Kicking off 2012 with a healthy(ish) cupcake..and some not so healthy

When I first saw that Lola's were introducing four healthier cupcakes this month made with all natural fruit I was slightly dubious as we've not done well with previous healthier cupcakes. Yes Petit Pois I'm looking at you and your crapcakes from hell.

However I found myself in Selfridges last week and thought I'd give them a try. And I'm glad I did. I opted for the passion fruit and it was incredibly nice. Really soft sponge with a passion fruit custard and topped with really tasty frosting. 

As well as passion fruit they have raspberry, blueberry and banana. I think they're only available till the end of January so be quick if you want to try them!

Also scoffed recently was this lovely cupcake from Lily Vanilli's new(ish) cafe just off Columbia Road. We visited on a Wednesday night before Christmas, but usually the cafe is only open on Sundays -it's worth travelling for. 

My gingerbread cupcake was fabulous - with a brandy buttercream frosting. I had a LV cupcake from Harrod's over a year ago and was not impressed, really dry and flavourless but this was totally removed from that - very fresh and bursting with flavour. In the background you can see perhaps the best sausage roll I've ever eaten - well I can't really say eaten - the tubby one whose sausage roll it was didn't share - I had a bite, but it was a good bite. Then again, can anything that comes surrounded in a duvet of lardon filled puff pastry be bad? I think not. 

As well as a sausage roll, Manny managed to scoff a brownie - and it was a slab of a brownie. Again I got a bite - melt in the mouth delicious. I would definitely go back just for the brownie. And maybe a sausage roll. And a cupcake. This is why I'm fat. 

The cafe looks pretty cool too - covered in a zombie style mural at the back to go with the theme of Lily's book. 

Also eaten recently, although not a cupcake I HAD to include this amazing Guinness cake I had from Bea's of Bloomsbury's Kings Road branch last week. I had popped to Jane Asher to stock up on edible glitter amid rumours that it's due to be taken from our shelves soon due to stupid people not understanding that you need to use EDIBLE glitter on cakes not just any random glitter (I call that Darwin's law - weeding out the stupid people) and needed coffee and a sit down and Bea's isn't too far away. 

The Guinness cake was very moist and the frosting was divine. Just sitting in the cafe was enough to tempt you to buy lots of cake - there was so much on offer, including cupcakes.

I enjoyed it so much I actually made this very cake from Bea's book last Saturday as a welcome home for Manny after he'd been to Germany to play a gig. The cake itself came out really well, but I followed the recipe for the frosting and it was a gloopy mess - it didn't seem to have enough icing sugar listed in the recipe. Luckily, I managed to save it and really liked the inclusion of golden syrup in the frosting although it meant it was very sweet. And I must learn, stop licking the syrup spoon, I was on a sugar high for hours. 

Sorry the pictures crap - it was about midnight when I finished making it - I find it hard to sleep when Manny's away. 

Finally, my final cupcake ever from Love Bakery. Just before Christmas I received a DM on Twitter from the lovely Rebecca to ask me had I heard that Love Bakery was closing down - I hadn't heard but checked out Sam's blog and discovered they were closing the very next day, 23rd December. Obviously I had to go one last time.

Sorry about the festiveness of the pics, I was meant to blog this ages ago. I've been a bit lax at blogging lately due to some issues with photo theft etc but aim to blog more in 2012.

Anyways, the cakes were really good, especially my rhubarb cheesecake one, and Love Bakery will definitely be missed from the London cupcake scene.

So there you go - I've eaten a few cupcakes lately and not a crap cake amongst them - a good end to 2011/beginning to 2012! 

It's cupcake o'clock *

I popped into Selfridges last week for some shopping and decided to lunch there - a cupcake and coffee counts as lunch right?

My cupcake of choice was Lola's flavour of the month for July - Pimms;

light vanilla cupcake is infused with Pimms No1, a gin based beverage mixed with apples, oranges, lemons, strawberry, cucumber and mint. It is smothered with a heavenly Pimms buttercream

I have to agree it was heavenly, the frosting was really tasty and the cake was very fresh and moist! And I'm still a big fan of the coffee in their cafe!

The Pimm's cupcake is available instore till July 31st and I recommend grabbing one, either with a coffee, or take it to the park and have some Pimms with it!

The top photo was taken with my mobile phone, here's a bit of a prettier one from Lola's.

*this post title may have been used before ...sorry!

