Sweet like cupcake

From http://www.marksandspencer.com/ for only £5 this ultra sweet cupcake sugar bowl - now if only I ate sugar I'd have an excuse to eat it!

Also only a fiver is this Percy the Pig egg cup set - I know its not cupcake related but its very cute and once you've eaten a Percy Pig you love them :)

I'm walking on cupcakes!!

And dont they look cute :)

From Peacocks (http://www.peacocks.co.uk for your nearest store - they dont have the slippers online!) for £5!! Cheap, comfy, and most important of all..cupcake

Cupcake cuppa

I heart my cute cupcake mug - a bargain at about £1.50 from my local Tescos (where I bought 2 incase Manny chipped one!) They also do blue for boys but I prefer girlie pink :)

Another cupcake-tastic website

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/ is an absolute treasure trove of cupcake items! I found that typing "cake" into their search rather than cupcake threw up pages of fabby goods including canvases of cupcakes, cupcake mugs (by Showler and Showler - if you order a mug you get a free cupcakes greeting card as well!!), cupcake oven gloves and lots of cupcake tea cosies (seemed to be lots of them!) I particularly liked the knitted cupcakes - I've seen these online a lot and I just think they're v.cute - maybe I should learn to knit :) I also liked the little cupcake shopper bag - so you can be kind to the environment and cute at the same time! fabulous :)

Eating cupcake style

Who'd have thought BHS could be so funky?? They have a complete range of cupcake themed kitchen ware, including this dinner service and oven gloves! You can also buy the bowls and plates from the set seperately so you dont need to have to buy the whole set - but who could resist!

I feel another cupcake purchase coming on! Cupcake shopping trip on payday :)

My cupcake purse

Talking of Lazy Oaf - Manny bought me this lovely cupcake purse from there over a year ago - isn't it lovely :)

Its by Cram Cream and I have a big shopping bag to match - will have to take a pic and post it.

Hooray for cupcakes!!

this card really says it all!!! Again, from Lazy Oaf

Wear your cupcake on your lapel

or anywhere else you fancy sticking them with these lovely brooches from Lazy Oaf - only £8.50 each :)

I HEART CUPCAKES!!!

Time for a visit to the Lazy Oaf store on payday I think

http://www.lazyoaf.co.uk

Typical!

I'm always hunting for cupcake items (seriously I'm always on blogs and other cupcake sites!!) and I HATE it when I find something and its out of stock :(

I love this bag from http://www.tokyojazzpanda.co.uk - it looks so good I could lick the frosting

Cupcake-tastic pillow

Not the comfiest thing to lie on, but utterly gorgeous and matches my lovely pink bedding! Its from Additions catalogue in the UK but I dont think you can get them anymore. They also do a range of bedding with cupcakes on (see pic above) but unfortunately only in single bed size - maybe I should get single beds for me and Manny so I could have some lovely cupcake bedding!

A serious side to cupcakes

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=518090&in_page_id=1770

This story was in all the papers today about a young guy who choked to death in a competition to see who could eat some leftover fairy cakes the fastest - and unfortunately Adam Deeley choked to death whilst attempting to eat about 5 cakes at once.

Not a happy cupcake story but a cautionary tale - remember, no matter how cute the cupcakes look - one at a time only!

Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook

It seems like we may be able to head back to New York this year (WUHU) which made me thinking Buttercup (although the bakery and NY are never far from my thoughts!!!) ...I MUST get their cookbooks, starting with this one, so I can begin my cupcake baking!!

If I get good enough they might let me work there and I could move to New York and wander round Manhattan, drinking at the Hop Devil, going to gigs at Duffs, popping to Sanrio, Sephora all the time, breakfasting at Pax, eating scrummy food including lots of cupcakes ...a girl can dream can't she!!!

A day without cupcakes...

makes me feel this way!!!

My cupcake kitchen

This top picture is my fabulous kitchen timer bought from Debenhams last year (not sure if they still do it but they used to do a range of cupcake kitchenware).

Second picture shows my glass chopping board by Joseph Joseph which I bought from Amazon last year - although these dont really look like cupcakes, more like Magic Cakes from Konditor and Cook which was the closest glass worktop saver I could get to cupcake at the time! Until I saw the cupcake worktop saver (third picture) which was from Robert Dyas and is huge and was the bargain price of £5.99!!!! Just seeing these things in my kitchen every day makes me smile :)

Pootletastic!

Not cupcake related, but while browsing the Daisy Cakes Bake Shop site (http://http//www.daisycakesbakeshop.com I found this cake and I simply must get a similar one!!! Manny has called me pootle ever since I got a wooly hat with a pom-pom on top so this is just totally me! Maybe mines could be cupcakes with a pootle on????

