I Heart Cupcakes on Tour - Brighton

The third and final part of my recent travels takes us to the lovely coastal town of Brighton. I know not quite as glamorous as Paris but I love Brighton.

Alas I did not love their cakes - this final part is the 'downright ugly' of the trilogy.

I had wanted to visit Choccywoccydoodah for years. Every time we went to Brighton we seemed to get swayed by other things - usually the pub - however we finally made it on Valentines day this year. I really wished I hadn't bothered.

First we visited the chocolate store.

The cakes in the window were amazing and the shop has some lovely things in it but I'm afraid I find myself unable to justify paying £20 for a chocolate kitten or a tenner for a pair of chocolate lips. I actually toyed with buying a small cake but decided to go to the Bar du Chocolat first. Thank f**k I did.

I'd read online about the intimate boudoir where sumptuous hot chocolate is served - however when walking in we were faced with a modern looking cafe which smelt a lot of cheese and oil. We were shown to the back room, aka the boudoir, which was very cramped and rather shabby.

We ordered their luxury (sumptuous?) hot chocolate and some cakes; a chocolate coconut cupcake for me and for Manny lemon cake as strangely they had no chocolate cake available. Not a great start for a chocolate cafe.

Our hot chocolate was ok - nothing luxury or sumptuous about it though. It tasted less chocolate'y than a Starbucks hot chocolate, was covered in masses of cream and contained a LOT of really cheap tasting marshmallows which added nothing to it at all and made it all gloopy. If I was to guess I'd say no real chocolate was involved in the making of this hot chocolate. It tasted like it was from a packet. My home made hot chocolate is nicer than this and, even using expensive chocolate, cheaper.

Manny liked his cake with ice cream. I tried some and it was quite nice, nothing spectacular.

My cupcake was in fact a cake covered in melted chocolate with some dessicated coconut on top. The cake itself was rock hard and tasted of nothing. The chocolate was hard and rather unpleasant. But nothing was unpleasant as taking a bite and finding....a hair. A longish curly hair that did not belong to me.

Vile.

Now normally I would've pointed this out to staff, however we had a charming couple and their children squashed into the area next to us - he was threatening to beat the crap out of her for not eating any of their, frankly disgusting looking Rocky Road, and being incredibly unpleasant to the staff who were young and I felt had enough on their plate. However I did email Choccywoccydodah afterwards and tell them I was disappointed to find hair in their cakes and mention how old/stale the cakes were but received no response.

Next time I'm in Brighton I'll stick to the pub.

Cupcake cuteness

The plan today was to visit Love Bakery,however I have a stonking hangover so have spent my day off faffing about online. I found this cute little purse from John Lewis and thought I'd share it...isn't it cute! It comes in pink and blue, but why anyone would choose blue over pink is beyond me!

I'm off to Brighton tomorrow so expect some Angel Food Bakery pics on Sunday :)

Battle of the GIANT cupcakes!

And it would seem that Angel Food Bakery in Brighton is going to win it!

Their website is finally up and running and their menu lists their giant cupcake (which we saw when we went to the bakery and I was VERY tempted!) at a very reasonable £16.95 which is a nearly a third of the price of Lola's Showgirl giant cupcake, which is the same size! That means I could go to Brighton on the train, buy Angel Food Bakery's giant cupcake and still have enough left for some small cupcakes, a cappuccino and a couple of pints of Kriek at the Evening Star! I feel a trip coming on!!

Check out Angel Food's website now - they really are worth the train journey!!! And if the giant cupcake tastes as good as their normal sized ones its a definite tastier alternative to the Christmas pud!

Oh and I love their "no fridge" logo - how cute!

Heaven sent cupcakes!!!!

I don't believe in angels but if I did they'd be working at Angel Food Bakery in Brighton sprinkling their fairy dust into the frosting I'd imagine!

After a recommendation from fellow cupcaker Consumed by Cake I'd been trying to get to Brighton for a few months now to check out Angel Food and finally made it on Halloween! And it was worth the wait!! We pretty much headed straight to the Bakery when we got there for a cupcake and a coffee as it was freezing (any excuse!!!). When we walked in it was quite busy, with people enjoying a cuppa and a cupcake AND with the smell of cupcakes baking!!! The place smelt GOOD!! I had a red velvet and Manny was persuaded that one was enough and had a chocolate cookie cupcake! My red velvet was up there in the top tasting and from the frenzy of scoffing next to me I know Manny enjoyed his! At this point I was a little disappointed as the only Halloween cupcakes were the display only however my frown was to be turned upside down later...

We resisted the temptation to scoff some more and had a good walk around Brighton for a few hours before heading back to get some cupcakes to take back to London! (You didn't really think we'd just have two cupcakes? Especially as this was our wedding anniversary - an excuse to eat cake if ever there was one!!!).

When we returned there was quite the queue (this place is popular!) and they'd replenished their stocks, including the Halloween cupcakes! Wuhu!! We got two devil cupcakes which were chocolate with cream cheese frosting (my memory has gone, I blame the cold drugs I'm taking!), a double chocolate for Manny and a vanilla for me! Excuse the pics of these being a bit squiffy but so were we after several drinks in the Evening Star before the last trian home! After a lot of Kriek nothing beats a yummy cupcake!

These were definitely some of the best cupcakes I've tried and if I lived closer I'd be a regular visitor! The batter on each cake was really moist and the frosting was to die for - I could've slapped the woman next to me who sat carefully removing her frosting before eating the cake...WHY?????!!!! With frosting this good its just sacrilege to waste it - especially in a place with such a heavenly name!!

Thanks Consumed by Cake for alerting me to this place! I'm definitely going to try and make it to the farmers market to try some of your cakes asap!

Birthday cupcake goodies

As well as lovely cupcake card from my work folks I also got a lovely cupcake plate from Whittards and a pink cupcake purse from Ollie and Nic. Whittards also have a lovely bowl and an eggcup (not on their website) in the range and I shall be getting them asap!

Thanks to my cupcake loving hubby for these :)

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 :)