I heart Gü and Goo

As I had the afternoon off work on Thursday (hurrah for Maundy Thursday - one of the few perks of being a Civil Servant) I popped up town to do some shopping (including fresh turmeric from Chinatown which is much nicer than the dried fusty stuff!) and was planning to grab a couple of cupcakes from Lola's in Selfridges and have a wee cake and coffee for lunch but the cafe was so busy I only got takeaway (Lola's you need more seating!). The main reason for venturing down that far on Oxford St was to get Manny one of the newly launched Gü cupcakes as he's been dreaming of them ever since I first mentioned them. I was horrified to see they'd none on display but thankfully a new box of minis arrived. I got 2 of the Gü's and 2 of the Easter special cupcakes (again in minis - the girl in front of me bought the last two - damn her!) which had a Cadbury's mini Creme Egg baked into the base, with Creme Egg fondant frosting and a mini-Creme egg on top. YUM!

First up the Gü cupcake. Usually I'm not a lover of too much chocolate in a cupcake and I had planned to take a bite for research purposes and give the rest to Manny, but oh.my.god this was lush! The base of the cupcake is a very chocolatey moist brownie with chips of lovely chocolate but it was the frosting that made me go "I ganache Gü " - seriously chocolatey ganache that melted in your mouth and was just totally moreish. I am now won over to the chocolate cupcake and I blame Gü.

The Easter special flavour, which in honour of recent Creme Egg adverts I'm naming the Goo cupcake, had to be good to follow the Gü cupcake, and it really did. I had worried with all that Creme Egg business going on it might be a bit sickly (lets face it Creme Eggs although delish are a little bit sickly) but nope, the Goo cupcake had a lovely chocolatey base with lashings of really tasty Creme Egg fondant on top - in fact it was so lush I wished I got a big Goo one and sent silent curses to the girl who stole the last two from me - although I'm sure the button on my jeans was thinking "hurrah!".

I recommend popping over there on Monday if you fancy trying one of these - and you don't have to brave Oxford Street, you can pop to their newly opened Mayfair branch and have a wander through St James' and Green Park first to work up an appetite.

Gü you cupcake?

There's not a lot to say about the new collaboration between Gü and Lola's but MUST Gü asap and eat one.

Available from all Lola's outlets, including their newly Mayfair store which opened today at 16 Lansdowne Row, Berkley Square, W1J 8QF. Also available on-line when they sort out their site - the link doesn't appear to be working for me!

I may pop along on Thursday and get one for Manny before he explodes with longing for one!

Did you mention Bailey's...twice?

Just a quickie incase you don't fancy making your own St Patrick's day cupcakes to celebrate tomorrow - Lola's are doing a rather yummy sounding cupcake available at their outlets in Harrods and Selfridges (until Sunday) and also to order online.

A sumptuous chocolate sponge base with a dash of Baileys liqueur has been topped with a heavenly vanilla and Baileys buttercream icing and decorated with a traditional green Shamrock.

I'm planning on popping over there on Sat to pick up a flavour of the month for Manny, so may pick up one of these too.

While we're talking about special days - St George's day is April 23rd and Lola's St George cupcakes are already available to pre-order.

I hope to be popping to their new store (details coming soon) to collect mine in person on the day.

Look out for my post about my St Patrick's day cupcakes tomorrow!

Gu hu - Lola's are doubly spoiling us this month

Some very exciting news about a Lola's collaboration but first up are their flavour of the month - ferrero rocher

Help winter melt away with our luxuriously indulgent Ferrero Rocher cupcake. It has a wonderfully moist hazelnut chocolate sponge, topped with hazelnuts draped in a silky chocolate layer

I used to LOVE Ferrero Rocher when I was a teen (and they were the "in" thing), but then every birthday, christmas etc I'd get about 4 boxes of them and I soon became sick of them. I don't even eat them now when people are giving them away at work but I might give this cupcake a try- maybe just a mini though. I know Manny will be salivating at the sight of this cupcake and getting a full size one (I'd suggest trying a bit of his but he's a bit like Joey from Friends and doesn't like to share!).

Secondly, Lola's have posted up some photographs on their Facebook of their Mothers Day range, and as I was already featuring the flavour of the month (and some exciting Lola's news...) I thought I'd post up some pics. I can't see these on the website yet (in fact its still showing February's flavour of the month - come on Lola's sort it out!) but I'm sure they'll be available to order online soon and in stores for a week or so before Mother's Day.

