Tis the season for Gingerbread men

Aren't these just some of the cutest cupcakes you've ever seen?

These lovely little smiling chaps are perched on top of a moist ginger cake covered with lemon buttercream, and are available from the Lavender Bakery to order now.

Photos courtesy of the Lavender Bakery

Cupcake decorating classes

Fancy learning how to decorate some pretty cupcakes? I do, so I've booked myself onto the Make Lounge's first cupcake decorating class on the 7th of July! Classes are being taught by Michelle from the Lavender Bakery.

If you’ve ever marvelled at custom cupcakes and wished yours could look as beautiful, here’s your chance to learn from an expert! We’ve teamed up with The Lavender Bakery to teach you skills that you can do at home, without purchasing costly cake decorating tools. At the end of the workshop, you’ll take home a box of your own delicious creations!

You’ll learn to spread buttercream icing like a pro, make and use piping bags, colour and work with royal icing to make simple as well as complicated and detailed designs, and even use edible pearlescent glitter!

All materials provided, including plenty of unadorned cupcakes and practice sheets. You’ll also take home recipes for cupcakes and buttercream and royal icing, plus a list of shopping resources and tips for successful decorating.

Piccies will of course be posted in due course!! I'm v.excited already - I've been dying to go to the Make Lounge for sometime but I'm absolutely hopeless with a sewing machine so this is right up my street! And I am looking forward to learning from Michelle, who kindly gave me a box of specially decorated I heart cupcakes cupcakes last year!

Thanks to The Make Lounge and Lavender Bakery for the pic!!

Covent Garden Night Market - 2nd try

We went along on Thursday and again the stalls are just too crammed together while some twonk on some trapeze like contraption shouts at tourists - He had the whole piazza cordoned off for his "act" (Sorry I despise the "acts" round there - human statues should be concreted over to see just how it feels!).

Anyways we decided to just buy a few bits and head off - I had to get the 'I heart cake' chocolate cake from Beas as soon as I saw it! I shared it with Manny and it was really lovely! You can just taste the quality of Beas baking! The chocolate on the cake was fantastic and the cake itself was melt in the mouth gorgeous.

We also popped by Lavender Bakery's stall and picked up a couple of cupcakes - one coconut and lemon for me and a chocolate cupcake covered with ganache for Manny, and two pieces of their shortbread - lavender for me, green tea for Manny. We ate the shortbread at the market and it was really tasty, and we paid the 20p for a box for the cupcakes and took them home for pudding and they were absolutely gorgeous. My coconut was fantastic - the frosting was yummy and there was just the right amount of lemon and coconut :) Manny loved his ganache covered cupcake - mind you I sometimes think he'd eat dust if covered in ganache or frosting ;)

I really like the idea of the night market in Covent Garden - the Xmas one seemed to work better as it was on the other side of the piazza, so didn't get disturbed so much by tourists. I think they need to decide whether to have the market or the "entertainment" - surely for a couple of nights a year we can live without the acts and have room to enjoy some food - they could even put some tables out so people can eat the lovely food on sale like they do at the much nicer slow food markets at the South Bank! The way this market is you just grab stuff and take it home rather than browsing and having hot food!

It's Thursday so its CUPCAKE time :)

This weeks Covent Garden night market will be hosting Lavender Bakery's fabulous items this Thursday so get along there and sample some!!!

You can see some lovely pics of the market at Helen Grave's blog as well, including some more cupcake pics!

The Lavender Bakery - a cupake adventure

This has taken me ages to write up as I've been trying desperately to get the pics I took from my phone to the computer but alas its just not working but will keep trying as I took some good ones, including Manny covered in some rather scrummy caramel frosting!

The lovely Michelle from Lavender Bakery offered me some cupcakes via email after I contacted her as I'd been to the LRB cafe to try some of her cupcakes and was disappointed they weren't there! So one Friday last month I sneaked out of work to meet Michelle's boyfriend and collect my cupcakes, I was only expecting a couple and there were LOADS! A BIG box full of utterly gorgeous, beautifully decorated cupcakes. The bases were really soft and the frosting was really yummy. Guess what I had for lunch that day..lol

We were going to a gig that night so Manny and I met at Lincoln's Inn Fields for a cupcake supper before going, which is where the aforementioned Manny covered in frosting incident happened - he looked rather amusing in his denim cut-off with frosting all over his nose!! I shall post the pics once I have figured out how to transfer them! The pic above are the actual cupcakes I got, borrowed (with permission!) from Michelle's flicker site - go check it out and see how pretty her cupcakes are!

I think the LRB cafe does the Lavender Shortbread which sounds rather yummy and deffo worth popping into the cafe for!