. Aren't they adorable. The notebook is just perfect for carrying around in my bag and writing about my cupcake adventures and the little card holder is just too cute! I love it. I've not tried Sweetdee's cupcakes yet but hope to in the near future.