Finally today on Twitter, Guchocolatepuds tweeted "Gü chocolate brownie cupcake with chocolate ganache icing from Lola's. One word: AMAZING". I (obviously) immediately sent them a message, to which they annoyingly (rudely!?) didn't reply to - however Lola's were more forthcoming with responses and so far all we know is that the Güand Lola's collaboration will be available by the end of March. I'll post more information as I get it, hopefully with some pics! I know for a fact Manny will be one of the first wanting to try this - he adores Gü!

Thanks to Lola's for use of the pics.

I want to be the girl with the most cake

It looks like the diet is well and truly out the window - the amount of scoffing I did pre and post Holland has made me think I might as well continue to be naughty as (a) its Valentine's soon and I want to eat yummyness and (b) my birthday's in March and that is always a cupcaketastic time of year. Not that I plan to just eat and eat but ...

Anyhoo, on Saturday I decided to pop "up West" and do a bit of shopping. I needed to buy a gift for Ann Arbor Dennis as he's 40 soon and I'm putting together lots of gifts for him as he's always so lovely and brings me such fab cupcake gifts! I also had an ulterior motive for the trip- Pierre Herme, the creme de la creme of macaron makers had opened a concession in my favourite department store, Selfridges - my plan was to pick up a couple of macarons and a cupcake of the month from Lola's to start the valentines taste test early!

When I got to Selfridges I was happy to see that the queue for Pierre's concession was not too long, in fact only two of us queueing, the rest were just standing gawping at the selection or surreptitiously taking pics on their phones. The lovely girl behind the counter went through every flavour with me and I opted for two each for myself and Manny; vanilla, chocolate, salted caramel and strawberry wasabi (the last two we cut in half so we could try a bit each). My macaroons were wrapped and I was given some leaflets about the flavours etc:

Just like Chic, Deja Vu and Avante Garde...'Macaron' is a French word, roll it around your mouth and savour the sound. The taste is even better. ...Your favourite Macaron will not taste the same if mispronounced. ...Please note, it is advised to avoid trying to pronounce the word macaron whilst eating one.

They were divine - much better the Laduree, crisp shells with gorgeous rich soft fillings. YUM! I highly recommend them. Pierre's flagship London store will be opening soon in Knightsbridge but until then you can buy macarons and chocolates in Selfridges. Also and English edition of his book, Macaron, will be out June 2009.

So, back to the cupcakes. After I bought the macarons (which we ate for lunch back home with a cup of tea) I walked the couple of feet to Lola's and was surprised to see free tables at the cafe. I was only planning to get takeaway but I'd been walking round the West End for a while, including the hell on earth that is Primark (Still not sure why I ever go in there..its vile) so I deserved a treat and my weary feet deserved a rest. I opted for a mini peanut butter cupcake to go with my fab coffee as I don't think I've ever had a Lola's peanut butter cupcake. It was ever so pretty, but quite dry - which is normal for peanut butter cupcakes I've found.

Later that night we scoffed the Lola's flavour of the month, pink champagne. The cupcakes were really pretty, with lashings of pink glittery icing - the base was really moist and the frosting - oh my - it was gorgeous! Melt in your mouth yummy and very flavoursome. I wasn't so keen on the truffle on top- it was white chocolate and just tasted a bit sweet for me but Manny loved it (his tooth is sweeter than mine he has no concept of two sweet!).

I think anyone would like a cupcake, or a box of macarons for valentines day so Selfridges really is a one stop valentines shop!

Sorry re the pics of the cupcakes and macarons - I just pointed and shot as I was hungry and wanted to eat - a day in Oxford St followed by a trip on the 453 bus will do that to you!

♥ Say it with Flour* ♥

Lola's suggest that their Valentines Love box is suitable for a loved one, someone special, colleagues or clients, but they've obviously never worked with colleagues like those the few normal humans (and I include myself in this) have to endure on a daily basis in my office!

However I do agree that they'd be perfect for a loved one or someone special! If you order a box from their online store, or buy one in Selfridges or Harrods they include flavours such as strawberry, red velvet, chocolate marshmallow and February's flavour of the month, pink champagne, which I've had before and loved:

LOLA’s new limited edition Pink Champagne cupcake is the perfect way to say 'I Love You'.
This latest flavour has a sumptuous fluffy cupcake sponge delicately infused with the finest Pink Champagne, topped with a heavenly butter cream icing and finished with a Champagne truffle for an intense chocolate burst.

