Review of the Cake and Bake show and Cake International ticket giveaway

Manny's beautifully decorated cupcake

Snappy title - huh?

A couple of weeks have now passed since the first Cake and Bake show in London's Earl's Court. Before the event social media was awash with excitement about it, after the event a little less so with more moaning about crowds, lack of loos etc. 

We went along on the Saturday afternoon, already bored with the amount of Tweets proclaiming 'I'm in the press office' from bloggers keen to let us know they were, well in the press office. Yawn. I lost a few Twitter followers for pointing out that covering an event by constantly tweeting 'I'm in the press office' was a little boring. Oh dear. 

Also being tweeted were horrendous pics of queues and lots of issues about crowds.  Yes, the venue was too small and very shoddy looking (I believe it's going to be demolished soon?) and yes there were too many people trying to look at too few stalls BUT the main problem wasn't any fault of the organisers but the fault of the people attending - lack of manners mainly. The organisers didn't make the lady next to us during Mich Turners excellent demo talk loudly and hit several people with her giant fake Cath Kidston bag while insisting loudly 'take my pic with this baking woman'. They didn't make people push in on queues, or nearly knock others of their feet while they were paying/looking at stalls. I'm a big girl and I was nearly knocked off my feet by some rude woman while I was paying for some purchases as she just HAD to get to the front of the stall. Seriously what happened to having some manners? The same thing happened at Cake International - rudeness appears to be an epidemic amongst those who like baking. They should eat some cake and chill out a bit. I was also appalled to read on Twitter on Sunday that people were stealing unattended goodies bags which were being sold to raise money for charity. For the love of god -what kind of people are these? Possibly the kind who looked horrified at tattooed people being at the Cake and Bake show - who knows. 

My main gripe re the organisers were a complete lack of anywhere to actually eat cakes or bakes. Surely this kind of event was calling out for an afternoon tea area or similar. The cupcakes/cakes on offer were not the enticing - some looked like small children had decorated them so we gave them a miss. Manny did however eat a couple of brownies and loved them and I took a pandan cupcake home which was lovely. 

The other main problem in my opinion was the cake decorating area. We went there so Manny could decorate a cupcake. I was APPALLED at the state of the cupcakes they were selling for £2 to decorate - more so when I found out a professional baker had made them. Seriously Cake and Bake next year get in touch - I could churn out better looking vanilla cupcakes in my sleep. Manny at least had fun decorating - and he's in his 40s so it wasn't an issue telling him the cake wasn't fit for human consumption, but good luck trying to tell kids they couldn't eat the cake that felt like it was weeks old as the mothers next to us had to do. 

I did manage to brave the pushing crowds to buy a few good things including a lovely Kozial cake stand that I've been after for ages for the bargain price of £15 from a company called Baker and Maker. I also got some lovely straws from them.  Other purchases included some chocolate moulds, chocolate transfer sheets and some other little bits to play around with. The scrum around areas like Peggy Porschen's stall was too much to bear so if I want anything I'll just go to her store and enjoy a civilised cup of tea and cake at the same time. 

If you fancy attending a similar event, hopefully without hoards of elbowing women I have two tickets to Cake International in Birmingham from the 9-11 November to give away. The tickets can be used for any of the days. To enter please leave a comment below saying what you would like to see at the Cake and Bake show, or Cake International. Giveaway closes on the 15th October and is for show tickets only - does not include travel. 

Kicking off 2012 with a healthy(ish) cupcake..and some not so healthy

When I first saw that Lola's were introducing four healthier cupcakes this month made with all natural fruit I was slightly dubious as we've not done well with previous healthier cupcakes. Yes Petit Pois I'm looking at you and your crapcakes from hell.

However I found myself in Selfridges last week and thought I'd give them a try. And I'm glad I did. I opted for the passion fruit and it was incredibly nice. Really soft sponge with a passion fruit custard and topped with really tasty frosting. 

As well as passion fruit they have raspberry, blueberry and banana. I think they're only available till the end of January so be quick if you want to try them!

Also scoffed recently was this lovely cupcake from Lily Vanilli's new(ish) cafe just off Columbia Road. We visited on a Wednesday night before Christmas, but usually the cafe is only open on Sundays -it's worth travelling for. 

My gingerbread cupcake was fabulous - with a brandy buttercream frosting. I had a LV cupcake from Harrod's over a year ago and was not impressed, really dry and flavourless but this was totally removed from that - very fresh and bursting with flavour. In the background you can see perhaps the best sausage roll I've ever eaten - well I can't really say eaten - the tubby one whose sausage roll it was didn't share - I had a bite, but it was a good bite. Then again, can anything that comes surrounded in a duvet of lardon filled puff pastry be bad? I think not. 

