It's the final crapcake(s)

You may have noticed that posts on this blog have slowed down a little. This is mainly due to me working odd hours at the bakery (4am starts!!!), but also because I really am TIRED of eating crap cupcakes. They are expensive and they sadden me - my heart breaks a little more each time I spend £2 on a cake that if you threw it as someone could lead to an attempted murder charge. Also, I'm tired of the hate mail I receive from bakers when they read my reviews, accusing me of trying to hate on them or lying etc - rather than question why their cakes are, quite frankly, so f**king awful. 

Anyhow I have made the decision to only eat cakes I bake myself or from bakeries I know and trust for the time being. Don't worry I'll still review places when I travel but I am just tired of some of the awful cupcakes in London at the moment and shall be giving them a miss for a while. 

However I couldn't leave without mentioning two truly awful recent(ish) cupcake exploits. 

First up we travel to Birmingham and back in time to March. I know - it's taken me a while to get round to writing this up, for that I apologise. 

As soon as I'm travelling anywhere I check out what cupcakes there are on offer - Birmingham seemed to be quite a cupcake-free zone so I was happy when I chanced upon the 90 Day Cafe in a review about great cupcakes. Whoever wrote that review I'm imagining their pants are on fire as I type. 

The cafe itself was quite cute but when we were told to "pick whatever cake you like" from a cake stand in the window I sensed this wasn't going to be a success. Manny put down the first one he picked up as he said it was rock solid. 

I opted for...

Which swiftly became...

after my one and only bite. Completely tasteless - devoid of ANY flavour but rancid butter. And hard. Joy. 

Manny opted for what we think was....

but we can't be 100% sure - it's the flavour Manny wanted, but Andy Pipkin behind the counter couldn't come out to show us which was which and instead opted for the old point and mutter 'that one' routine. I would like to point out we were the only customers in the place but he still couldn't be bothered to properly explain which cakes were which.  

Again this cake was hard, tasteless and just unpleasant. Both cakes were about £2.50 and both were left when we decided to leave. 

I have a feeling this sign...

goes some way to explaining why the cakes were so incredibly dry - they must just bake in bulk (or buy in?) and keep them hanging round till they sell. Cupcakes in an hour will not be fresh people! Not sure why they were so tasteless though - I'd imagine a Fruit Pigeons fart would contain more vanilla than my cupcake did. 

My review in one sentence - only visit the 90 Day Cafe if you like eating cakes that appear to have hung around the shop for 90 days. Blurgh. 

no she wouldn't, my mum has great taste in cakes 

While in Birmingham we also tried a couple of cakes from Cupcake Delights in Selfridges - while they weren't the best cupcakes I've had they were edible - but a little sweet for me and the vanilla one was on the dry side, but Manny enjoyed the chocolate one. 

Next up a bakery we first visited in February 2010, Chewies.  I remember the date as we also visited Bake a Boo that day. 

I didn't blog it at the time as my photos were awful, as were the cakes. I was in the area, Chalk Farm, today and needed lunch and coffee and decided to give them another go. Sometimes I want to slap myself for my stupidity. 

There were three flavours of cake to choose from; vanilla, chocolate and red velvet. The red velvet looked frankly sweaty so I opted for the lurid blue vanilla. I should've just walked out but to be honest I felt rather conspicuous - I was the only person in the cafe - which btw is really rather cute. 

Yes, that layer you see on top was rock hard. So hard when I tried a bit, for research purposes I nearly broke a tooth. HOW OLD are these cakes!!!? I jokingly tweeted that perhaps this cake had been sitting here since my last visit - I'm not so sure it was a joke now.  Their website boasts that everything is freshly baked but I am hard pressed to believe this cake wasn't at least a week old - it was that hard.

And the frosting - I had one bite of it and it was so sweet I had toothache for about an hour - it was grainy and thoroughly unpleasant. How any baker can get frosting so wrong is beyond me. 

