You're full of sugar, you're full of spice

I wanted to bake some festive cupcakes at the weekend and went with two flavours that I feel are incredibly Christmas'y - gingerbread cupcakes topped with clementine frosting.

I adapted a Martha Stewart recipe. I was going to use the gingerbread one in her Cupcakes book but there is no bicarb or baking soda mentioned and I was wary it wouldn't work. This is from her website, but slightly amended for me as I wanted it extra spicy!

Gingerbread Cupcakes
120gm butter at room temp
80gm dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
320 Plain flour
2 tsp ground ginger (I used maybe a smidgen more)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (I grated it fresh)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt (I used a teeny tiny pinch - could miss this out I think)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
320gm of molasses (bought in Holland & Barrett)

Preheat oven to 165ºFan, and boil some water in the kettle. Put your cupcake cases in your trays.

Mix your bicarb of soda with about 150ml of boiling water and stir. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together for several minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs.

Sift flour, salt, spices and baking powder together and fold into the mixture then give a good mix until well combined. Then beat in the molasses - be warned this is MESSY! I used a silicone spoon for this rather than my hand mixer as it is very sticky! Finally, mix in the bicarbonate of soda mix - I did this by eye and had a little bit left as I didn't want the mix to be too runny.

Use a ice cream scoop or tablespoon to fill your cupcake cases.

Bake for approximately 17-18 minutes. The sponge should spring back if you touch it, or a cake pokey thing should come out clean if you poke it into the cake. Leave to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Clementine Frosting 160g unsalted butter, softened
500g icing sugar (I used Billington's Golden) - I used slightly less than 500g
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 2 clementines, or add as much/little as you want
Juice of about 2-4 clementines - to get the consistency you want

Beat the butter and some of the juice/zest and vanilla. Add some icing sugar and mix in. I found the Billington's Golden icing sugar didn't fly around as much as icing sugar usually does! Also it gives a beautiful colour to frosting, naturally. Add icing sugar gradually and juice as required until the you get the consistency required. Then if you want to add more zest to taste, do so. I added quite a lot as the flavour was really nice.

Pipe onto your cupcakes and enjoy.

These tasted fabulous the first day baked. Even more fabulous with a pronounced ginger taste the next day. The day after that we had a couple left and the ginger tasted even better. Great cakes for keeping a couple of days.

I took these to work and they went down very well. I even got an order to make some Christmas cupcakes for a colleague to give to her neighbours as gifts. Manny described them as Christmas in a cupcake and I fully agree. The gingerbread was sticky and very spicy (I was quite heavy handed with the ginger!) and the frosting was lovely - I really liked the flavour of clementine!

The only thing that disappointed me with these cakes were the cases. They are Wilton gingerbread ones - they went see through upon baking - utterly rubbish! But never mind as they looked so lovely naked I didn't mind too much.

And the bells were ringing out for Christmas day

One of my favourite cafes in London is Bea's of Bloomsbury and as such I was very excited to see Bea's lovely creations for Christmas. Some of the most fabulous, and tastiest, cupcakes I've had in London have been from Bea's, and her Christmas creations look like they will live up to my expectations!

How adorable are these gingerbread man cupcakes?  And I can visualise Manny reading this and drooling over the screen at the lashings of chocolate/ganache that the little gingerbread fellow is resting on!

And the gingerbread man isn't alone - he's got a candy cane friend

And lots of other Christmas goodies!

They come in Chocolate Baileys, Double Fudge and Gingerbread - all fabulous flavours for Christmas! I'm planning a visit next week...hoping I can persuade Manny to pop in to the glamorous new One New Change venue for a quickie after work!

Christmas cupcakes - the taste testing

Yesterday I had a chance to taste test a couple of Christmas Cupcakes from two of London's most popular cupcake cafes and thought I'd share them with you.

First up was Friday's Christmas Pudding Cupcake from the Wardour Street branch of Hummingbird. We lunched at nearby Mooli's (GO THERE if you like yummy, spicy, tasty food - was delish) and then went to pick up a couple of cakes for later.

In my previous post I'd said I wasn't fussed about the idea of the exotic fruits in the cupcake - well I'm the first to admit, I was wrong. This cupcake was delicious. The fruits worked really well and the kick of booze was noticeable but not overpowering. The almond frosting was very festive and very, very tasty. A definite winner. Even Manny, who's not keen on fruity cakes enjoyed the bit I shared with him, so it must be an all round winner!

Now I just need to find a way to get from my office in Borough to a branch of Hummingbird to try some of the other daily flavours before Christmas.

Of course Manny would never choose something fruity over chocolate, even if booze was involved, so instead opted for a black bottom. These are one of his all time  favourites and he devoured happily. I got to taste a smidgen and it was really very tasty.

We then wandered to Carnaby Street to see the lights which weren't as good as the last couple of years.

Then onto Selfridges to see the windows, including one full of cupcakes and macaroons and lashings of pink goodies.

