Allergy friendly cupcakes!

This weeks trawl through Google News for cupcake fun led me to the Telegraph and a recipe for BabyCakes wheat free cupcakes. Erin McKenna offers her customers a choice of 100 per cent wheat free or spelt cupcakes. Because the fava and garbanzo bean flours that she uses are unavailable in Britain, all three recipes here use spelt flour, an ancient form of wheat, which is more easily digestible and which many people with allergies can tolerate.

The recipe for butter, sugar and wheat free carrot cupcakes can be found here. I'm very interested in using Agave nectar in cupcakes, something I know Babycakes have been publicising for some time, not sure how it'd work in my normal recipe though- next time I go to NY I shall definitely have to try some of Babycakes cupcakes as we didn't make it this time!

Photo: Ditte Isager

The cupcake snuffling weekend continued

So today we ate the Hummingbird Cupcakes and oh my they were yummy!!!

Manny had a nutella and a red velvet (bottom pic) and I had a red velvet and a carrot (2nd pic). I think their red velvet is one of my favourite ever cupcakes and their carrot wouldn't be far behind! It was really nice, with a little bit of a kick to the batter - it had a ginger/cinnamon hint and was really soft and scrumptious!

Manny's nutella was really nice and from the Mmmmm Mmmmm MMMMM sounds coming from him while he snuffled it I think he enjoyed it LOTS!

I am so indecisive I can never say which is my favourite cupcake place but Hummingbird would deffo be in top three!! Luckily I don't live closer or I'd be even fatter!!!

Any excuse for a cupcake!!

or two!

It was my friend Kevin's 40th birthday on Saturday so I popped to Primrose Bakery to get him a cupcake and couldn't resist picking up a few for myself and Manny and a couple of little ones for my friends Grey and Dawn.

I also had a coffee and a melting moment biscuit in their little coffee area - however it wasn't the lovely relaxing cup of coffee I was hoping for, nor was it particularly welcoming, with staff chattering over my head, and seeming perturbed at their conversations being interupted to serve myself and others that came in. One of the owners was in there when I went in and when I said "hello" (as you do when you go into a shop...or is it just me?) - I got a grunt and a forced smile - mind you I didn't take it personally after seeing their pic in the Mail.

Therefore I think this might be my last visit to the shop, which is rather unfortunate as their cupcakes are really nice and I really love the little shop with its ultra cute little cafe bit but I don't like to visit places where you are made to feel like your interrupting their day - don't run a cafe if you plan to make people feel like they've invaded your front room is my personal opinion!

I particularly found it rather perturbing that when you buy a load of cakes they don't offer a bag- not a problem to me as I always carry bags with me but the woman in front of me who bought a whole cake and a big box of cupcakes, at the cost of over £40, and wasn't offered a bag before the girl just wandered off to continue her conversation seemed rather pi**ed off - not a way to get repeat business I'd say.

Like I said the cupcakes were absolutely gorgeous - the frosting's very nice and the cakes are always fresh tasting - so at least their attitude doesn't curdle the cupcakes. Alas it does put me off visiting! There are enough other places in London that make lovely cupcakes without the attitude.

Primrose Bakery....the first, but not last, visit!

Saturday saw us venture up North to Primrose Hill/Camden to visit Primrose Bakery. I'd had one of their cupcakes some time ago in Selfridges but was keen to visit and check out their full range and I was certainly NOT disappointed!

After a bit of a detour (we got lost as I was navigating and was rather distracted by some gorgeous pink houses!) we found the bakery and from the outside it was utterly adorable with its little cute logo on the window. As you enter the shop there are about 4 small tables on one side (with those American deli style padded chairs that I like) and the other side of the shop has lots of little bits to buy - from reusable bags for your shopping to tattoo man dolls. The most important part of the shop however is at the end of this section - the lovely cabinets of CUPCAKES! They come in large and small and they had about 5 flavours to choose from - with more being baked downstairs in the kitchen - which is just as well as the shop was constantly busy with people buying boxes of cupcakes!

It was rather busy and we didn't think we'd get a seat but thankfully some people were just leaving so we grabbed a pew and ordered 2 coffees and 2 cupcakes - chocolate for Manny and vanilla for me! The cupcakes came served on cute little china plates with adorable little forks (not wooden as often happens and often taints the flavour!). They were totally GORGEOUS and Primrose immediately entered my top 5 cupcake places!! The frosting was to die for, thick and utterly tasty - with just the right amount of vanilla in it -and the batter base was just perfect. Manny was drooling over some cornflake mars bar cake and went and got a bit as soon as he'd finished his cupcake.

We got some cakes to take away - another vanilla for me and also a carrot one. Manny chose another chocolate and a mocha and also he couldn't resist their gorgeous afghan biscuit so we got one of those too! I also picked up a gorgeous set of 3 cupcake magnets and a little cute badge all by Owensays.com. I could've spent a fortune in there and bought loads more but I figured that if I was a bit restrained I had an excuse to go back again to shop v.soon!

We walked a lot of the way home so we ate the other cakes when we got in - the carrot one was full of flavour (and carrot bits!) and the frosting was really nice - sometimes carrot cupcake frosting can be a little too sweet but this was just perfect! Again the vanilla cupcake was beautiful - this time it was pink - the one I had in the cafe was bright green. (I should've taken a pic but I felt a bit self conscious whipping out the camera in the cafe..I need to get over that!).

While there I noticed that they sell their single cupcakes in ultra adorable Chinese take away style containers, complete with the Primrose Bakery logo- like the ones you see in Sex and the City..very cosmopolitan and cute! A perfect little gift for someone special! I will take a pic soon as I'm going to get one as a gift for someone this week :)

Finally - it wasn't a cupcake but good grief the Afghan biscuit was gorgeous!!! I'd never heard of them before but will definitely be having one again!