Strawberry and Pink Prosecco cupcakes

I thought I'd share a couple of pics of my first attempt at a celebration cupcake for last weeks Iron Cupcake competition. I tried to make a strawberry and pink champagne cupcake (I used rose prosecco in this attempt as didn't want to waste pink champagne!) as I thought it was a perfect celebration cupcake and also quite seasonal as I found some lovely strawberries in Waitrose.

I looked through some recipes and decided to opt for the Sprinkles Strawberry cupcake recipe features on Martha Stewart's website as it had a video and looked ever so easy. The recipe was easy to follow, I substituted the milk for champagne and the cake actually worked out quite well - except it was very sweet, In fact a little too sweet for me but still perfectly tasty - a moist strawberry sponge.

I used Sprinkles strawberry frosting recipe, substituting the vanilla for some more prosecco and adding slightly less strawberry and a wee bit more booze. I'm not sure if it was because it was the hottest day of the year or because I'd faffed about with the recipe but this frosting just would NOT work. I mixed it, without overmixing but nothing happened, it just stayed kinda gloopy. The recipe says it should be dense and creamy like ice cream but it was more runny and tasty like a strawberry soup. I added a touch more icing sugar, which did nothing much except make it sweeter...grrr. I was getting more and more harassed as it was hot enough to bake a bloody cake in my kitchen without the oven so once it was thick enough to just dollop on I gave up and did just that. It kind of set once on the cupcake but it in no way resembled the frosting that Sprinkles have on their cupcakes. The second photo above was taken a little while after I dolloped the frosting on - when I took the case off it kinda oozed down the side of the cake - as you can see they don't particularly look like the pic below that came with the recipe.

Although the frosting did not set, and it was a little sweet, it was flavoursome and reminded me of strawberry ice cream.

I would probably make these again but follow the recipe properly and just make plain old strawberry cupcakes rather than try to faff around with them!

Crumbs...Christmas flavour is back!

I could really just link to here, as the Crumbs and Doilies December flavour of the month is the same as last year...Christmas...and we wouldn't have it any other way! We sampled them last Christmas and they were fab (and as usual so pretty with the best sprinkles!)

They’re back! Our Christmas cupcakes feature a cinamony, gingery Christmas spiced sponge, topped with a smooth, luxurious brandy buttercream icing.

Available from Partridges Market (Saturdays), Covent Garden food market (Thursdays and Fridays, and Weds 16th-Sat 19th) and to order online here.

If you head to Partridges Market I highly recommend the curry stall there - its FAB!

Thanks to Crumbs and Doilies for use of their gorgeous pics

Cupcakes in Penzance

I often browse the bakeryinfo website for news on cupcakes and today discovered that a cupcakery has been opened in Penzance by a Cornwall-based bakery group called Warrens Bakery - I'm not sure about their choice of name however, Sprinkles.

As we have found out before LA based Sprinkles are NOT happy when anyone uses their name or "their" dots even!

The Penzance cafe offers over a dozen flavours of cupcake from passion fruit, tiramisu and caramel to chocolate and raspberry. Yum.

Will see if I can find any pics or a website - there's nothing on the Warrens Bakery site.

And finally, talking of LA Sprinkles - they've been saying they're opening in London for over a year - and still no news...hurumpf!

Thanks to Sprinkles for the pic of their yummy cupcakes! PLEASE come to London

Martha Stewart's Cupcake of the day

Martha Stewart's website is counting down to the June 2 release of "Martha Stewart's Cupcakes" by serving up one cupcake recipe per day (this started May 15th - you can check previous recipes on the site - click here to get today's recipe, Boston Cream Pie cupcakes...yum).

I definitely plan to try her coconut cupcake recipe as I love coconut! There are also recipes for cupcake pops, tiramisu cupcakes and Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes (which I think I might have to try and make!) and more to come until the book is launched June 2nd. I think I shall be buying it asap - it's available now for pre-order from Amazon - doesn't it look good enough to eat/lick ;)

Thanks to Martha Stewart.com for the pics

Punk Rock Bingo Cupcakes

I baked some cupcakes to be given out as prizes at a recent punk rock bingo event at one of my fave pubs, the Grosvenor in Stockwell.

I used the lovely Hannah's Last Rolo Cupcake recipe, topped with Hummingbirds chocolate frosting and good old Hummingbird Vanilla, which so far hasn't let me down! I decided to supersize the cupcakes and go for the full on big cupcake effect which seemed to go down well with those who ate them!

I also packed them in some really cute boxes, both from Wilton. The little pink stripy ones hold one cupcake and were a gift from my lovely friend Dennis (no pic here but you can see them on my Facebook), and the bigger ones I bought from Cake Craft Shop online, only after I'd bought them did I realise they have a store in Bromley which I can get to by bus! I must go check out their store as they have tonnes of fab stuff! These boxes were great, easy to put together (I got some cheaper plain ones and they were like a krypton factor test to assemble!) and they held the cupcakes in place really well and ensured they made the trip on the bus safely!

