Best ever chocolate cupcake

Today is Mr I Heart Cupcakes birthday and as he is a total chocolate addict I decided to make him some double chocolate cupcakes. I originally thought of doing a boozy ganache to stuff them with, making them triple chocolate but thought that might be too much. (I can hear Manny screaming 'nooooooo' as he reads this).

The cakes are based on a recipe from Chocolate by Donna Hay and the frosting is from British Baking by Oliver Peyton.

These are definitely the best chocolate cupcakes I've ever made and went down a treat for Manny's birthday breakfast this morning - they were incredibly moist, very chocolaty and the frosting was amazing!

Happy Birthday Manny!

We don't need no vegetation

In February I reported about a new cupcake* company on the block, Petit Pois, who were aiming to make us  less tubby cupcake eaters with their healthy take on the cupcake.  Their USP is that their cupcakes are healthy, gluten and lactose free and less than 180 kcal per cupcake, oh as the packaging reminds us "there are more grated vegetables in these magical cakes than any other ingredient". 

I was slightly sceptical of these as they just seemed to be bandwagon jumping - eventually someone always comes out with the healthy version of everything, but in the name of blog research I finally got round to popping along to Selfridges yesterday to buy some.

There were two flavour combinations available - lemon and orange, or vanilla and chocolate. As readers of this blog know, we always opt for vanilla and chocolate so this was perfect. I paid my £5 and carried them home.

As you can see they like to remind you that these cakes are HEALTHY cakes. As if the lack of a giant wodge of buttercream isn't reminder enough.

First up the vanilla.

The vanilla cupcake contains 29% courgette and a lot of other stuff including rice flour (13%). I am not sure if it was the rice flour that made it taste funky, or as Manny put it HORRIFIC, but there was most definitely something wrong with this cupcake. It was VILE. I couldn't even swallow my first bite of sponge and rather disgustingly had to spit it into my hand. Their was an indescribably offensive taste to the cake and the texture was revolting - it kind of broke up in your mouth and was so unpleasant I just couldn't swallow it. I tried some of the fondant topping, which I thought couldn't be bad. I was wrong - it was repulsive. The ingredients include lots of stuff like agar, locust bean gum, glucose syrup - I'm not sure which of them made it taste overly sweet and really unpleasant but it certainly didn't taste like anything healthy.

More than three quarters of the cake ended up in the bin (Manny swallowed his bite!). So that's a cupcake with less than 180 calories - and I just saved myself all of those calories. Is this how they stop making you fat(ter)? by making them too disgusting to eat?

Next the chocolate.

The chocolate cupcake contains 29% beetroot and again to me tasted weird. Manny said it was chocolaty but I couldn't really get it at all, perhaps because chocolate is the 3rd last listed ingredient? In fairness cocoa powder is slightly higher, as the 5th last but still to me tasted incredibly wrong. The fondant again tasted odd and cloying and the texture of the cake was again flaky and unpleasant in your mouth. At least I managed to swallow my bite of this one. Manny ate it, but he also said it had a cabbage like taste. I asked Manny if he'd eat another of the chocolate ones and he said no, he also refused to take a second bite of the vanilla one to describe it further.

Also, both cakes seemed pretty stale to me - but that could just be the lack of any kind of moisture giving ingredient.

So there you have it - vegetable cupcakes are gross.

Execpt they aren't. I've made beetroot cupcakes before and they're delicious. I've bought courgette cupcakes that rock and let's not forget sprouts. And it's not the lack of things like milk and butter either - hello, Ms Cupcakes cakes are vegan and don't make me spit up. My opinion is that these cupcakes just try so hard to be healthy they've forgotten that the end product has to be tasty and edible. They may be healthy, but to me they seem like a fad, a way to make money off those poor Stylist readers who so want to eat cupcakes and be thin. My advice, if you're dieting don't eat cupcakes all the time but treat yourself to a proper one occasionally -these really are not a substitute for real cake. I really hope others agree and these horrific excuses for cake are off our shelves soon. However I have a horrid feeling magazines like Stylist and other fashionista types will keep them going. Although the one good sign that people may have more taste was that I was the only twonk buying these (there were lots of boxes of these going out of date v.soon unsold) while everyone else ooh'd and aaaah'd over Lola's display - how I'm kicking myself now I didn't go there instead!!