We walked past Lola's and spotted a couple of seats and decided to warm up with a a hot drink and a cupcake. I know, I know, any excuse, but it was -2 out on the mean streets of London!

I opted for the Christmas special of gingerbread cupcake topped with cream cheese frosting and lots of little gingerbread men sprinkles covered in lots of cake glitter. The cake was moist and delicately spiced and the frosting was delicious. I can never get my cream cheese frosting to taste as good as Lola's, but I shall persevere and one day I will succeed. Talking of frosting, Lola's now have frosting shots for sale next to the cupcakes - I was very tempted but moved away from them before I bought some! This is definitely one of my favourite festive cupcakes - gingerbread is just so festive.

Manny got an Oreo cupcake, as they appeared to have stopped doing his favourite Lola's cupcake - the collaboration with Gü. Again the cupcake was nice and moist with oodles of delicious frosting. A couple of my gingerbread men sprinkles jumped cake from mine and ended up on his too - but tis the season for sharing so I let Manny keep them!

I'm hoping to get to some of the other London cupcakeries in the next couple of weeks to taste test some more for you, but remember keep checking back as I'll be featuring lots of other festive cupcakes (including outside of London), and gift ideas for cupcake lovers for the rest of the month.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Even though I'm in no way religious I do tend to get a little over-excited about Christmas. And what better way to celebrate Christmas than with cupcakes.

I plan to post a few blogs about the festive cupcakes out there so if you're reading this and you've got a range of Christmas cupcakes and would like them featured please let me know!

First up is Hummingbird. Hummingbird are one of my favourite cupcake places in London. They are doing a different daily special each day so if you fancy more than one of the cupcakes below you'll have to wander to one of their three branches more than once (or order online).

First up is Monday's flavour - Candy Cane Cupcake. A light, peppermint scented sponge, swirled with red and white glittered frosting. I love the look and sound of this cupcake, so pretty and one I definitely want to try.

Tuesday is Eggnog Cupcake. Traditional Christmas flavours of rum and nutmeg, topped with an eggnog frosting. I really would like to try this - even though every time I hear the words egg nog I think of the Jackass egg nog challange and am not sure if I could actually eat one!

Wednesday's flavour is Chestnut. A subtle and light roasted chestnut sponge, finished with a caramelised chestnut frosting. I've never eaten a chestnut cake so shall aim to get to Hummingbird on a Wednesday to try one!

Thursday's Cinnamon and Raisin is a marbled cinnamon and raisin sponge, topped with a cinnamon frosting. This one doesn't appeal so much as I'm not very fond of raisins in cupcakes.

Friday's Christmas Pudding Cupcake is a twist on the traditional, a hearty cake laced with rum and brandy, exotic fruits and an almond scented frosting. Again not sure about the "exotic fruits" but love the rum and brandy. I know I'm a lush. We're in town tomorrow so may pop into Hummingbird to pick one of these up.

Saturday's flavour is Raspberry Trifle. A Christmas classic, light sponge filled with raspberry puree and topped with diplomat pastry cream. I like the sound of this as I'm a big fan of trifle, although I prefer mine with lashings of booze!

Sunday's Gingerbread Cupcake is my another that I really want to try. It's a heady mix of ginger and warm winter spices, finished with fresh lemon cream cheese frosting. Sounds, and looks delish. Although I do think they should've made their own gingerbread men rather than use sprinkles!

Look out for more Christmas cupcakes and Christmas gift ideas coming up over the next few days.

Thanks to Hummingbird for use of their photographs. 

The first rule of Cupcake Club

is to go with an appetite!

Alas I had a cold and had no appetite at all really, but I did manage to scoff one of Kelly's adorable, and very tasty gingerbread cupcakes.

The gingerbread men were awesome - the recipes on Kelly's blog

And a bite of both of Ellie's cupcakes - the HUGE (some of the biggest cupcakes I've ever seen - they were whoppers - but Manny still managed to polish off a whole one!) and chocolate'y black bottomed cupcakes, and her salted caramel cupcakes which I thought were really tasty and didn't taste too salty (I'm not keen on salted caramel really, but these were nice).

HUGE black bottom cakes - Manny loved them, but he does love a big bottom!

Half eaten salted caramel cupcake - I loved the frosting

I also had a piece of Kelly's mulled wine cupcake, again polished off by Manny, which he loved as it was very chocolate'y with a hint of red wine, and a lovely Brandy Snap made by Marcus.

Manny outdid us all and scoffed more cupcakes than I can remember him eating! Oh and my brussel sprout cupcakes went down ok, Marcus even took a spare one home so they must be ok! I will post the recipe this week that I used. 

A lot of people didn't turn up due to the tube strike, and I'm assuming the awful weather, which was unfortunate, but it was a great way to spend the evening, talking about cupcake ideas, where to buy cupcake stuff and zombies! I do hope if Kelly arranges her January club some more people make the effort to come along!