Finally, their Kiss it Better cupcake (which I had last week and highly recommend) is available until March 29th with 30% of all proceeds going to GOSH to support the Kiss it Better appeal. Also 15% of the retail price of each LOVE box goes to the appeal.

*I've borrowed this slogan from Lola's - I just couldn't resist - it sums up this blog totally! Thanks also to Lola's for use of the photos.

Eating cupcakes for Charity

I didn't eat a single cupcake for a whole month! Yes that's right from the 25th of December till the 25th of Jan I was cupcake-free! So after some thought I decided to end my cupcake-fast at Lola's cafe in Selfridges (somewhere I've been meaning to visit for ages!) with a couple of their charity cupcakes.

I previously blogged about Lola's Kiss it Better cupcake, and Manny had expressed an interest in their Hazelnut Vanilla cupcake after I mentioned it on here. Since blogging about it, Lola's had announced that 100% of the retail price from their nutella cupcake was going to survivors of the Haiti earthquake - so we were not only stuffing ourselves but doing our bit for charity too.

The cafe is very small, with only enough seats for about a dozen or so people, and as its in Selfridges and looks rather inviting, its difficult to get a seat. This was my 3rd try at a sit down cupcake experience in Selfridges and we got lucky - grabbing a table being used by a member of staff, who kindly took her laptop elsewhere :)

We ordered our cupcakes and a cappuccino for me, mocha (with whipped cream) for tubby Manny. Firstly the coffee, provided by Vida e Caffe is amazing, some of the best I've tried - really flavoursome and well made, and they came with a little square of Lindt dark chocolate which made Manny even happier as he now had something to dunk in his whipped cream. I had seen him eyeing my flake and was guarding it from him.

So, the cupcakes. Last time I tried Lola's Christmas cupcakes I was a little over-whelmed by the amount of food colouring and a lacking of vanilla flavour, however there were no issues with these, they were wonderful. The base of mine was soft and flavoursome and the frosting was very tasty indeed. The smarties and flake worked really well - and I loved the fact that it was designed by a 4 year old - it looked and tasted like something a 4 year old would love! Having said that the 37 year old me loved it too, but then I'm a child at heart, especially when it comes to food! Manny's nutella frosting was fantastic (I took a little smidgen to try it). Oh and as well as the lovely cakes, you get proper mini-cutlery to eat your cupcake with, which is ideal as sometimes wooden forks impair the taste of your cupcake!

I'm not sure if you can still get these cupcakes in Lola's as tomorrow is February but I urge you to pop along and see - the money is going to good causes, and the cakes are definitely worth trying.

And while you're indulging

If you pop down to show your support and buy the Kiss it Better cupcake, you might as well have one of January's flavour of the month, a hazelnut nutella cupcake, with a vanilla pod buttercream;

It's a decadent vanilla sponge filled with swirls of hazelnut nutella topped with a fresh and delicious vanilla pod buttercream icing. The topping is finished off with a pirouette wafer filled with belgium dark chocolate.

We use the yummiest ingredients in each cupcake creating an unrivalled combination of flavours and textures.

I really like the sound of the buttercream so I think I may break my cupcake fast with a couple of cupcakes from Lola's - wonder if I can persuade Manny to go on a mini-date to Lola's cafe next week?

Kiss it better

January is a month when people usually start cutting back on sweet treats due to the excesses of the festive season, however if you fancy a cupcake and are looking for an excuse to indulge, here you go;

LOLA’s has teamed up with Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity to develop an exclusive cupcake for the charity’s Kiss it Better appeal.

The delicious LOLA’s Kitchen Kiss It Better cupcake was hand-crafted in LOLA’s bakery by former patient, four year old Jessica.

Jessica’s scrummy cupcake creation has a light and fluffy vanilla sponge made using the finest Madagascan vanilla pods, which is bursting with chunky chocolate chips. This latest LOLA’s flavour is finished with a heavenly butter cream icing, cheekily sprinkled with bright miniature Smarties™ and topped with a Cadbury’s chocolate Flake™.

Priced at £2.50 each, 30% of the retail price from the charity cupcake will go straight to support the Kiss It Better appeal - a national campaign to raise money to fund research into the causes and treatment of childhood cancer, one of the biggest diseases affecting children today.

