Welcome to my nightmare

I was asked by the infamous curator of cake and chaos, Miss Cakehead, to make some blood splattered cupcakes as part of a 'disturbing’ edible experience at the Alice Cooper Freak Show auditions at Hyde Park this Monday 27th June. Yes that's right, cake for metal legend ALICE COOPER!!

The cakes themselves were pretty much a given - what else could they be but (blood) red velvets? I added a little extra red colouring and a little extra vanilla to combat any taste this may add. 

The blood proved a little trickier. I first opted to make the cherry 'blood' as featured in A Zombie Ate my Cupcake, but alas it was more like clotted blood and a very odd grey colour so put my thinking cap on and came up with my own blood - raspberry coulis, thickened with a little icing sugar and a bit of red food colouring in it to ensure we got the right colour. Fabulous.

The raspberry coulis blood really added a nice tartness to the red velvets and I really enjoyed it. I'm not usually that much of a fan of cream cheese frosting (ie I can't eat more than one) but the tartness of the raspberries again helped with that, and I would happily include raspberries in these again. Have been thinking of reasons for bloody cupcakes - Mortician cupcakes anyone? 

Finally, just wanted to share the centrepiece of the Silent Hill themed exhibition with you all. The nurse cake was made by Laura from Mamma Jamma Cakes and is 100% edible (except for a centre rod to keep her upright - take that Duff!) 

Copyright Mamma Jamma Cakes 

Isn't it awesome!

You can read more about the event here.

Un petite post

Starbucks have launched a range of Petite Treats and although we aren't lucky enough to get the Petite cupcakes they have in the States (including the divine looking mini peanut butter cupcake) I thought I'd do a little post about them.

The range includes three cake pops; sparkle, rocky road and almond and two whoopies; chocolate and red velvet. The almond cake pop seems to have replaced the American Tiramisu cake pop, which I prefer the sound of!

As a Starbucks card holder I was lucky enough to get a voucher for a freebie mini today so I popped into the one on Bankside and couldn't resist picking up two petites (they are mini after all!).

First up was the red velvet whoopie. I must say, and I may lose readers here, this was as good, if not better than a couple of store bought whoopies I've had. It looks a bit shiny in the pic, mainly due to our office being lit up like Blackpool at the time of the Illuminations, but it wasn't. It was a perfectly edible flavoursome whoopie. The cake/cookie part was perfectly fresh and the filling was tasty, if a little bland (could've done with more vanilla).

My second choice was...can you guess?....the sparkle cake pop. Hello, sparkles! (Manny can insert some smart ass "oooh I sparkle" joke about Edward Cullen here but that's only because he's a bitter old fart who doesn't get Twilight).

Firstly, let me apologise for the photos. I took the cake pop home and alas some of its sparkle stayed in the bag when I took it out. Also my kitchen is the opposite of my office and is lit like a Chilean coal mine. Only darker.

So the pop. I've said before I'm not that fussed about cake pops - often they have too much frosting to cake ratio, but this one really didn't. The chocolate outside was really tasty and the middle was moist but not overly so (Kelly seemed to get a wet cake pop, which just doesn't sound nice so maybe I got lucky!). Either way it was really delicious - one of the better cake pops I've tried. I hear gasps from the cake purists out there but as you know I'm nothing if honest and I really enjoyed this cake pop and would eat it again!

I'm not sure if Starbucks will be offering the free petite on a Thursday again but they often do offers for card holders so it's worth getting one!

23rd March - quick update: we popped to the Kings Road Starbucks the other day and bought a couple of coffees and cake pops - both were stored in the fridge so when we tried to eat them they were hard and incredibly cold. They'd probably have been fine if brought to room temperature but as we wanted them with our coffee it was rather disappointing. Manny reports that it was really nice but a bit firm.

A tale of two bakeries

My Love Bakery book arrived last Friday at work and the one cupcake my colleague and I drooled over the most was the rhubarb and custard cake. It sounded absolutely fabulous and was immediately added to must bake soon list.

So obviously I was mega-chuffed when I ventured to Love Bakery on the Saturday hungover (and alone as my other half was too hungover to leave the comfort of the duvet!) and spotted them on sale. As I was hungover and had previously been unable to keep food down that day I bought a box of four and pootled off down the Kings Road with them.

We didn't get round to eating the cupcakes till the Sunday as we both still felt a little under the weather on Saturday night, but the cakes did not suffer for it and still tasted incredibly moist and flavoursome. This always worries me about bakeries where I buy a cupcake and eat it the same day and its hard - when do they make them? Anyways back to Love. The rhubarb and custard has now been added to my favourite cupcakes of all time list - a lovely moist base with a rhubarb compote in the middle, and a custard frosting, with crumble on top. This is pure comfort food in a cupcake!