I'm particularly impressed with my punked up cupcake which I made all spiky and punky with my white chocolate drops! And if you look closely you can see the dinosaurs trying to escape the pink frosting....I heart fancy sprinkles!

Does a free cupcake taste better?

If you follow the fabulous Crumbs and Doilies on Twitter you can enter their weekly comp to win a free box from their stall at Covent Garden's weekly food market. We entered yesterday's comp and Manny popped over there and managed to secure us a freebie box of 12 delicious cupcakes including 2 of the flavour of the month, Turkish Delight. I had both of those as Manny doesn't like it (he snarfed most of the chocolate ones) and they were gorgeous.

You'd deffo have to look hard to find a prettier cupcake then Crumbs and Doilies - they have the best sprinkles! I am jealous!!

Hmmmmm a Turkish Delight

Crumbs and Doilies have launched their flavour of the month, Turkish Delight...yum! I shall be heading to either Partridges or Covent Garden (Thursdays only...hint hint Manny) to get some of these as they look and sound absolutely gorgeous!

Our Turkish Delight cupcakes combine a light and smooth pistachio sponge with a subtle rosewater buttercream icing. Fragrant, summery and deliciously moreish.

Remember this is only available for May so get 'em quick!

Elvis cupcakes

January 8th would've been Elvis' 74th birthday and a few cupcake stores dedicated some special cupcakes to him on the day!

Crumbs Bake Shop paid tribute to Elvis with a cupcake best described as "a banana flavored yellow cake filled with banana cream topped with a swirl of banana butter cream and peanut butter frosting." This cupcake was only available at the NYC Crumbs stores, but select NY stores will carry the Elvis until the end of the month.

Sprinkles Cupcakes offered up a limited edition banana cupcake with peanut butter frosting and topped with a gold star named "The King." The limited edition cupcake was only available on January 8th at the Beverly Hills store.

I've had a couple of peanut butter cupcakes and although I ADORE peanut butter I've never been very keen on peanut butter cupcakes -they always just seem a little dry. I like the sound of the crumbs banana butter cream and peanut butter frosting though! Mind you I've not had a cupcake since BEFORE Christmas so right now I'd probably eat ANY cupcake!!!

Its raining sprinkles!

An advert for Clearwire, the first 4G wireless broadband network in Portland, USA, featuring cupcakes and lots of sprinkles...in fact showers of sprinkles!!

Thanks to Serious Eats for alerting me to this - and for the screenshots! You can watch the video by clicking the link above - I tried to embed it but it didn't work...damn blogger!

Its Christmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!

And the festive cupcakes just keep coming!

Last weekend I ventured out on possibly the coldest and wetest day of the year and went to Partridges Market as I knew it would be my only opportunity in December to pick up some Crumbs and Doilies flavour of the month - which are Christmas flavoured.

Our Christmas Cupcakes were one of our most popular flavours of the month last year, so it seemed only right to bring them back for Christmas. A light but festive sponge made with organic cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, muscovado sugar and golden syrup and topped with real brandy buttercream icing. It’s Christmas, in a cupcake!

And that is EXACTLY what they tasted of...Christmas! They were light and moist with a lovely spiciness to them and the frosting was just fantastic!!

And as usual they had the best sprinkles! I'm loving the trees!

Sprinkles Christmas cupcake extravaganza

In today's Inbox the Christmas/New Year cupcake round up!

The eggnog (top picture) has a fragrant spice cake with rich egg nog cream cheese frosting topped with holidays trees and stars.

The Joy (middle picture) box has chocolate peppermint, red velvet, coconut and vanilla peppermint cupcakes adorned with Sprinkles Joy sugar decorations.

And finally, the Peace box is on sale from December 31st, and includes dark chocolate, vanilla milk chocolate, black and white and vanilla cupcakes adorned with the Sprinkles blue peace sign.

They all make me wish I lived in the USA!!!

Gobble up those cupcakes!

According to Sprinkles, nothing completes a Thanksgiving meal of turkey and stuffing like cranberry cupcakes!

Flavours in their special Thanksgiving range include Ginger Maple, Pumpkin, Orange Cranberry and Dark Chocolate all adorned with either their signature dot or a rather fetching turkey sprinkle :)

More Halloween Treats

My lovely friend Dennis, currently residing in Ann Arbour, returned for a brief visit a few days before Halloween and we met for a yummy hot chocolate at Leon as he has a load of Halloween gifts for me! (Just for reference Leon do THE BEST hot chocolate in London - flakes of Valrhona hot chocolate with hot milk...yummy! I have to persuade them to do cupcakes now and it'll be perfect!)

Anyways back to the gifts! Dennis spoils me rotten and I do realise how lucky I am to get all this fab stuff but I couldn't believe all the goodies he bought me! Included in my haul were some rather fab cupcake pix - cutouts of monsters which hug your cupcakes, a "totally ghoul" pumpkin shaped cake pan, cupcake sprinkles, cupcake wrappers, candy cupcake decorations, cupcake toppers and a Sprinkles pumpkin flavour cupcake mix!

