You're full of sugar, you're full of spice

I wanted to bake some festive cupcakes at the weekend and went with two flavours that I feel are incredibly Christmas'y - gingerbread cupcakes topped with clementine frosting.

I adapted a Martha Stewart recipe. I was going to use the gingerbread one in her Cupcakes book but there is no bicarb or baking soda mentioned and I was wary it wouldn't work. This is from her website, but slightly amended for me as I wanted it extra spicy!

Gingerbread Cupcakes
120gm butter at room temp
80gm dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
320 Plain flour
2 tsp ground ginger (I used maybe a smidgen more)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (I grated it fresh)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt (I used a teeny tiny pinch - could miss this out I think)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
320gm of molasses (bought in Holland & Barrett)

Preheat oven to 165ºFan, and boil some water in the kettle. Put your cupcake cases in your trays.

Mix your bicarb of soda with about 150ml of boiling water and stir. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together for several minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs.

Sift flour, salt, spices and baking powder together and fold into the mixture then give a good mix until well combined. Then beat in the molasses - be warned this is MESSY! I used a silicone spoon for this rather than my hand mixer as it is very sticky! Finally, mix in the bicarbonate of soda mix - I did this by eye and had a little bit left as I didn't want the mix to be too runny.

Use a ice cream scoop or tablespoon to fill your cupcake cases.

Bake for approximately 17-18 minutes. The sponge should spring back if you touch it, or a cake pokey thing should come out clean if you poke it into the cake. Leave to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Clementine Frosting 160g unsalted butter, softened
500g icing sugar (I used Billington's Golden) - I used slightly less than 500g
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 2 clementines, or add as much/little as you want
Juice of about 2-4 clementines - to get the consistency you want

Beat the butter and some of the juice/zest and vanilla. Add some icing sugar and mix in. I found the Billington's Golden icing sugar didn't fly around as much as icing sugar usually does! Also it gives a beautiful colour to frosting, naturally. Add icing sugar gradually and juice as required until the you get the consistency required. Then if you want to add more zest to taste, do so. I added quite a lot as the flavour was really nice.

Pipe onto your cupcakes and enjoy.

These tasted fabulous the first day baked. Even more fabulous with a pronounced ginger taste the next day. The day after that we had a couple left and the ginger tasted even better. Great cakes for keeping a couple of days.

I took these to work and they went down very well. I even got an order to make some Christmas cupcakes for a colleague to give to her neighbours as gifts. Manny described them as Christmas in a cupcake and I fully agree. The gingerbread was sticky and very spicy (I was quite heavy handed with the ginger!) and the frosting was lovely - I really liked the flavour of clementine!

The only thing that disappointed me with these cakes were the cases. They are Wilton gingerbread ones - they went see through upon baking - utterly rubbish! But never mind as they looked so lovely naked I didn't mind too much.

And the bells were ringing out for Christmas day

One of my favourite cafes in London is Bea's of Bloomsbury and as such I was very excited to see Bea's lovely creations for Christmas. Some of the most fabulous, and tastiest, cupcakes I've had in London have been from Bea's, and her Christmas creations look like they will live up to my expectations!

How adorable are these gingerbread man cupcakes?  And I can visualise Manny reading this and drooling over the screen at the lashings of chocolate/ganache that the little gingerbread fellow is resting on!

And the gingerbread man isn't alone - he's got a candy cane friend

And lots of other Christmas goodies!

They come in Chocolate Baileys, Double Fudge and Gingerbread - all fabulous flavours for Christmas! I'm planning a visit next week...hoping I can persuade Manny to pop in to the glamorous new One New Change venue for a quickie after work!

Holidays are coming

If you're lucky enough to live in the Cirencester area you can pick up some gorgeous Christmas cupcakes from Cirencester Cupcakes.

I've admired CC's work for some time, as previous posts confirm, and I was hoping to visit before Christmas as they have a Christmas Market in town as well so I could've had some cupcakes and mulled wine.  I'm hoping that we can make it over early next year instead.

The Christmas selection sounds, and looks, delicious, coming in a range of different flavours including the very festive peppermint and mince pie topped with brandy buttercream. How good does a mince pie and brandy buttercream cupcake sound? I want one!