I have failed!!!!

Well my self imposed cupcake ban has been a failure. I am weak and just could not resist the call of Daisy Cakes Bake Shop!! I blame Manny for rushing me this morning to try and get to Greenwich Park in time to see the Time Ball on Flamsteed House at 1pm (http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.20912) which once again we failed to see! We did however get to see the deer (sleeping again!) and feed lots of squirrels monkey nuts!!!

After a long walk in the park a cup of "the best coffee in Greenwich" was required from the Cellar Cafe where Manny had a scrummy slice of carrot cake which was baked by our very own Daisy Cakes Bake Shop!!! I just couldn't go there and not pop in - it would've been rude, especially as one of the girls in the store popped into the cafe and recognised us!

The top 3 pics above show our cakes from Daisy Cakes - mine was a vanilla with sprinkles and Manny had a mocha!!! As usual they were utterly gorgeous and its always so nice to pop in there as its such a cute little cupcake shop and the people that work there are friendly!!!

The bottom picture is of a beautiful cupcake I just chanced upon while wandering round the food section of the market - it was made by the Real Baking Company - and is called their very vanilla cupcake! As well as looking absolutely gorgeous, it tasted divine!

Now - wonder if I can manage next weekend without a cupcake!!!?

Buttercup Cake Shop - Kensington

Having been good this week (so far) and not sucummbed to the temptation of the cupcake I thought I'd post some pics of other cupcakes I have scoffed!

Buttercup Cake Shop (http://www.buttercupcakeshop.co.uk/) in St Albans Grove, Kensington is my favourite cupcake place in the UK so far!!

I first read about it in Time Out one Wednesday lunchtime in January and I nearly had a heart attack as I thought at first it was a London branch of Buttercup Bake Shop (http://www.buttercupbakeshop.com/) that I'd visited in New York last July (Still my absolute favourite cupcake in the world - so good I carried a box of them back with me!). However some research revelled it wasn't related to the Buttercup Bake shop in NY, however I still wanted to try it and dragged Manny there that weekend!

It took some finding but when we arrived it was an absolutely gorgeous little store (I must get some pics on my next visit) and the lady serving (I think it was the owner) was so friendly and cool - she thought it was great that I adore cupcakes so much and that they're getting so popular in the UK! Manny nearly slid on a puddle of his own drool there and he couldn't choose what to get so we ended up with 5 gorgeous cupcakes - including one for a friend so we weren't being totally fat!

I had a vanilla purist (I ALWAYS have to have a vanilla) which melted slightly but was so lovely I had to stop myself from eating the 2nd vanilla one we bout for Carly! There website says they use a pure vanilla extract by Nielsen Massey and it had the nicest vanilla flavour I've ever had - it was little eating a slice of heaven!!! (having searched for it http://www.nielsenmassey.com/) it turns out their international store is in Leeuwarden, Holland where we visited last year - typical!! I'll have to go back now). My second cupcake was a banoffee one, which topped the vanilla one!!! Seriously, this cupcake was soooo tasty I wanted to marry it and have it forever! It just tasted so lovely - the frosting was just so caramelly - I feel hungry just thinking about how great it was!!

Manny had a chocolate purist (of course, chocolate cupcakes are his fav!!) and he can be seen above just before he tucks into it!! I think his second one was a chocolate bunny - as usual he didn't take a pic of the second one as he was too busy stuffing his face!

I am going back there the day before my birthday to get some cupcakes for my birthday breakfast and shall make sure I try some other flavours and get some more pics, although I'm not sure about trying the chocolate zucchini - maybe I can persuade Manny to give it a go!

Another of my cupcake themed items

Manny bought me this fabulos scarf for my Xmas last year and I absolutely adore it - its not only warm and snugglesome but ultra cute! He got it from https://shanalogic.com/index.php where they have tonnes of lovely stuff (including lots of cupcake items!) and it is made my Peep Accessories who can be found at http://www.peepaccessories.com/peepboutique/ where it is a little bit cheaper! They also have other cupcake items and they'll do custom orders as well!

The wisdom of Hello Kitty

Kitty is wise!

Panda cupcakes!

Combining my two favourite things in the world this panda cupcake is something I shall definately have to make!

If you want the recipe go to http://www.cupcakefun.com/ideas/pandamoniumcupcakes.cfm - feel free to make some for me!!!

My birthday CUPCAKE extravaganza

I have been wondering what to do on my birthday in March for a few weeks now as it is the most important day of the year (to me anyways!) and I think I have decided upon a bit of a cupcake-tastic time!

