I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts

These raspberry and coconut cupcakes are slightly adapted from a recipe in another of my recent additions to my groaning cook book shelves, Oliver Peyton's, British Baking. The book is full of recipes that make your mouth water - I have a lot of markers on pages of recipes I must make asap, but as soon as I saw these cupcakes I knew I had to make them - two of my favourite ingredients in cupcake form = delicious.

The cakes were very straightforward to make and I pretty much followed the recipe. Next time I would add more coconut though as I thought the taste was quite subtle.  I didn't get 12 cupcakes but rather 8, and they were domed within the cases, not huge - perhaps if you use smaller cases you'd get 12.

Once the cupcakes cooled slightly, I brushed them with one of my new favourite liqueurs, Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur. I have brushed this onto cupcakes a couple of times now and I love it - it gives a little kick to your cake.

The frosting was a coconut Swiss meringue which was delicious. I often find that Swiss meringue frosting tastes of nothing but butter when I've bought cupcakes in shops that offer it, however this one was really nice, although the coconut milk didn't give it enough of a coconut kick and I think next time I'd put in less vanilla, and a bit of coconut extract.

They still tasted divine though, and I would definitely make these again. I used Tulameen raspberries which gave a lovely flavour to the cakes and really contrasted with the sweetness of the cake.

If you'd like to try these cupcakes you can come along to the Going for a Song vintage clothes jumble on June 4th at the Amersham Arms in New Cross where I'll be selling my cupcakes, including these.

Finally I thought I'd share these lovely wrappers the people at Cupcake Wrappers sent me.

The wrappers come in lots of different designs, including my favourite featuring cute needlework birds. The wrappers are washable and reusable and I think they'd be really nice for a display of your cupcakes. And it helps cover up when your cases go see through when baked (hello Cath Kidston)

Bakery at County Hall

I posted this image on my Twitter feed yesterday and got quite a lot of questions asking me where I was. Isn't it lovely?

We chanced upon, Bakery County Hall, on our way to the South Bank food market yesterday and I'm so glad we spotted the macaron tower in the window which is what made us explore further. It is a charming, quite large, cafe/bakery housed at the back of County Hall, away from the river.

We took a peak inside and I saw all the pretty pink things, and packages of meringues tied up with ribbon hanging from the ceiling and I was sold - we had to go inside.

There were even little jars of cupcakes dotted around. So cute!

The place itself is quite large with a lot of seating -when we arrived there was one other group there, but it quickly filled out as passers by spotted it! There is a kitchen at one end, where people were baking away happily, and there was a good variety of sweet and savoury food. We of course opted for sweet. There were two cupcake flavours available, chocolate with vanilla frosting and raspberry. I opted for raspberry and Manny opted for a slice of a cake called Chocolate Delight. I'd have been surprised after seeing it if he hadn't.

As you can see my cupcake had a LOT of frosting. Manny was rather taken with the cake to frosting ratio, and I was trying to get a picture of the cross section once I'd taken a bite, well a forkful, even my mouth isn't that big, but it was so top heavy it kept falling over! I'm happy to say it tasted fabulous! It was fresh, and although the cake was a little dry I think it was due to perhaps over-mixing rather than staleness as it tasted lovely. The frosting had a lovely raspberry flavour and was delicious. I started picking off the pearls as I thought they were those hard balls that are every dentists delight, but they were in fact little chocolate shells.

Manny's cake was, again, delicious and aptly named. It was a delightfully sinful chocolate cake, fresh and very chocolaty. And as you can see the friendly waitress didn't skimp when it came to portioning it up either.

And it wasn't just us enjoying the Bakery offerings - when Manny went the loo, a female traffic warden sitting at the other side of the cafe started talking to him about how great his scones were, slightly confusing the poor boy. It turns out she'd loved the food there and wanted to congratulate him - not sure why a scruffy chap in a Cocksparrer tshirt looked liked he worked there...bless.

I only have one negative comment about the Bakery - the pricing was quite steep. Two cakes and a small cappuccino and a small mug of peppermint tea came in at just under £15 - slightly expensive but the coffee was nice, as was the cake, and you are in a predominantly tourist area. But something to bear in mind.

I will definitely visit again. The cafe was a lovely little oasis of cuteness and calm away from the crowds in the area, definitely somewhere you could while away some of the day with a good book and a bit of cake.

Next time I go I'll try and get some  better photos of the meringues - although it was very light inside the photographs of the windows came out very dark!