Ladurée cupcakes sont délicieux, mais cher

Today was my first proper day of being unemployed. Or self employed if you look at it that way - I've just not done much about the self employed bit yet. Friday didn't really count as I spent most of it in bed hungover after leaving drinks. Incase anyone's wondering I didn't tell those I disliked how I felt about them - best to move on with some dignity - although not sure how much of that I retained as we left the building (sober) singing So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen, adieu to everyone.

So, to celebrate me leaving work we decided to spend a lovely day in London - including trying some very special cupcakes I'd read about some time ago, and could now, without a trip to Paris, try.

Cupcakes from my favourite Parisian Tea room - Ladurée!!

We had hoped to eat in the tea room in Harrods, but it was very busy (mainly with groups of tourists only having drinks...and a very rude French group who pushed and shoved and touched the food they wanted while barking at the staff - I mentioned excuse moi to the pokey 'lady', but wish I'd said excusez-moi merde tête instead. I do love to swear at people in their own tongue), so we opted for takeaway.

There were only two cupcakes on offer - the rose and the chocolate orange, although their menu outside showed their cupcakes as being the rose and a pistachio griotte. I got the last rose one so was incredibly chuffed - until I saw the price!!

We paid for our cakes and took them home very carefully on the bus. I was scared to open the box when we finally arrived, incase they had turned to mush (we'd had a little incident in Sainsburys where I'd boshed them slightly) but as you can see they survived!! Phew!

They are totally gorgeous aren't they? I'm going to allow them to call it a cupcake, although I've always gone with there being some kind of whipped buttercream'y frosting on top of a cupcake and fondant being fairy cake (this is how I differentiate - I'm not getting into a cupcake v fairy cake debate again).

We were worried that they wouldn't be tasty after spending all that money, but thank goodness they were delicious. You could tell as soon as you picked it up that it was incredibly fresh as they smelt divine. My rose cake was moist and filled with a delicious fruit compote, then a layer of fresh whipped cream, fondant, and more piped cream - all of it was melt in your mouth fresh and lovely.

Manny's chocolate orange was incredibly moist and fresh also - with lovely bits of peel and chocolate inside.

So, was London's most expensive cupcake worth it? I'd say yes but only as a one off/treat - I'm never going to buy a box of four from there on a whim - they are just too expensive.

When in Ladurée I think I'm always going to choose a few macaroon instead - that's right a few, I can get about 4 or 5 minis for the price of a cupcake.

Yes, they really were £6 each (£7.20 if you have them in the tea room!!).

Is this London's most expensive cupcake?

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.

Breakfast at the Cake Hole

I couldn't sleep today so got up just after 6 and headed off to Columbia Road on a mission to have cupcakes at Cake Hole as I couldn't get a seat/table there last time we went. I got there just before 9am and had a lovely pot of tea and a vanilla cupcake with rose petals on it for breakfast, all for the bargain price of £3.00! Their cupcakes were the cheapest I've found in London (I think) and it was absolutely gorgeous!!! It was really nice to have it served on a china plate with lovely cutlery too..very swish :) The frosting was absolutely spot on as well - I shall definately be heading up there again for breakfast :)

Definitely somewhere to visit for a cuppa and a cake - they had lots of different cakes in there apart from cupcakes..the ladies sitting next to me were very excited by both the plum cake and the lemon drizzle!

Btw, Cake Hole is situated in the back of Vintage Heaven, and doesn't have its own site as yet but can be found, on Sundays only, at:

Vintage Heaven
82 Columbia Road,
Bethnal Green,
London. E2 7QB.