We often go to Brighton for the day as its nice to escape London, do some shopping, see the see and get drunk at the Evening Star pub (http://www.eveningstarbrighton.co.uk/pub.php) where they have utterly gorgeous kriek which tastes very much like a pint of bakewell tart..yummy! So on this theme I searched for cupcakes in Brighton to no avail but found the Parklife Cafe in Worthing instead which is about 1/2 an hour away from Brighton so the plan for the actual day of my b'day is to pop to the cafe (http://www.myspace.com/parklifecafe) have a few cupcakes (and maybe a few to takeaway!) then go to Brighton and have a lovely day by the sea!

I have a cupcake day out in London planned for one of the other days (we have a few days off work!) and will post my planned route up online soon :) It will involve lots of walking, therefore burning off calories for cupcakes :)

Donna Hay cupcake set

Just when I thought I couldn't cram anything else cupcake into my weekend I popped into our local Sainsburys and lo and behold fancy cupcake mix by Donna Hay! There were two flavours, chocolate and lemon and coconut! Not wanting to be greedy I just bought one for now but will be going back next weekend to get the choclate one I'm sure! I've had a look on her website http://www.donnahay.com/ to see if there are any other flavours but unfortunately it doesn't have any info - so I've mailed Sainsburys..me obsessed??!

I shall try and resist making them till the end of the month, when my self-imposed cupcake ban is over, and post pics once I've done them - hope they look as cute as on the box! I love the tag-line on the box "cupcakes that are as cute as a button"...aren't ALL cupcakes cute though??

Cupcake-tastic weekend - continued

Sunday I went for another long walk in the park again - its the best place round here for walking and Sundays in New Cross is very busy due to the abundance of hand-clapping churches we have so its always a good idea to avoid the area. After a good stomp around the park, where I FINALLY saw the deer up close!, I went a different route so as to completely avoid the tempation of Daisy Bakes, however I popped into the antique market for a quick look around and unknowingly walked straight into temptation...a cupcake stall!! I just couldn't resist as I realised it was Peggy's Cupcakes stall which I'd previously bought from when it was in the covered market area a few weeks ago! These really are delicious cupcakes - and so pretty and cute! I got a pink one for me and a blue one for Manny and after walking home tucked into mine with a lovely hot cup of tea! I adore this keep fit malarkey :)

A weekend of cupcakes!

This is my last weekend of stuffing my face with cupcakes till my birthday..honest! There has been rather a lot of cupcake eating recently so a couple of weeks off will do me good!

This weekend was rather cupcake-tastic. Saturday after a long walk round Greenwich park, with a stop at the honest sausage for breakfast http://www.honestsausage.com/greatfood.html, (great food but their hot chocolate wasn't hot!!), we popped into Daisy Cakes Bake Shop and they had a couple of flavours we'd not tried so we bought - a bounty, peanut butter, red velvet and chocolate. I'd never tried a red velvet before and it was utterly gorgeous - definately my second favourite after vanilla I think. The peanut butter one was nice but rather heavy for me (it had peanut butter in the batter too!) however Manny managed to finish it off for me after his 2 (the bounty one was lovely and I shall definately be trying it once my self-imposed period of abstinence is over!

Todays cupcake purchase was...

some fantastic cupcake ziplock bags :)

I know I can't eat them but after my lovely Valentines day - when I stuffed my face rather a lot, no cupcakes but some lovely lemon drizzle cake at Kew Gardens, followed by a praline macaroon at Paul in Richmond - I really do not need any more cake for a few days.

*I did walk about 8miles y'day so that more than makes up for me stuffing my face :)

Anyways - the bags were from a little cute store in Exmouth Market called Space EC1 and cost £3.99. I've also seen them in Hob in the Brunswick Centre near Russell Sq.

Lolas Valentine Cupcakes - day 2

I could not manage to eat all my lovely Valentines cupcakes yesterday so after a walk all the way home from work today (in all I walked over 17,000 steps including from Angel,Islington to New Cross..go me!) I treated myself to a lovely cup of tea and my second cupcake! This one was definately one of THE best cupcakes I've ever had.

It was a lovely surprise to peel back the paper to reveal a lovely carrot cake cupcake with some pecan nuts in it - it was SUBLIME! It was sooooo good I wanted to marry it I tell you! (I could've given it the cupcake ring!!). The pink frosting was just gorgeous - it melted in my mouth and was not in the slightest bit sickly (which some frosting can be) I could've eaten a big bowl of the frosting easily!! This is perhaps the reason I need to diet!!!

Definately one of the best cupcakes I've ever eat...go Lola's Kitchen and go Manny for buying them for me.

Note: this pink cupcake wasn't one of Lolas valentines range - there were only 3 available and Manny couldn't face only buying 3 cupcakes so choose another for me and knowing me totally he choose the pinkest one, with glitter :)