And the sky was all violet

There's a new cupcakery in town. Well in East London. Violet have opened their first shop near Hackney (just a few stops on the (air-conditioned) Overground for me - yay!).

I've had Violet cakes a few times and loved them (but wasn't so keen on their famous salted caramel) so cannot wait to visit the store.

You can check out some pics of the store and some info about upcoming events (including a promised Whoopie pie weekend!) on their blog and their shop can be found at:

47 Wilton Way, E8 3ED, London - map (and a beautifully hand drawn map on their blog)

Opening times: Wednesday to Saturday 10:30–6:00 Soon to open on Sundays.

Look out for a blog post about our upcoming visit soon :)

Cupcakes by the canal

We took advantage of the sunny weather yesterday and took a walk along the canal from Islington to Broadway Market. I'd been wanting to go to Broadway Market for ages but as Manny usually has band practice on Saturdays and wanted to come I'd put it off till he had a day off. Unfortunately he also had a stonking hangover - but thankfully a good bumble down the canal in the fresh air sorted that out - and some Ghanaian stew he had :) 

One of the first stalls we chanced upon was Violet -my main reason for heading to the Market. My previous encounter with Violet at Covent Garden had been slightly marred by my experience with  the salted caramel and wanted to give them another go as the other cupcakes were very tasty and gorgeous to look at :)

I was going to just get a couple of large cupcakes, however there were so many flavours to choose from we just opted for a box of 9 minis for £7 which included all the flavours on offer. We got vanilla, valrhona chocolate, salted caramel, figs, lemon, strawberry, candied violet and I think the final one was blackberry - or blueberry...I really should write things down at the time! We shared most of the cupcakes and they were all really nice - including the salted caramel which this time wasn't over-salted. The cake bases were all really soft and melt in the mouth and the frostings were all fantastically well flavoured. I particularly loved the fig cupcake and also the strawberry.  I'm really impressed by  the range of cupcakes available and all seemed to be available in both sizes. 

Highly recommended :) I shall definitely be going back to the Market as I want to try the coffee as well as the cupcakes. You can always buy some cupcakes, get a coffee and then head into the nearby fields (or down to the canal) if weather permits :)