And lets not forget the most festive of flavours, chocolate orange. Terry can sod right off - it's mine!

You can find out ordering/buying info on the Cirencester Cupcakes website and please do let me know if you try some! 

Christmas cupcakes - the taste testing

Yesterday I had a chance to taste test a couple of Christmas Cupcakes from two of London's most popular cupcake cafes and thought I'd share them with you.

First up was Friday's Christmas Pudding Cupcake from the Wardour Street branch of Hummingbird. We lunched at nearby Mooli's (GO THERE if you like yummy, spicy, tasty food - was delish) and then went to pick up a couple of cakes for later.

In my previous post I'd said I wasn't fussed about the idea of the exotic fruits in the cupcake - well I'm the first to admit, I was wrong. This cupcake was delicious. The fruits worked really well and the kick of booze was noticeable but not overpowering. The almond frosting was very festive and very, very tasty. A definite winner. Even Manny, who's not keen on fruity cakes enjoyed the bit I shared with him, so it must be an all round winner!

Now I just need to find a way to get from my office in Borough to a branch of Hummingbird to try some of the other daily flavours before Christmas.

Of course Manny would never choose something fruity over chocolate, even if booze was involved, so instead opted for a black bottom. These are one of his all time  favourites and he devoured happily. I got to taste a smidgen and it was really very tasty.

We then wandered to Carnaby Street to see the lights which weren't as good as the last couple of years.

Then onto Selfridges to see the windows, including one full of cupcakes and macaroons and lashings of pink goodies.

We walked past Lola's and spotted a couple of seats and decided to warm up with a a hot drink and a cupcake. I know, I know, any excuse, but it was -2 out on the mean streets of London!

I opted for the Christmas special of gingerbread cupcake topped with cream cheese frosting and lots of little gingerbread men sprinkles covered in lots of cake glitter. The cake was moist and delicately spiced and the frosting was delicious. I can never get my cream cheese frosting to taste as good as Lola's, but I shall persevere and one day I will succeed. Talking of frosting, Lola's now have frosting shots for sale next to the cupcakes - I was very tempted but moved away from them before I bought some! This is definitely one of my favourite festive cupcakes - gingerbread is just so festive.

Manny got an Oreo cupcake, as they appeared to have stopped doing his favourite Lola's cupcake - the collaboration with Gü. Again the cupcake was nice and moist with oodles of delicious frosting. A couple of my gingerbread men sprinkles jumped cake from mine and ended up on his too - but tis the season for sharing so I let Manny keep them!

I'm hoping to get to some of the other London cupcakeries in the next couple of weeks to taste test some more for you, but remember keep checking back as I'll be featuring lots of other festive cupcakes (including outside of London), and gift ideas for cupcake lovers for the rest of the month.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Even though I'm in no way religious I do tend to get a little over-excited about Christmas. And what better way to celebrate Christmas than with cupcakes.

I plan to post a few blogs about the festive cupcakes out there so if you're reading this and you've got a range of Christmas cupcakes and would like them featured please let me know!

First up is Hummingbird. Hummingbird are one of my favourite cupcake places in London. They are doing a different daily special each day so if you fancy more than one of the cupcakes below you'll have to wander to one of their three branches more than once (or order online).

First up is Monday's flavour - Candy Cane Cupcake. A light, peppermint scented sponge, swirled with red and white glittered frosting. I love the look and sound of this cupcake, so pretty and one I definitely want to try.

Tuesday is Eggnog Cupcake. Traditional Christmas flavours of rum and nutmeg, topped with an eggnog frosting. I really would like to try this - even though every time I hear the words egg nog I think of the Jackass egg nog challange and am not sure if I could actually eat one!

Wednesday's flavour is Chestnut. A subtle and light roasted chestnut sponge, finished with a caramelised chestnut frosting. I've never eaten a chestnut cake so shall aim to get to Hummingbird on a Wednesday to try one!

Thursday's Cinnamon and Raisin is a marbled cinnamon and raisin sponge, topped with a cinnamon frosting. This one doesn't appeal so much as I'm not very fond of raisins in cupcakes.