Finally, as you may recall our cat Angel LOVES cupcakes and usually we can't keep her away - however this picture speaks a thousand words.

When Pudding Cat refuses to move towards the cake you know you have a bad 'un!

*Btw I've called these cupcakes throughout my review as this is what they are marketed as. In my opinion they are fairy cakes - buttercream on top = cupcake, fondant on top = fairy cake.

Drowning my sorrows in cupcakes

Last weekend saw me descend into my last year of my 30's. Not only was I old(er) but to make matters worse my birthday was on a Sunday I couldn't get to my favourite cupcake emporium for some birthday goodies as I was in the wilds of the Highlands of Scotland visiting my mum as a surprise for her 60th so no Kooky for me!

We spent 5 days in Scotland and it wasn't until the 4th day that we discovered some cupcakes. We did find some other lovely cakes but no cupcakes. FYI Mohammed Al Fayed's cafe at Shin Falls does a wonderful meringue!

My first birthday cupcake was from the local bakers in Dingwall, Deas. They have two outlets on Dingwall High Street, including a cafe where you can sit with a cup of tea and the pie or cake of your choice. Manny went for a haggis, neeps and tatties pie (shudder) and we got the cupcakes to take away. The lovely girl serving gave us a free cupcake after deciding the pink one was too girlie for Manny. He has this effect on girls -they often give him free cake!

My cupcake was a vanilla sponge with some raspberry frosting. I didn't hold out much hope for it as it looked kinda blah (the holes on top worried me) if I'm honest but it was actually quite nice! It was moist and the frosting was really tasty - which is more than can be said for cupcakes from many of Time Outs recent list of the best cupcakes in London (more on that in another post!).

Manny's was plain vanilla and he seemed to enjoy it. Again it ended up in his belly rather than the bin so result. You can see the holes on the top of the cake in this pic - I think its from either over mixing of the oven being too hot? The cake underneath was moist though and the frosting wasn't just a lump of sugar or flavourless butter so all was good.

Our second cupcake in Scotland was from a small cafe inside Inverness Airport. This one looked a little prettier than Deas' offering but alas it was all style and no substance. My raspberry and white chocolate was overly sweet and didn't really taste of anything much. The middle raspberry jam made it slightly better but unfortunately I couldn't eat most of it. 

Manny's mocha chocolate fared better and he said it was incredibly chocolaty. He scoffed the lot so it must've been ok.

The highlight of Inverness Airport for me wasn't the cupcake but spotting Danny Dyer there. I would've gone and said hello as I have a bit of a crush on him but he looked so hungover I couldn't bring myself to bother him!

Back in London we decided to have a little day after my birthday celebration with lunch and a cupcake. I choose Moolis as my lunch venue (yum) and we headed to Hummingbird to try one of their new daily specials. Monday's special is chocolate fondant; a rich chocolate sponge, with a decadent chocolate fondant centre, iced with a rich chocolate cream.

I don't know what to say really. This cake was nice but nothing that special. It was chocolaty but didn't really taste of chocolate. There was a depth of flavour that was missing - when I compare it to the Gü cupcake from Lola's it just wasn't in the same league. I found it a little dry and the fondant centre in mine appeared to have been forgotten. The frosting was ok but again not chocolaty enough somehow, yet, a little too rich for me. I'm not sure if its due to the chocolate they used or what - I'll be trying the recipe from the book Cake Days when it's out to see if it fares better when I bake it using Green and Blacks - my trusty baking chocolate of choice!  Manny of course scoffed it and some of mine, although he agreed the Gü cupcake was better!

I will be popping back to try Tuesday's flavour - S'moreAnne cupcake - how could I resist it! And perhaps on a Sunday for their Boston Cream Pie one, a cupcake I've been meaning to make forever!

The best thing about our visit was the cheesecake brownie we shared - we couldn't say no to it. And it's not every day you turn nearly 40!