A really pretty cupcake for a really great cause! You can order them online, or buy them in store at Selfridges and Harrods. I shall be popping along to one of the stores to buy a couple next week, diet be damned!

Ho Ho Ho - a festive box of cupcakes

I've fallen a bit behind with my blogging recently- being ill and working too hard has taken its toll, and so only now have I got round to featuring this rather nice pre-Christmas gift from Lola's. I was contacted by Lola's PR company, Slam, via Sarah from Maison Cupcake, as they had read on her blog a nice comment I made re Lola's Cupcakes, and offered a freebie box of their Ho Ho Ho cupcakes to taste.

The cupcakes arrived at work on a rather depressing Friday afternoon and cheered us up no end - I shared with 2 colleagues and didn't keep them all for myself (and my tubby hubby!). Tasha had the gingerbread one and Fahima the red velvet - both thought they were very tasty and ever so pretty, in fact the first thing both of them did on taking hold of the cupcakes was take lots of pics with their phone cameras!

My act of sharing left me and Manny with four to test - 2 vanilla and 2 chocolate (one with vanilla icing), which included the gorgeous red one with my name on - how cute! Whilst the base of the vanilla cupcakes were moist and fresh, they didn't really taste of anything, just sponge. I'm a great lover of vanilla and I like to taste, and if possible (especially in frosting) see the vanilla, but unfortunately in this cupcake there just didn't seem to be any vanilla to taste...at all. Similarly the frosting also lacked even a hint of vanilla, which left you thinking you were tasting only butter, sugar and the food colouring - I don't think I was, it was just the power of perception, "ooooh its green, I taste green".

The whole vanilla cupcake situation is rather odd, as Lola's are not alone - it seems to be the vanilla cupcakes that suffer the most from lack of flavour - I've had this with other cupcakes in London, the vanilla cupcake being just a little bland. I'm not asking for a "knock you out" amount of vanilla, but if you're selling me a vanilla cupcake I would like to taste it!! Before anyone asks I have v.good tastebuds - never smoked and can generally pick out flavours in foods very well - I'm also Manny's real ale flavour taster which I hate as I cannot stand real ale, but I can still get a hint of apricot in something I don't like the taste of when he forces me to try them!

Back to the cupcakes - Lola's gingerbread and their brandy butter, which I tried earlier in December were both flavoursome and very tasty, as were the chocolate cupcakes in this box (and the two other flavours the girls had) only the vanilla let the box down.

All in all it was a lovely gift (and the first time I've received a gift saying "press" since I stopped working for a well known music venue as a trainee press officer more than half of my life ago - and cupcakes are much nicer than Cliff Richard's sateen tour jackets!) and I would like to thank Lola's and Slam PR - I hope the feedback, although not all good has been helpful in some way!

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.

Hummingbird Cupcakes new store details

I've just found out that the new Wardour Street branch of the fabulous Hummingbird Bakery is Lee Stafford's old Salon so I will be easily able to find it (used to get my hair cut there till they moved and upped their prices loads).

It's quite a little space - it did have a downstairs section as a salon, but I suppose they may use that as a kitchen? I can't wait to see what they've done to it - I know from their Twitter that their theme for the store is cupcake pop art! According to my sources it opens on the 9th December - I have a gig that night in Brixton but I'm hoping that my lovely hubby might leave work a bit early with me for a pre-gig cupcake :) Or maybe I should just take the day off and camp outside for the opening?

In other Hummingbird news Tarek will be at Heals in the Kings Road signing copies of the Hummingbird cookbook this Saturday from 1.30-3.30, and some cupcake demo's and a baking Q&A are promised. There are several cupcake outlets within walking distance of Heals if you want to make a cupcake day of it including Crumbs and Doilies, Love Bakery and Hummingbird - Buttercup is also less than 30mins walk away but after the last time I'd give it a miss. Oh and if you walk to Harrods you can have a Lola's cupcake or if you're all cupcake'd out a Laduree macaroon.

On a non-cupcake note - Paul A Young and Hope and Greenwood will also be signing their books at Heals on Saturday

Boo!

Halloween cupcakes available from Lola's - in store now (at Selfridges or Harrods) or you can order boxes online. If you order online you can choose pumpkin -not sure if they're available in store but will try and get to Selfridges on Friday to check, and check out the new cupcake bar.

Thanks to Lolas for the pics.