Wedding anniversary at Peggy Porschen's Parlour

Halloween was our 11th wedding anniversary and of course we needed cake and where better than my favourite cake parlour in London - Peggy Porschen. If people ask where to go for tea and cake in London I always suggest Peggy's - who can fail to fall in love with such a beautiful pink parlour? This is the colour everything in my house would be if Manny would allow it! 

We opted for a cupcake each - Manny going for Chocolate Heaven and I opted for Sticky Toffee - one of their range I've wanted to try for some time. 

Manny's Chocolate Heaven cake was delicious. I'm sometimes put off chocolate cake by bad frosting - this one was as light as a feather. As was the cake.

My Sticky Toffee one was fabulous. The addition of walnuts was a little strange at first but I think it added some good texture to the cake. Again the frosting was divine.

When we finished Manny went and got the Halloween special - a pumpkin and cream cheese cupcake which we shared while finishing our coffees. I'm not that fond of pumpkin - sometimes I find it makes me gag - but this one was lovely. And the cream cheese frosting was again lovely. The cake itself was heavily spiced which I really liked. 

We left clutching two take away cupcakes (I know we're fatties but we just couldn't resist), for our trip around Brompton Cemetery where we snuggled, fed squirrels and crows, and had a lovely day. There are no photos of the second lot of cupcakes alas as when we were taking some photographs in the Cemetery I put the cakes down and the box blew over. We still ate them obviously! Manny had a Black Forest and I had a Banoffee - Manny loved his (I tried a bit and it was really flavoursome), however my Banoffee wasn't my favourite cupcake ever I have to admit - the banana flavour wasn't that strong but it was moist and fresh so better than a lot of cupcakes I've had previously. 

The perfect anniversary day out in London. 

Peggy's Favourite Cakes & Cookies

I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of the gorgeous Peggy's Favourite Cakes & Cookies, by Peggy Porschen, some weeks ago and had been planning for some time to bake something magnificent. I'd had my eye on a beautiful heart cake as it seemed apt for the blog, however last weekend when I was due to bake I felt awful and just couldn't face the mammoth task it appeared to be, so...I made some cupcakes and used Peggy's book as inspiration. A bit simpler but just as pretty I think.

I first made some chocolate cupcakes with ganache frosting using Peggy's recipe. The cakes were very flavoursome and very moist, however the ganache was a bit thick so couldn't be piped.  I added some Bailey's to thin it out, and although it still wouldn't pipe I liked the Bailey's kick, so I spread it onto the cakes rather than piped, and added some lovely giant flowers I made. The next day we went to photograph them and learnt that sugarpaste does not react well to boozy ganache. I have pictures but they're too heartbreaking, and oozy, to share.

So I decided to start again and make some vanilla cupcakes instead and opted to decorate them with Peggy's favourite themes of butterflies and flowers.

I tried to use Peggy's vanilla cake recipe, but alas it called for medium eggs and I only had large eggs in the house, (infact they were the much derided (on Twitter) Ella Valentine Baking Eggs - seriously the name might be silly but the eggs are great quality and cheaper than a lot of others - and they come in a pink box - I'm easily pleased), so I made my own vanilla cupcake recipe using the large eggs.

The frosting I made again using my own recipe as Peggy's called for half icing sugar, half butter which I found would not form into pipe-able consistency. I've never made frosting with these ratios - has anyone? I've got Peggy's recipes from her Cupcake Masterclass in Sainsbury's Magazine and her frosting calls for my usual ratio of 1/2 butter/cream cheese to icing sugar. I wonder is this an error in the preview copies of the book?

Despite these niggles, I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to make prettier cakes. It is not particularly a book for people looking for recipes, there aren't many in here at all, just a few basic ones that you can adapt for each project, but the book is beautiful and full of great ideas for cookies,miniature cakes, large cakes and cupcakes. Each project whether it is a cookie or a giant tiered cake has detailed instructions on what items you require to make it and there are lots of diagrams for larger projects. The book also includes quantity guides for cake making, which is helpful if you only wanted to make one of the mini cakes, rather than 18, and some really helpful tutorials for making sugar roses and other decorating items. This book is definitely for the cake baker who wants to progress slightly further - you will need to buy some equipment, such as cutters, boards, and specialised items, but if you want to make cakes as pretty as Peggy's it is worth it. She even has a two page spread of the equipment you are most likely to need which I found very helpful.

As well as the book, Quadrille were kind enough to allow me to ask Peggy a few questions via email.

1. How did you get into baking, and what are your favourite things to bake?

I was always given a fabulous cake every year on my birthday as a child growing up in Germany which is a nation that loves cake! The cake was always the highlight for me and even then I was incredibly passionate about both the taste and the look. When I was 14 yrs. old I decided to make my own and it really just started from there. After finishing school I moved to London in 1998 to study at the internationally renowned cookery school Le Cordon Bleu. After successfully completing ‘The Grand Diploma of Cuisine & Patisserie’, I worked as a pastry chef at London's Lanesborough Hotel and celebrated caterer Rhubarb Food Design, followed by a position as cake decorator for German master-baker Gerhard Jenne, proprietor of Konditor &  Cook. I set up my business in 2003 from my home in Battersea, which I eventually had to move out of as the business grew and grew.

My passion still lies with wedding cakes and my favourite I have ever made was my own wedding cake which was perfect. It was absolutely beautiful, elegant and incredibly pretty, intricate without being over the top, the classic and traditional was softened with a satin bow. I designed it and was helped by one of my team to make it. It tied in perfectly with the wedding and was actually inspired by my laser cut wedding stationary and flowers.