Friday's Christmas Pudding Cupcake is a twist on the traditional, a hearty cake laced with rum and brandy, exotic fruits and an almond scented frosting. Again not sure about the "exotic fruits" but love the rum and brandy. I know I'm a lush. We're in town tomorrow so may pop into Hummingbird to pick one of these up.

Saturday's flavour is Raspberry Trifle. A Christmas classic, light sponge filled with raspberry puree and topped with diplomat pastry cream. I like the sound of this as I'm a big fan of trifle, although I prefer mine with lashings of booze!

Sunday's Gingerbread Cupcake is my another that I really want to try. It's a heady mix of ginger and warm winter spices, finished with fresh lemon cream cheese frosting. Sounds, and looks delish. Although I do think they should've made their own gingerbread men rather than use sprinkles!

Look out for more Christmas cupcakes and Christmas gift ideas coming up over the next few days.

Thanks to Hummingbird for use of their photographs. 

Christmas cupcake gifts!

As you can see from the pics above I had a cupcake filled Christmas this year.

Myself and Manny had originally decided not to do gifts as we're going to see Manowar in Tilburg in a month (yay!) and have some home improvements (new windows..hurrah!) then we umm'd and ahhh'd and that changed to getting a few little gifts for each other as Manny wanted to make sure I had a lovely Christmas..and I did :)

So, my gorgeous gifts from Manny were - a cupcake cake stand, a cupcake message board, cake lettering and the slice of cake money box (the middle one in the pics). The other two cupcake money boxes were from the lovely Fahima (the one on the left) and Tasha (the one on the right). I also got Twilight on dvd and I'm going to sit and swoon/cry over that in the next day or so :) I am a very lucky cupcake lover!

The cupcakes you can see are fresh cream cupcakes from Waitrose. Originally I'd planned to go to Hummingbird on Christmas Eve to pick up some Christmas Cupcakes however my cold was stonking by then and I just couldn't face town so I picked these up while getting some last minute food bits. We had them on boxing day (too stuffed on Christmas!) and they were really nice with a cup of tea - they had a raspberry compote in the middle and the fresh cream made a nice change to heavy frosting, also the blobs of pink sugar on top were very yummy. I can say these were far superior to recent cupcake's purchased from an East End cupcakery which was inedible due to being rancid and very very old (more to come on this in a later post!)

So I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and got lots of fabulous presents. I'm going shopping tomorrow afternoon or Thursday to look for some cupcake goodies to spend some of my Christmas money on and I'm collecting some more gifts in the next day or so from friends I've not caught up with yet and I've been told cupcakes feature so look out for updates!

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

As I look out my window onto a rather festive looking south London I can't help hoping that there will be snow next week and there'll be a lovely white Christmas :)

As usual my thoughts then turned to cupcakes and I began looking for festive cupcakes on google and I happened upon Epicute - the cute food blog! Why haven't I found this before?? Lots of gorgeous pictures of cute food - right up my street!

This lovely cupcake was originally uploaded onto Flickr by Bananagranola - isn't it adorable! Check out her other pics if you like giant rubber ducks too - very cute!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow :)

thanks to bananagranola for use of the gorgeous photo!

GIANT Christmas Pudding Cupcake

I spotted this in Daily Candy today and just had to share! From Sweet Things, a giant Christmas pudding cupcake, decorated to look like a Christmas pudding it is in fact a giant chocolate cupcake, with chocolate filling and butter icing. It costs £45 and will feed 15-20 people. This would make a great alternative to Christmas pudding for chocolate lovers!

Sweet Things range includes three other Christmas cupcakes. The chocolate orange cupcake has a chocolate base with orange peel, topped with a Belgian chocolate ganache and the gingerbread cupcake is a vanilla sponge with ginger spices topped with cream cheese icing. Finally the mince pie cupcake has a vanilla sponge with sweet mincemeat, topped with vanilla butter cream and cinnamon sprinkles.

Further info about their Christmas range is available here and you can check out Sweet Things website here, where you can get lots of info about delivery and their other products - all of which look yummy!