The photo above shows how little I ate of the cake - two members of staff were watching me the whole time (no one came in in the 30mins I was there) yet they didn't ask me if I enjoyed the cake or what was wrong - they just stood there. If it was my business and someone didn't eat my cake I'd want to know why. I can say this is one of the worst cakes I've had - no redeeming features at all.  Another £2 + down the drain. 

Now - can anyone recommend some good cupcakes, I'm sick of crapcakes. 

That's the curse of tequila

I practiced my cupcake for this months Iron Cupcake challenge (theme - celebration) a couple of times, but kept changing it and wasn't happy with the end result.

First I tried to make the margarita cupcakes using the recipe from Eat Me - all I can say is I will never use that book again. End of. Btw not sure why I've linked to the book, I'm not the only one with disasters from this book - unfortunately Twitter is awash with them too!

Then I had a thought, use a lemon cupcake recipe, but replace the lemon for lime. Which I did. The first time I did it I added tequila to the batter - you couldn't taste it as it cooked out. The second time I made the batter with milk, then made a tequila sugar syrup and spread it on top. Unfortunately I felt this just made them sweet but it was too late as it was the day of IC and it was either carry on or chuck them. I carried on and made the frosting. I made a lime, tequila and cointreau (ie a margarita) butter frosting with a bit of lime zest grated in. We packaged them up and set off for Iron Cupcake.

When we arrived there were already a few people there but we managed to get a good seat and get the cakes prettified up with their cocktail umbrellas (I know how original - I had intended to get some cute toppers from Bake it Pretty but left it too late to do an order). I already had my eye on the creme de menthe cupcake - my mum is always taking the mickey out of me cuz I like CDM mixed with Baileys - yum!

More and more people arrived, but I think there were more eaters and less bakers than last time. This could perhaps explain the scrum when the "you can begin eating" announcement was made. I gave up after a while as people were just grabbing mounds of the same cake and passing others to friends in what can only be described as rather selfish manner. While myself and a friend stood waiting with others who didn't really feel the need to push I counted 4 of the same cakes on one girls plate, as she stood passing at least two from each plate to friends behind - the same group ended up wasting quite a lot of cake, which as a baker who uses really high quality ingredients I find heartbreaking. Thankfully for our table Manny, Lucy and Dennis weren't quite so reserved and managed to get us a few cakes although we missed out on trying quite a few, including the amateur winner, which we had our eye on. We did manage to get a few - most of which were shared between 6 of us. My favourites of the night were the celebrations (with actual celebrations baked in), the creme de menthe and the apricot rice pudding.

Amateur runner up was the orange cake in ice cream cones with the flake - Manny and Dennis really enjoyed this one - I found it a little sweet. These were made by Rosalyn and really were very cute!

Amateur winner - pink champagne and strawberry (we didn't get to try it boo) was made by Andrea.

Andrea was also the winner of the special first birthday category of prettiest cupcake was the Happy Birthday cupcake - this was also my friend Dennis's favourite cake of the night and a well deserved winner - very cute and everything was edible!

Runner up in the professional round - peanut butter 4th of July celebration cupcakes. This one was very yummy and Manny loved this one, as did I.

Winner in the professional was the rice pudding and apricot (top left of pic) - so thankful I got to try this as when you read the name you think "really" but when I tried it I thought "wow" - really nice, moist, flavoursome with lovely juicy apricot bits! The lady who baked this (sorry I didn't get her name) based the cake on food she fed her children when they were one years old which is a lovely idea. I was very glad she won!

Finally special mention goes to Gemma for the decoration of her brownie cupcake. She was late arriving and there was quite a scrum to get one of her cakes and thankfully Manny managed to get one which we shared between the 6 of us - the topping was fab and had a special surprise of popping candy inside. You can see better pics of the cake on Gemma's site - sorry it was a bit of a quick snap - was worried someone might come and snatch it ;)

All in all I really do enjoy Iron Cupcake but it really saddens me to see food go to waste in the way we spotted on a couple of tables. I'm not sure how you can stop people being so greedy, perhaps one way would be to put a tray of cupcakes on each table so they can try one of each flavour? Then go back for more if they want to? And I don't want to appear like I'm just being picky but it really is annoying as a baker to see people putting cakes into tins to take home even when they've been specifically asked not to. I'm not the only person that noticed it last night (in fact it was pointed out to me by someone else) and from speaking to another baker its the same group that were doing it last time - seriously guys isn't it a little bit sad to go to such a wonderful and joyous event as a cupcake competition and steal?