Bryn and Peggy's wedding cake (sent by Peggy Porschen PR)

2. Apart from your own cakes have you any other favourite bakeries?

• Wendy Kromer for her original, innovative approach. She uses unusual tools and materials and you get a real sense of her Parisian patisserie background and European flair just by looking at the designs.
• Ron Ben-Israel for the most outstanding sugar flowers I have ever seen – he is simply the best.
• Sylvia Weinstock – she deserves a lifetime achievement award for her contribution to the industry, just consistently incredible

3. What are the five kitchen essentials you recommend for any budding bakers?

• A good mixer such as Kenwood or KitchenAid
• Always use good quality butter, it makes a real difference to the end product
• I find PME
• Squires Kitchen Flower Paste
• Cake Smoothers I couldn’t live without for that professional flawless finish.

4. What is your favourite flavour of cupcake and frosting?

My cravings change with the seasons but at the moment I am obsessing over my sticky toffee cupcakes which are sold at the Peggy Porschen Parlour, they are incredibly comforting, with a gooey toffee centre and nutty sponge - I just can’t resist.

If you'd like to visit Peggy's Parlour I highly recommend it - it's the most perfect little cupcake cafe I've been to. You can read about my visit here.

Peggy's Favourite Cakes & Cookies is out on June 6th.

Oh and I will make that heart cake - it's too pretty not to!

Peggy Porschen's Parlour

Isn't it the most gorgeous cake shop you've ever seen? That shade of pink is enough to turn me into the girliest girl ever. I adore it.

Peggy Porschen's Parlour opened in Belgravia last autumn and today we finally got round to visiting. The location is rather odd - walk past perhaps the grimmest place in London, Victoria Coach Station, and you can see this gorgeous vision of pastel pink on the horizon. Like an oasis calling to you in the desert of scummyness.

As were were stomping towards it I had everything crossed we could get a seat inside, as although there were a couple of outdoor tables, it was freezing.

Inside the Parlour is small but perfectly formed. There are two smaller tables for two, and a larger one for about 5 or 6. Photography of the store wasn't allowed, but we could take photos of our gorgeous cakes. There was a choice of approximately 6 cupcakes, some layer cakes, macarons and some other baked goods. Of course we opted for cupcakes. I had a vanilla chiffon and Manny went for a chocolate heaven.

They also offer a selection of house blend teas, including a lovely sounding gingerbread one, but I was tempted by the lovely smelling coffee, and opted for a cappuccino. Manny had a divine smelling hot chocolate.

The vanilla cupcake was lush! The frosting was cream cheese vanilla which is quite unusual but it was absolutely delicious. The cake was moist and tasty, and incredibly fresh, the frosting was, well the icing on the cake. Really well flavoured and really moreish.

Manny's eyes lit up when he spotted the chocolate heaven cupcake. Look at the amount of frosting on there! Wow. And it was incredible. Seriously, delicious! I tried some, and the frosting was a velvety ganache and absolutely delicious. If ever there was a frosting I could have in shot form, this is it! The cake was, again, incredibly moist (I hate to harp on about moist cakes but a moist, fresh cupcake is so important - there are a couple of well known bakers out there I've sampled recently that could do with some lessons in injecting flavour into their cupcakes and about them  being fresh but that's a whole other blog post!). There were no such worries here, the cakes were simply magnificent.

As you can see we thoroughly enjoyed them, one of us ensuring we scraped off every last crumb of cake!

I had a little peruse around the shop before paying. As well as cakes and delicious iced cookies, there are Peggy Porschen homewares,  lovely home made preserves (including lemon and lemoncello, which I may have to return to buy), and Peggy's blends of teas. We decided we couldn't leave without trying one of her beautiful black forest cupcakes so got one to go, which was lovingly boxed up by the staff. Oh and the staff in the Parlour were really nice - checking we enjoyed everything and ensuring we didn't have any complaints.

Alas disaster struck as we had a long walk through a very windy Hyde Park after our scoffing, and the cake alas was a casualty of the elements.

Even though it was slightly squished, and way less pretty than when it had left the Parlour it still tasted lovely.  The rich, delicious chocolate cake cake is filled with some Griottine cherries inside and topped with a kirsch and vanilla frosting. I wished I'd bought two as I had to share it with Manny. Hurumpf.

I highly recommend popping along to Peggy's Parlour for tea and cupcakes. They also do afternoon tea and obviously takeaway. The cupcakes would make perfect little gifts for friends, if you don't want to make your own, and although slightly more than you would pay in other cupcake stores in London, they are worth every penny! I must go back to try the banana toffee asap! And a carrot one! Or I could dig out my copy of the Sainsbury's Magazine with her recipes in and make my own. That's next weekends baking taken care of!

Finally, you can see some photographs of inside the parlour here.

And so has Sainsbury's Magazine!

After my cupcake-tastic trip to Lakeland I had to pop into Sainsbury's and lo and behold they've also gone a bit cupcake mad - the cover of their in-house magazine has a special cupcake feature written by Peggy Porschen. 

The article looks great (haven't read it fully yet) and features recipes,  tips on how to frost cupcake and ideas of where to buy cupcake cases etc. I'm going to make some cupcakes tomorrow and am wondering should I give Peggy's recipe a go?

I do think the pics of the frosting in bowls looks exceptionally similar to the Martha Stewart cupcake issue layout - will post pics tomorrow, and an update on the article, so you can decide! For now, some pics to entice you - all courtesy of Georgia Glynn Smith @Sainsbury's Magazine