Thanks to Sweet Things for use of their photograph.

Ding dong merrily on high

I've been meaning to check out the Lola's cupcake bar at Selfridges since I heard it had opened and finally made it on Thursday and the cupcakes were good enough to make you burst into song :)

They've taken over a larger section in the food hall and had approx 6 tables and a much nicer display of their cakes - if you go into the food hall you really cannot miss it - even with the throngs of Christmas shoppers in there. I was going to have a cake and a coffee to test the cafe but I was trying to be good and not eat too much cake so I opted for a couple of their festive cupcakes to take away and share with Manny - a gingerbread and a brandy buttercream. I've had some issues with Lola's cupcakes from Selfridges in the past, including incredibly surly service but I noticed the really rude guy that used to serve in their old section is still there serving other baked goods so I assume he's Selfridges staff rather than Lola's. The people at the new section were really friendly and we had a chat about their fab new cupcake carriers :)

So to the cupcakes - they were both absolutely delicious. The brandy buttercream had just the right hint of booziness and the base was moist and flavoursome, the frosting very moreish. The gingerbread had a lovely hint of spicyness, the frosting was a lovely cream cheese frosting that was really light and tasty and the gingerbread flavoured little gingerbread-men sprinkles were simply gorgeous. I highly recommend enduring the crowds and picking up a couple for a pre-Christmas treat :) As well as Selfridges, you can get them in Harrods online.

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

Winnie the Pooh festive cupcakes

Saw these in Tesco's and thought they might be quite cute for any children's parties you have coming up over the festive season - although you'd be cheaper and they'd taste better if you baked them fresh I'm sure :)

Sorry for the pic quality - was doing it quickly on my phone before I got thrown out of the store!

Delia's chestnut cupcakes

After yesterdays mention of the "What would Delia do" sampler I thought I'd share Delia's Christmas Chestnut cupcake recipe. I'm not sure if I even like chestnuts -they're not something we grew up eating in Scotland and I've never tried one but these cupcakes look nice and festive :)

The recipe, from Delia's Happy Christmas is available here.

photo copyright Petrina Tinslay.

Lashings of Gingerbread men sprinkles

I must pop along to Lola's to try one of their Christmas gingerbread cupcakes - covered in little gingerbread men sprinkles. Hopefully I can also have a peak at the Cupcake Bar in Selfridges as I've still not been there!

Crumbs...Christmas flavour is back!

I could really just link to here, as the Crumbs and Doilies December flavour of the month is the same as last year...Christmas...and we wouldn't have it any other way! We sampled them last Christmas and they were fab (and as usual so pretty with the best sprinkles!)

They’re back! Our Christmas cupcakes feature a cinamony, gingery Christmas spiced sponge, topped with a smooth, luxurious brandy buttercream icing.

Available from Partridges Market (Saturdays), Covent Garden food market (Thursdays and Fridays, and Weds 16th-Sat 19th) and to order online here.

If you head to Partridges Market I highly recommend the curry stall there - its FAB!

Thanks to Crumbs and Doilies for use of their gorgeous pics

Lola's Christmas Cupcakes

Are available to pre-order online now - I've mailed them to ask when they'll be available in store and will post dates as soon as I know. You can choose from the Ho, Ho, Ho box, the Snowflake box or the Giant cupcake.

Also available for November only is their rather yummy sounding Toblerone cupcake;

a limited edition delicious toblerone chocolate cupcake bursting with chewy honey-almond nougat pieces. It is finished with a heavenly white chocolate ganache and a generous chunk of toblerone.

Must get to Selfridges cupcake bar before the end of November!

Christmas is coming

and so are the Crumbs and Doilies Christmas cupcake boxes

Each box comes beautifully wrapped and features a mix of flavours, including our very special Christmas Flavour of the Month.

you can now pre-order your Christmas cupcakes for collection, or delivery by clicking here.

Oh and I MUST pop over to Covent Garden on Friday to get one of their flavour of the month - red velvet - or perhaps someone could pick me up one on Thursday as a after-dentist treat (hint hint!)

Thanks to Crumbs and Doilies for the use of their pics! The bottom pic is their red velvet - yum