I honestly love Iron Cupcake and all respect and thanks to Sam (aka the Caked Crusader) for organising it but I really do hope some of these issues can be sorted out - I felt a bit upset last night that I dragged friends over from Essex (and America!) to eat about 1/6 of a few cupcakes rather than the cupcake extravaganza they were expecting! I hope people whose eyes were a bit too big for their belly and left a lot of cake sat uneaten on their table read this and rethink their actions for next time.

Wu hu for Bake a Boo

Nearly a year and a half ago I blogged that we were heading to Bake a Boo in a couple of weeks...well on Friday we finally made it.

We ventured out on a very chilly afternoon, on an epic 3 bus journey quest to find it, passing some very interesting kitchen supply stores on the way (I shall be going back along the route again myself to check them out as Manny tires of kitchen equipment shopping). We got off the bus a little early, not realising the C11 stops directly outside it, so after a quick stomp down Mill Lane we found an oasis of pink cupcake cuteness.

It really is one of the cutest little cafes I've ever seen, lots of pink and vintage goodies everywhere and the tablecloths and crockery were gorgeous. I meant to get an espresso just so I could take a pic of their beautiful pink and white espresso cups - which were brought to my attention by another grown woman going into Meg Ryan in Katz's Deli style orgasmic excitement about them - they were that cute!

I fancied something different, and was really hoping for a fudge or Baileys cupcake but neither were available, so I opted for a gluten free lemon, Manny had a chocolate and we both had a much needed hot drink - this and the cosy atmosphere of the cafe soon had us warmed up. The cupcakes were as tasty as they were pretty. Mine was really zesty and fresh, the base was soft and the frosting was melt in your mouth. Manny's chocolate was deemed to be "one of the best I've ever had", so good in fact he ordered a second one and scoffed it!

The cafe had a really cosy atmosphere - lots of people were popping in to pick up orders, mothers and children popping in after school for a cuppa and a cupcake and there was a family at the back celebrating someones 21st.

On the way out I picked up a couple of packets of cupcake cases from their display of goodies to buy and set off back into the cold.

I definitely recommend a trip to Bake a Boo - I'll be back as I have to try the fudge and Bailey's flavours! They offer

Finally, Bake a Boo are offering some very interesting workshops, from knitting to burlesque hair and make up classes, further information can be found here - they all seem to include cakes! I'm very tempted by the knitting class but as it's a bit of a trek from South London I'm not sure as there is a 10am start time!

Its the final cupcake!

of the cupcake weekend!

Desperate for a wee on Portobello Road and spotting a Coffee Republic I decided upon a fiendish excuse to use their loo...buying a Lipstick Jungle cupcake, which I mentioned wanting to try earlier this week.

They do a chocolate and a vanilla, and although the manager tried to persuade me to take two I stuck with one, the vanilla. It comes complete with little red lip sprinkles, although they seem to have been a bit miserly with them as mine had very few. So the taste....well, it was like a rubbish mass produced cupcake I'm afraid. The base tasted like a very cheap cake, it felt kind of sticky and not right the frosting wasn't really frosting, it was very sweet and not at all light - instead it was heavy and artificial tasting, definately not good vanilla frosting!

While its nice that coffee shops are trying to introduce cupcakes to the UK market this isn't really going to persuade people to eat cupcakes I don't think - if you want a high street cupcake go to Eat!!

That's it - I'm FULL of cupcakes and am now planning a sugar free few weeks! Well a couple anyways - Manny's promised to take me to Bake-A-Boo in a couple of weeks so until then...