Peggy Porschen's Parlour

Isn't it the most gorgeous cake shop you've ever seen? That shade of pink is enough to turn me into the girliest girl ever. I adore it.

Peggy Porschen's Parlour opened in Belgravia last autumn and today we finally got round to visiting. The location is rather odd - walk past perhaps the grimmest place in London, Victoria Coach Station, and you can see this gorgeous vision of pastel pink on the horizon. Like an oasis calling to you in the desert of scummyness.

As were were stomping towards it I had everything crossed we could get a seat inside, as although there were a couple of outdoor tables, it was freezing.

Inside the Parlour is small but perfectly formed. There are two smaller tables for two, and a larger one for about 5 or 6. Photography of the store wasn't allowed, but we could take photos of our gorgeous cakes. There was a choice of approximately 6 cupcakes, some layer cakes, macarons and some other baked goods. Of course we opted for cupcakes. I had a vanilla chiffon and Manny went for a chocolate heaven.

They also offer a selection of house blend teas, including a lovely sounding gingerbread one, but I was tempted by the lovely smelling coffee, and opted for a cappuccino. Manny had a divine smelling hot chocolate.

The vanilla cupcake was lush! The frosting was cream cheese vanilla which is quite unusual but it was absolutely delicious. The cake was moist and tasty, and incredibly fresh, the frosting was, well the icing on the cake. Really well flavoured and really moreish.

Manny's eyes lit up when he spotted the chocolate heaven cupcake. Look at the amount of frosting on there! Wow. And it was incredible. Seriously, delicious! I tried some, and the frosting was a velvety ganache and absolutely delicious. If ever there was a frosting I could have in shot form, this is it! The cake was, again, incredibly moist (I hate to harp on about moist cakes but a moist, fresh cupcake is so important - there are a couple of well known bakers out there I've sampled recently that could do with some lessons in injecting flavour into their cupcakes and about them  being fresh but that's a whole other blog post!). There were no such worries here, the cakes were simply magnificent.

As you can see we thoroughly enjoyed them, one of us ensuring we scraped off every last crumb of cake!

I had a little peruse around the shop before paying. As well as cakes and delicious iced cookies, there are Peggy Porschen homewares,  lovely home made preserves (including lemon and lemoncello, which I may have to return to buy), and Peggy's blends of teas. We decided we couldn't leave without trying one of her beautiful black forest cupcakes so got one to go, which was lovingly boxed up by the staff. Oh and the staff in the Parlour were really nice - checking we enjoyed everything and ensuring we didn't have any complaints.

Alas disaster struck as we had a long walk through a very windy Hyde Park after our scoffing, and the cake alas was a casualty of the elements.

Even though it was slightly squished, and way less pretty than when it had left the Parlour it still tasted lovely.  The rich, delicious chocolate cake cake is filled with some Griottine cherries inside and topped with a kirsch and vanilla frosting. I wished I'd bought two as I had to share it with Manny. Hurumpf.

I highly recommend popping along to Peggy's Parlour for tea and cupcakes. They also do afternoon tea and obviously takeaway. The cupcakes would make perfect little gifts for friends, if you don't want to make your own, and although slightly more than you would pay in other cupcake stores in London, they are worth every penny! I must go back to try the banana toffee asap! And a carrot one! Or I could dig out my copy of the Sainsbury's Magazine with her recipes in and make my own. That's next weekends baking taken care of!

Finally, you can see some photographs of inside the parlour here.

Pretty vacant

Today I finally made it to Cox, Cookies and Cake after previously turning up on their "opening day" to find it full of builders after they didn't bother to announce it was no longer opening as expected.

I wish I hadn't bothered.

Manny and I trekked through Soho in the pissing rain, avoiding umbrellas and the wheely trollies of tourists to get there. When we arrived I was quite impressed with the look of the shop - neon sign outside (complete with flashing Cox..oh how risque), black glittery walls, black pretty much everything and a pink neon sign "designed"* by Tracey Emin saying "I keep haunting you".

Anyway to the cupcakes. I won't comment on the cookies as I didn't see any at all when we were there - just cupcakes. There were none of their advertised bars either - I had hoped to try a nanimo bar but there were none to be seen. Perhaps that was for the best.