My second choice of cupcake was the banana toffee cupcake. This was a very tasty banana cake, topped with gorgeous caramel frosting - this cake was luscious. The only thing I didn't enjoy was the fondant bananas on top - I find them just too sweet but hey they looked gorgeous and the cupcake was to die for so who cares!

 Look at that frosting - you just wanna dive in!

Next up were Manny's cakes. I opted for the red velvet for him as his first choice. He loved the red velvet declaring it the best he's tried, apart from mine (he's too sweet sometimes!). It was a really moist, very red cake, but the cake wasn't marred by the flavour of food colouring, which can sometimes happen with red velvets.

Look at the colour of that! 

Finally was his double chocolate - always with the double chocolate. After the disappointment of the "valrohna triple chocolate" from Cox, Cookies and Cake he was very happy to have a chocolate cake that tasted of chocolate. Perhaps the Love Bakery ladies could teach Mr Lanlard and Cox how to make chocolate cakes?

The second bakery visited was an old favourite, Crumbs and Doilies. And alas it is a very different story than Love Bakery. If you check though my blog I have eaten a lot of cupcakes from Crumbs and Doilies in many flavours from lemon and poppyseed to Christmas flavour - all have been pretty and more importantly all have been tasty. Until recently that is. The last time we bought cakes from them was in April 2010 when we went to Partridges Market to get their flavour of the month, Mexican Chilli Chocolate. It was dry, disappointing and flavourless. Never one to judge a bakery on just one cake as they could be having an off day I decided to give them another go and this weekend seemed perfect as their flavour of the month was Mojito. I fell in love with Mojitos when we went to Madrid last month to see Manowar so these sounded right up my street. We had planned to get just two cakes but they were offering a box of four for a fiver (two were £4) so we opted for two mojito, a chocolate and a rose vanilla.

Then we went to the pub as it was cold and wet outside and we couldn't be bothered to shop.

The pub also explains why my pictures look like this

To be honest I didn't have much to work with.. These are the mojito cupcakes. These are billed as;

a winning combination of lime, mint and a little Havana Club rum. Awesome.

And that did sound awesome. Unfortunately they tasted of nothing. Ok there was the merest hint of lime but nothing else. No mint, and I certainly got no rum. The frosting was weird - I really don't know what it was - a mush with no flavour, except a tonne of sugar crystals on top. Incredibly disappointing. And  to top it all, incredibly dry.

Next, Manny's chocolate cupcake;

A rich chocolate sponge made with Valrhona cocoa, smothered with dark Callebaut chocolate buttercream

I didn't try this but he was bitterly disappointed - he said there was a minimum of chocolate flavour and he didn't believe this was Valrhona chocolate. Again it was dry and again flavourless.

Finally, my rose vanilla;

A light, fragrant cupcake made using organic Madagascan vanilla and naturally distilled organic Persian damask rosewater. Available with pink icing only.

This smelt funny and the smell overwhelmed me before I even took a bite. Like butter but not fresh. But I persevered (the things I do for my blog) and again it was utterly tasteless. There was no hint of vanilla, no rosewater nothing. I sniffed the cupcake trying desperately to get a hint of rose water - nothing. It didn't smell of anything at all. I'd at least expected a hint of vanilla. The cake was beyond dry and we were eating them the day we bought them. Things like this seriously worry me. When I bake I use nothing but the  best ingredients, and occasionally we eat cupcakes about 3 days after they're baked (you can't eat all the cupcakes at once can you!!) and they still taste MUCH fresher than these.

I don't know what's happened with Crumbs and Doilies - have they changed bakers, suppliers? Does anyone know. I'm bitterly disappointed. I've been recommending them to people for years but I'm afraid I won't be doing that any more.

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!

Post beer festival cupcakes

As mentioned in the previous post we bought some take-away cupcakes at Hummingbird to relieve the post-beer fest hangover - these were a black bottom and a chocolate for Manny and a red velvet and a pear and cinammon (Friday's cupcake of the day) for me (which got a bit squished in the cloakrooms at the beer fest)

I really liked the pear and cinammon, not sure I'd have it again though as there wasn't much pear in it. Also I heart red velvet but I seem not to enjoy the cheese frosting so much anymore - I think its since I made red velvet I've gone off them....the horror! 

Next time I got to Hummingbird I shall try to ensure it's a Sunday when the cupcake of the day is black forest which sounds gorge!

The new cupcake? Part two!

First churros were the new cupcake and now I read in Laist that bundt is another contendor for the cupcake crown! Looking at Kiss my Bundt's site I'm drooling a bit but not thinking of giving up my cupcake love anytime soon!

You can keep up to date with all things Bundt on their blog.