As well as a sausage roll, Manny managed to scoff a brownie - and it was a slab of a brownie. Again I got a bite - melt in the mouth delicious. I would definitely go back just for the brownie. And maybe a sausage roll. And a cupcake. This is why I'm fat. 

The cafe looks pretty cool too - covered in a zombie style mural at the back to go with the theme of Lily's book. 

Also eaten recently, although not a cupcake I HAD to include this amazing Guinness cake I had from Bea's of Bloomsbury's Kings Road branch last week. I had popped to Jane Asher to stock up on edible glitter amid rumours that it's due to be taken from our shelves soon due to stupid people not understanding that you need to use EDIBLE glitter on cakes not just any random glitter (I call that Darwin's law - weeding out the stupid people) and needed coffee and a sit down and Bea's isn't too far away. 

The Guinness cake was very moist and the frosting was divine. Just sitting in the cafe was enough to tempt you to buy lots of cake - there was so much on offer, including cupcakes.

I enjoyed it so much I actually made this very cake from Bea's book last Saturday as a welcome home for Manny after he'd been to Germany to play a gig. The cake itself came out really well, but I followed the recipe for the frosting and it was a gloopy mess - it didn't seem to have enough icing sugar listed in the recipe. Luckily, I managed to save it and really liked the inclusion of golden syrup in the frosting although it meant it was very sweet. And I must learn, stop licking the syrup spoon, I was on a sugar high for hours. 

Sorry the pictures crap - it was about midnight when I finished making it - I find it hard to sleep when Manny's away. 

Finally, my final cupcake ever from Love Bakery. Just before Christmas I received a DM on Twitter from the lovely Rebecca to ask me had I heard that Love Bakery was closing down - I hadn't heard but checked out Sam's blog and discovered they were closing the very next day, 23rd December. Obviously I had to go one last time.

Sorry about the festiveness of the pics, I was meant to blog this ages ago. I've been a bit lax at blogging lately due to some issues with photo theft etc but aim to blog more in 2012.

Anyways, the cakes were really good, especially my rhubarb cheesecake one, and Love Bakery will definitely be missed from the London cupcake scene.

So there you go - I've eaten a few cupcakes lately and not a crap cake amongst them - a good end to 2011/beginning to 2012! 

Brownie pops with a twist

On Thursday a lovely package of goodies arrived at work from Frank PR as part of their campaign for Hellman's Mayonnaise. I had been due to go along to a tasting on Tuesday night but as it was my first day back at work for a week I was there till nearly 7 so couldn't make it so this was sent so I could try out their recipe for posh brownies.

Now I do like a brownie, and I'm quite partial to a bit of mayo on a sandwich, but together? Sacre bleu. Or blurgh I was thinking.

How wrong I was. The recipe was a doddle to follow and I only changed a couple of things. I used my own vanilla extract as I just don't use essence ever, and I omitted the walnuts as I had plans for these little brownies!

The brownie was incredibly moist, rich and very chocolaty. No hint of mayo at all. When I mixed the mayo into the mixture pre-baking it just looked and smelt wrong so I was glad it baked away. I can 100% say that these brownies were a revelation to me and are now probably  my go to brownie recipe. Also I'm chuffed to have been introduced to Waitrose chocolate for baking. I must admit to being a bit of a baking snob and only usually using Green & Blacks but that can get very expensive, although I do tend to buy it when it's on offer!

So rather than just stick to scoffing some incredibly delicious, but lets face it rather boring looking brownies, I decided to get all Westwood on them and pimp them slightly. But without the fake ghetto accent.

Not particularly original but I decided to pop my brownies! I basically mooshed up the brownie mixture and rolled it with a teeny bit of melted chocolate (I did buy some *gasp* Betty Crocker frosting to mix into it but I just couldn't do it!) and then dunked them in some melted chocolate.

There were a few pop casualties on the way but the ones that survived were pretty and tasted rather lovely.  The ones that didn't make it were quickly thrown into the leftover melted chocolate and given to Manny for lunch as a chocolate fondue type of thing - just as well he's off to the gym tomorrow night!

You can find the recipe for Hellman's Mayonnaise brownies here, and a video (with the crying one off "celeb" Masterchef so I've not watched it - it may have put me off making the brownies) showing you how to make them here.