The cakes all looked quite nice but there wasn't much on offer, about 3 of their classic cupcakes, with featuring the usual suspects like vanilla, lemon, chocolate and some of their specialities featuring the skulls, the marilyn and the bling. Which are basically the classics fancied up at nearly double the price.

I had intended to just buy one cake after hearing nothing but bad reviews on the cake but Manny couldn't resist a brown titty cake so we ended up buying two. I chose a black skull cupcake. Two cakes came to the grand total of £8. Yes you read that right, two normal sized cupcakes were just short of a tenner.

Were they worth it?

In a word, NO.

My skull cupcake is advertised as being.. triple Valrhona chocolate cake with goth black frosting and a dark chocolate jewelled skull. I am not exaggerating when I say there was not a hint of chocolate in either the cupcake base, or cupcake frosting. None. Nada. Zilch. If we want to get Scottish about it, f**k all. As well as being utterly flavourless, the base was as dry Gandhi's flip flop. Completely devoid of moisture. The frosting, again, tasted of absolutely nothing. Not a hint of chocolate. None. The only flavour was food colouring but I'd wager money that the frosting had never seen any Valrhona chocolate. In fact Valrhona should be suing for using their name under false pretences. I'm assuming the triple came from the chunk of something unidentified in the middle of the cake -which may have been chocolate - I gave up trying after the second tasteless bite. Life is too short to waste on a bad cupcake.

a right tit - what I felt after paying a fortune for an inedible cake!

Manny's boob had slightly more flavour, with the merest hint of chocolate but was still as dry as a nun's gusset. I've made chocolate cupcakes that retained their moisture for four days so god only knows when these were put together. (I refuse to say baked - baking involves love and care -something these cakes had not seen!)

I cannot believe I've waited this long to try the baking of Eric Lanlard and this is it? I also can't believe he allows his name to be used with such atrocities to baking. A dry, tasteless waste of money. I can compare it to only one other cupcake experience - trying chocolate cupcakes from Aldi - these tasted pretty much the same. If I'm honest the Aldi ones were probably slightly less dry, and cost about £1 for four. So yes I paid the most money ever for a cupcake and it was the worst I've had. Go figure.

This place is definitely a case of style over substance which is a pity as it looks quite cool, is something different from the usual cupcake cafe and the staff were really nice. One thing I did adore was the staff aprons - very S&M with leather and studs - and the girl who served us was chatty and friendly. If only the cakes were as pleasant as her.

My recommendation - avoid unless you want disappointment. If you're in Soho and want a cupcake Hummingbird is about 4 mins walk away and everything is fresh and full of flavour! Cox, Cookies and Cake join Buttercup in my cupcakeries to avoid.

*I'm possibly not the best person to comment on modern "art" but how much design goes into a neon sign? Surely its just choosing a font, a colour and a phrase that means naff all?

Hail to Cupcakes \m/

I am off to see my favourite band in the world, Manowar, in less than a week in Madrid. In five days if you're counting, and I have been since May.

I had thought long and hard about if Manowar were a cupcake what flavour would they be. And one thing kept coming back to me, the phrase the devil has all the best tunes. So my choice of cupcake had to be - devil's food cake.

I used a recipe for a Devils Food Cake from my latest cookbook purchase, Mary Berry's Baking Bible, and made cupcakes instead, altering the cooking time (they were ready in 20mins). The recipe makes approx 14 cakes, depending on your case sizes.

I decided to top the cupcakes with an ultra chocolatey ganache. I had planned to use Jack Daniel's in the ganache but then I bought a bottle of Baileys on offer in Sainsburys and I felt it would be nicer with the Baileys in and I was so right - it was delicious.

The base of the cupcake was incredibly moist and chocolatey - Manny reckons they're one of the nicest cupcakes he's had and I have to agree! The ganache, as I said, was delicious - incredibly rich with a hint of alcohol. Definitely Manowar in a cupcake - tasty, lovely to look at, rich, decadent and something you can't get enough of \m/

while my ganache was still a little moist and shiny!

