I Heart Cupcakes on Tour - Paris

This is part one of a series of three blog posts about my recent travels - the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

Paris has the pleasure of being 'the good'

I went to Paris early in March for my 40th birthday. And fell in love. Not just with the cakes but with everything. I LOVED it there. I think it could be because you can buy anything flavoured with Speculoos. 

 Whilst there the best thing I ate wasn't actually a cupcake but a Speculoos cake from ...Starbucks. I know, we went to Paris and the best thing we ate was from Starbucks...but this cake was AMAZING. So good we went twice and ate it. We'd originally just popped in to use the loo and fell in love with the cake!

We also shared some Cookies and Cream cake - Starbucks in Paris have much better baked goods than here.

We didn't make it to half the places we meant to go to eat in in Paris - mainly because we spent the two days walking round enjoying the city. Oh and buying lots of gore DVDs (Manny found the shop of his dreams just near our hotel). Oh and buying chocolate. And beer.

We did make it to Berko however - Paris's main cupcake store. We went to the branch just up the hill from Moulin Rouge, a few minutes walk from our hotel, Le Chat Noir, which I highly recommend.

We took the cupcakes back on Eurostar and unfortunately they got a little squished but we managed to salvage them so it wasn't a total cupcake disaster.

Our choices included Speculoos and the Hi Hats you can see above. We also got banofee, cookies and cream and chocolate. Although the Speculoos was rather bland and uninspiring, with some odd tasting frosting, the rest were rather good, if a little dry. I think if we'd eaten them there they'd have been much fresher. I would definitely go back to try some other flavours if I went back to Paris. I was especially taken with the fact they use little pipettes to inject coulis into the fresh fruit cakes - as I've done with alcohol into my cupcakes previously.

We also ate some macarons at Dalloyau - the Champagne one being very nice.

The same cannot be said for Eric Keyser's pink praline brioche - dry, tasteless and I really didn't like pink pralines. Thankfully I'd resisted buying a giant bag I saw earlier in the day in G. Detou.

Finally for my 40th birthday we chose not to eat anywhere fancy but instead went to Quick, the local burger chain to have Star Wars burgers - I had the Jedi burger while Manny opted for the Darth Vader one. We are totally classy non?

Oh yeah And I brought back quite a bit of Speculoos.

Oh, another finally - we didn't make it to Ladurée in Paris but we did go to Harrods yesterday and have coffee/hot chocolate and a cake - my first Religieuse - a chocolate one which was amazing. I also bought a box of six macarons in their new limited edition Hello Kitty boxes.

Too cute. 

More cupcake shopping

A little round up up of a few new cupcake items in my life :)




First up, Winnie the Pooh Thirst Pockets featuring a double dose of cuteness - Winnie the Pooh and cupcakes. Now I generally use kitchen roll for cleaning and picking up cat sick (you're jealous of my glam life at this moment I betcha!) but isn't everything better with cupcakes on! I've bought these from Ocado, but I'm sure you can get them in any major supermarket.

This little notebook is from John Lewis, and is part of a range of cupcake goodies they have instore at the moment. I already have purse (although the cupcake dangler got lost on a drunken night out), and may have to get the tote bag for carting stuff to work.

I picked up this pink fluted dish in the John Lewis sale - although its not a cupcake item as such I love the cupcake logo they use on their baking/ovenware goods.

My new tea, coffee and sugar tins from Very as mentioned in a previous post taking pride of place in my kitchen :) I love these - even cuter than my previous Alessi tea and coffee jars. And no I didn't throw away my gorgeous Alessi jars - they now have herbal tea in instead :)

Finally a pair of socks I picked up for £1 in the Matalan sale - they've stolen my blog name!

Hello Kitty v Cupcakes for the cuteness title

Spotted this on the Sanrio site while searching for somewhere in the UK to buy a cute Hello Kitty bag I want - Hello Kitty and cupcakes together - just too cute! 

Lots of cupcake cuteness

I love finding new websites with lovely new cupcake goodies - today's is Beadesaurus.co.uk which is full of gorgeous cupcake items. 

My faves include the kisslock purse and wallet by Fluff, featuring a gorgeous "forever sweet" cupcake, cupcake and junk food hair clips by Loungefly and finally, the Hello Kitty cupcake plushie - Hello Kitty really hopes you like the cupcake she baked for you - how could you resist? 

I'm definitely getting the wallet unless someone (hint hint) wants to get me it ;)

Thanks to Beadesaurus.co.uk for the pics :)

Hello Kitty loves chocolate

I saw this t-shirt in Asda the other day and when I went back to get it it'd sold out and I was kicking myself. Am deffo going to order it though as its ultra cute and features a cute little chocolate cupcake. Can be ordered online from Asda by clicking here.

Aren't all cakes sweet?

This tshirt was featured in Heat yesterday (yes I know I should read something more intellectual but my name is Anne and I read crap)

It's from a website called Jukupop and can be bought by clicking here - isn't it adorable! Two of the best things in the world - cupcakes and Hello Kitty...cute overload!

Hello...Kitty Cupcakes!

Sometimes Crumbs and Doilies cuteness is just too cute! These Hello Kitty cupcakes are just purrfect!*

*sorry couldn't help it!

DIY cupcakes - LA Style

My adorable friend Dennis returned from his trip back to Ann Arbour with a veritable feast of goodies for me. I'm so lucky to have someone who will happily schlep to Williams Sonoma for me, although he claims he refused their offer to sign up to their mailing list and pleaded with them to restrict internet access to America only..pshaw! Never mind I check the site LOADS! Way too much actually -its a bit obsessive!

Of course I'm ALWAYS excited to meet my friends but this time was particularly exciting as Dennis - the worst surprise keeper ever - had already told me what he'd bought me on the phone so I was totally excited all day Monday and it was worth it as he'd kept some secrets...like the two Cup A Cake containers (for cupcakes on the go!) he'd gotten and a MASSIVE amount of Hello Kitty goodies! And of course the TWO bake your own SPRINKLES sets complete with their trademark dots! wuhu

I can't wait to bake them and eat them of course :)

Hello Kitty cupcakes

I adore Hello Kitty and I heart cupcakes so when I saw these I thought I might explode with glee - that frosting is just crying out to be scoffed! From Sugarcrushmiami via the ever fabulous All Things Cupcake.

Just adorable!!

Cthulhu cupcakes

Especially for my lovely hubby Manny, his favourite tentacled beast Cthulhu in cupcake form!

I've always preferred the Hello Kitty version Hello Cthulhu but Manny frowns upon such humour! Although he was terribly excited when I bought him a cuddly Cthulhu!

Anyways you can find the recipe to make the lovely Cthulhu type cupcakes on Martha Stewarts website (she calls them "tentacled alien", I prefer my description!)

Cupcake Pants!

I popped into our local Asda today on the way home and they have 2 different styles of cupcake pants - one pink one with a cupcake on and a blue pair (also available in yellow) covered in cupcakes saying "have your cake and eat it" on the waistband thingy! Unfortunately my store only had size 8 and 10, and my cupcake filled ass wouldn't fit into those so I shall pop to another store and see if they have a more sensible size for me to buy! They're only £2 so worth checking out! You can check them out online here but you can't buy them on there - pain in the butt! I'll have to go to Croydon's giant George store to get them I think!

They also have some cute Hello Kitty pyjamas for a tenner! I did manage to get a quackingly splendid new shower curtain though for under a fiver! Here is Angel planning her next attack on it - she is the reason we go through shower curtains at an astounding rate - she swings off them..bad kitty!

The wisdom of Hello Kitty

Kitty is wise!