Oh, and before I forget, Kelly arranged prizes for the night. She drew the names out of a hat; Marcus won a an adorable ice cube tray from Paperchase, and I won the Jumbo cupcake mold!

Isn't it fab! I already have one giant mold but this has the bit where you can leave room for filling and I already have plans of what to do with it!

Even the box I used to transport the cupcakes didn't go to waste - the cats have been using it since we got home!*

Demon has taken over the cupcake box

Angel however preferred the bag we'd carried the box in

Angel guarding the bag

So thanks again to Kelly for arranging Cupcake Club and sorry for the quality of the pics in this post - my cold has rendered me incapable of doing anything much!

 *the cats only play in the box after its been used for cupcakes, never before. That'd just be wrong!

Ho Ho Ho - a festive box of cupcakes

I've fallen a bit behind with my blogging recently- being ill and working too hard has taken its toll, and so only now have I got round to featuring this rather nice pre-Christmas gift from Lola's. I was contacted by Lola's PR company, Slam, via Sarah from Maison Cupcake, as they had read on her blog a nice comment I made re Lola's Cupcakes, and offered a freebie box of their Ho Ho Ho cupcakes to taste.

The cupcakes arrived at work on a rather depressing Friday afternoon and cheered us up no end - I shared with 2 colleagues and didn't keep them all for myself (and my tubby hubby!). Tasha had the gingerbread one and Fahima the red velvet - both thought they were very tasty and ever so pretty, in fact the first thing both of them did on taking hold of the cupcakes was take lots of pics with their phone cameras!

My act of sharing left me and Manny with four to test - 2 vanilla and 2 chocolate (one with vanilla icing), which included the gorgeous red one with my name on - how cute! Whilst the base of the vanilla cupcakes were moist and fresh, they didn't really taste of anything, just sponge. I'm a great lover of vanilla and I like to taste, and if possible (especially in frosting) see the vanilla, but unfortunately in this cupcake there just didn't seem to be any vanilla to taste...at all. Similarly the frosting also lacked even a hint of vanilla, which left you thinking you were tasting only butter, sugar and the food colouring - I don't think I was, it was just the power of perception, "ooooh its green, I taste green".

The whole vanilla cupcake situation is rather odd, as Lola's are not alone - it seems to be the vanilla cupcakes that suffer the most from lack of flavour - I've had this with other cupcakes in London, the vanilla cupcake being just a little bland. I'm not asking for a "knock you out" amount of vanilla, but if you're selling me a vanilla cupcake I would like to taste it!! Before anyone asks I have v.good tastebuds - never smoked and can generally pick out flavours in foods very well - I'm also Manny's real ale flavour taster which I hate as I cannot stand real ale, but I can still get a hint of apricot in something I don't like the taste of when he forces me to try them!

Back to the cupcakes - Lola's gingerbread and their brandy butter, which I tried earlier in December were both flavoursome and very tasty, as were the chocolate cupcakes in this box (and the two other flavours the girls had) only the vanilla let the box down.

All in all it was a lovely gift (and the first time I've received a gift saying "press" since I stopped working for a well known music venue as a trainee press officer more than half of my life ago - and cupcakes are much nicer than Cliff Richard's sateen tour jackets!) and I would like to thank Lola's and Slam PR - I hope the feedback, although not all good has been helpful in some way!

Ding dong merrily on high

I've been meaning to check out the Lola's cupcake bar at Selfridges since I heard it had opened and finally made it on Thursday and the cupcakes were good enough to make you burst into song :)

They've taken over a larger section in the food hall and had approx 6 tables and a much nicer display of their cakes - if you go into the food hall you really cannot miss it - even with the throngs of Christmas shoppers in there. I was going to have a cake and a coffee to test the cafe but I was trying to be good and not eat too much cake so I opted for a couple of their festive cupcakes to take away and share with Manny - a gingerbread and a brandy buttercream. I've had some issues with Lola's cupcakes from Selfridges in the past, including incredibly surly service but I noticed the really rude guy that used to serve in their old section is still there serving other baked goods so I assume he's Selfridges staff rather than Lola's. The people at the new section were really friendly and we had a chat about their fab new cupcake carriers :)

So to the cupcakes - they were both absolutely delicious. The brandy buttercream had just the right hint of booziness and the base was moist and flavoursome, the frosting very moreish. The gingerbread had a lovely hint of spicyness, the frosting was a lovely cream cheese frosting that was really light and tasty and the gingerbread flavoured little gingerbread-men sprinkles were simply gorgeous. I highly recommend enduring the crowds and picking up a couple for a pre-Christmas treat :) As well as Selfridges, you can get them in Harrods online.

Tis the season for Gingerbread men

Aren't these just some of the cutest cupcakes you've ever seen?

These lovely little smiling chaps are perched on top of a moist ginger cake covered with lemon buttercream, and are available from the Lavender Bakery to order now.

Photos courtesy of the Lavender Bakery