Baileys Ganache Recipe

200g good quality chocolate broken into pieces (I used Green and Blacks dark)

184 ml double cream

a good glug of Baileys

Heat the cream until it just boils. Pour over chocolate and stir till it melts. Add a good splosh of Baileys. Stir in. Add some more for luck. And a bit more if you fancy it. Allow to cool - mine took approx 30mins in the fridge to reach piping consistency. Pipe or spread onto cupcakes - try not to scoff it all before doing this!

Manowar cupcake - naked

The Chelsea Teapot

Manny and I spend quite a few weekends in the Sloane Square/Kings Road area - mainly because its a way for me to get him out of the house on a Saturday by bribing him with curry from The Indian Kitchen Co at Partridges Market and a chili for dinner with the fabulous beef I can get from the lovely Woodwards Farm stall. And lets not forget Yummy Boutique, Sobo Chocolate and Crumbs and Doilies. Oh, and Love Bakery and Hummingbird Bakery are not that far away either! It's a little bit of food heaven in SW London! And it's such a nice area of London to spend a Saturday in!

Yesterday we had a new place to check out - The Chelsea Teapot. It's been right down the other end of the King's Road for a while (a year or so if my googling is to be believed) and is well worth the walk (or you can jump on a bus to World's End if you prefer).

It's a really cute pastel painted cafe with a couple of seats outside and a window full of cakes to tempt you. Once inside there are lots of lovely cupcake and other items for sale as well as teas, coffees, soft drinks (including the Fentimans), ice cream and of course - cake!

We opted for a vanilla cupcake and cappuccino for me, and a chocolate cupcake and peppermint tea for Manny and got a seat. There's room for about10-15ish people inside and more room out in the secret garden at the back!

Lots of the crockery is cupcake themed, including Manny's teapot of peppermint tea, and the walls are covered in lovely pastel framed prints or vintage plates and there's a gorgeous chandelier. It's a very pretty and quaint cafe. You probably can't tell from my pic below however as I didn't want to use the flash in the cafe as it was peaceful and relaxing and I'd have disturbed others.

The cupcakes were really tasty and fresh. My vanilla one had a hint of almond but it didn't detract from the fact it tasted lovely and was very flavoursome. Manny tells me his cake was incredibly chocolaty and there was lots of hmm'ing so I think he enjoyed it! The coffee was good and Manny's huge pot of tea for under £2 was a bargain!

The staff were as welcoming as the cafe and we shall definitely be making a return visit - we usually end up in Starbucks or Peter Jones for a drink after shopping but this is a much nicer alternative!

Oh and finally - the loos were so pretty I could've stayed there for some time. Again lots of cupcake/cake prints and a teapot rug at the bottom of the stairs. I believe they hold children's cake decorating skills downstairs in the large mirrored area, and there were adverts for tarot evenings. Hopefully their website will be up and running soon to keep up to date with what is going on.

I couldn't resist photographing the whimsical sign on the kitchen entrance

Best ever chocolate cupcake

It was Manny's birthday on Wednesday and I offered to make some cupcakes for him to take into work for his colleagues for the "bring cakes to work for your birthday" tradition. I made the chocolate cupcakes from the Cupcakes from Primrose Bakery cookbook with their chocolate frosting.

As I mentioned when I made them before the cupcakes are a bit off a faff to make - you need to melt choc, then mix butter and sugar in one bowl, then whip egg yolks in another bowl, while mixing milk and vanilla in a jug and flour and baking powder in yet another bowl. Once all that is mixed together you whip egg whites to a soft peak and fold them in. It's a lot of washing up but its very much worth it. The cakes are moist and very flavoursome.

The only word to describe the frosting is divine. I rarely get excited about chocolate frosting but this frosting excites me - I had to stop myself from piping it straight into my mouth and leaving the cupcakes naked! It's that good! The secret is the large amount of melted Green and Blacks 82% chocolate that's in the frosting -it really makes it uber chocolaty and very very moreish.

The cupcakes were transported in the cupcake carrier to my husbands office today and they were all gone very quickly. His manager even sent me an email to thank me for the cakes and tell me how fabulous they were which was lovely to hear - it's always nice to hear your cupcakes are liked.