Aren't they all just too cute!!!

Boo!

The boo theme seems to be popular, with Sprinkles Halloween BOO box!

Ghosts, goblins and monsters of all ages will have a hard time turning down Sprinkles Halloween BOO box!

Vanilla milk chocolate, red velvet, black & white and caramel apple* cupcakes adorned with Sprinkles ghost and BOO sugar decorations. Sealed with a BOO spooky cupcakes sticker.

*spiced apple cake studded with granny smith apples topped with a buttery caramel cream cheese frosting.

I like the sound of the caramel apple cupcakes and they look adorable...I heart the little ghosts!

Nonparelis???

Today I was browsing Eleni's website as part of my quest to find all the great cupcake places in New York for my holiday!!). Whenever I looked at the descriptions of their scrumptious looking cupcakes one word kept cropping up...nonparelis. Having NO idea what this was I immediately Wikipedia'd it and lo and behold its a fancy name for sprinkles...well fatter rounder sprinkles! (does that make me the nonparelis of the human world???!). Are Eleni's reverting to the use of this old fashioned word after hearing about Sprinkles fondness for lawsuits..just incase?

Anyways nonparelis or sprinkles, who cares - how much do these pics make you want to lick the frosting off Leroy? *

By the way incase anyone is interested there are currently 177 days till I get to New York and the tour currently stands at 18 cupcake stores!!! My current plan is not to eat anything but soup from New Years till March in anticipation of cupcake overload!

*Leroy is the fancy pink cupcake above not some random man I wish to lick frosting from!

Hurrah for Mr Sprinkles

I mentioned Mr Sprinkles in the post below and had to share how fab he looks with you :) I shall be buying some in the States for sure!

More Sprinkles lawsuits

Beverly Hills-based Sprinkles pioneer of the cupcake-only shop and purveyor of miniature morsels beloved by celebrities is turning up the heat on competitors allegedly treading on its trademarked name and dot motif.

Three-year-old Sprinkles most recently set its sugary sights on Sprinkled Pink Cupcake Couture in Montecito. Last week, just one day after Wendy Jones opened her shop, she received a letter from Sprinkles demanding that she change the name of her bakery, which she registered when she got her business license in 2003."They're going too far," said Jones, who hasn't decided how to respond to the letter. "I'm sure they're protecting themselves, but there's a whole big United States out there. There's room for other cupcake shops. They shouldn't be bullying around or picking on little people like us. . . . I really honestly don't think they invented the cupcake."

All this fighting about cupcakes is ridiculous - surely cupcakes are a thing of joy not lawsuits! I think Wendy Jones of Sprinkled Pink Cupcake Couture speaks the truth, Sprinkles didn't invent the cupcake, and the word sprinkles has been round for years! They'll be going after Mr Sprinkles next!!!!

You can read the whole story here and here.

Cupcake Wars!

From my daily foray into Google news alerts on cupcakes

Cupcake makers at war over dot-in-circle trademark

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sprinkles Cupcakes, a California purveyor of mini-cakes beloved by Hollywood stars, has accused rival Famous Cupcakes of stealing its trademarked "Modern Dot" cupcake design to lure away clientele.

Sprinkles high-end pastries have made the rounds of U.S. media, from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to "Nightline", drawing locals and out-of-towners who regularly wait in long lines outside the company's Beverly Hills store.

The company, which also runs stores in Texas and Arizona, accused Famous Cupcakes in a federal lawsuit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles of incorporating the "nested circle design" featured on Sprinkles cupcakes on Famous Cupcakes packaging, store decor, and "each and every page" of its website.

Unlike other cupcake imitators around the world who ceased using "Modern Dot" after being caught by Sprinkles, Famous Cupcakes has not responded to repeated requests to "promptly stop using its trademarked design," the lawsuit said.

The owner of Famous Cupcakes, who said on its website she began selling cupcakes door-to-door at age 7 and believes "one cupcake is never enough", could not be reached for comment.

I do hope they can sort this out amicably - remember make cupcakes not war!

I have to say I do like the look of the Famous cupcakes bouquet though!

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 :)

Box of cupcake goodies

There were so many cute pics to share I couldn't fit it all into one post so had to make it into two!

As well as the fantastic cupcake Manowar bag Renee made me she also bought me some fantastic cupcake goodies, including some fab sprinkles, with some fab cow, dolphin and dinosaur ones, black sugar and some fab cupcake cakes! Also some incredibly cute silly feet silicone cupcakes cases! How cool are they!! I cannot wait to get baking and use them! Think I'll have to take a day off work to bake! And to top it all they all came wrapped up in a ultra-cute cupcake bag!

In all it was a box of total cuteness which put a smile on my face for days, and still continues to do so!

When I get baking using htem I shall take pics and post them - I only wish Renee didn't live so far away so she could try my silly feet cupcakes! She really deserves a cupcake for sending me such grand goodies!