Baked by Melissa...dissapointment by Anne

The NY cupcakes continue...

After a trip to the Ugg store (It was my birthday I needed insoles for my Uggs as the amount we were walking in NY wore mine out - and I may have treated myself to a new pair of boots at the same time!) we were dragging ourselves to E Houston to jump in a cab back to our B&C when I spotted a teeny tiny hole in the wall with cupcakes on offer. I was totally excited to see they were Baked by Melissa cupcakes as I wanted to try them after blogging about them previously.

We got a box with 6 flavours - cookies and cream, tie dye, red velvet, smores, cookie dough, peanut butter cup - they're mini (about a mouthful each so in reality this amounted to about 2 cupcakes). Unfortunately the cupcakes got smooshed on the way home - there was a breaking Ugg boot bag incident and everything kinda fell...however even the smooshyness of the cakes wasn't going to put me off, I had a cup of tea and wanted a cupcake... I tried the tie dye one and immediately had a sugar rush, and not in a good way. They just tasted of pure sugar, no distinguishable flavour, just sugar and maybe some oil thrown in...pah. Manny tried the red velvet and the cookies and cream (I think..they were v.squished) and even though his tolerance for sugar is greater than mine he couldn't' manage to eat them.

Cute idea but not tasty! kinda like the pig candy which I've included a pic of just so you can see it really exists!

Baked by Melissa, 529 Broadway, NY 10012

Sweet Sugar Sunshine...NY blogging continues

I have been meaning to continue my NY cupcake update, however the "a" key fell off my laptop and I had to wait to get a new keyboard so I could type properly again!

Back to the cupcakes -on the Friday (my birthday) after brunch at the infamous Katz Deli (where Harry met Sally..yes, yes, YES!!) we had a wander through Essex St Market, via Ronnie Sue's for some Pig Candy for Manny (yuk) and then we went to Sweet Sugar Sunshine to get me a birthday cupcake - I was still officially stuffed following my corned beef sandwich but I always manage to find room for a cupcake!

I had a sunshine - a yellow cake with pink frosting (if there's a choice I generally choose pink) and Manny opted for an ooey gooey - a chocolate cupcake with a chocolate almond frosting. SSS was busy but we managed to bag a table at the window of the cute little cafe and had a coffee to go with our cupcakes. The cupcakes were as good as they looked - mine had a gorgeous soft melt in the mouth base and the frosting was really yummy, nice and thick and gooey! Manny's cake was really nice and tasted of marzipan (that'll be the almond - I think there was a layer of almond jam in the frosting but I'm not sure as I only had a teeny bit!). He said they were his second favourite after Butter Lane.

And I just HAD to include a picture of Manny's pastrami sandwich from Katz's - I know its not a cupcake so please forgive my food porn moment!

Sweet Sugar Sunshine, 126 Rivington Street, NY 10002

Katz Deli, 205 E Houston St, NY 10002

Guiness cupcakes

There seems to be no better day than today to share Petra from Choc Star's Guiness cupcake recipe! We had these last year and they're fab!

These cakes always attract a lot of attention on the countertop – and cries of amazement that they actually have Guinness in them.

CUPCAKES
250ml Guinness

250g slightly salted butter

80g cocoa

400g caster sugar

1 x 142ml pot sour cream

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

270g plain flour

21⁄2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
300g cream cheese

150g icing sugar

150ml double cream

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Line 2 X 12 hole muffin tins with large muffin cases.

Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan, add the butter in small pieces and heat until it all melts together. Turn off the heat but leave the pot on the pan.

Whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract then mix into to the pan. Finally whisk in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Do this little by little so you avoid lumps of flour in the batter.

Now divide the mixture between the muffin tins – I use a piping bag because the mix is pretty wet. If no bag then a jug works fine.

Place tins in the oven and bake for 18-20 mins, or until they are nicely puffed up and a skewer comes out clean (not looking like it's dragging half the mix with it).

Cool on racks and remove the cakes from the tins when they're firm/cool.

For the icing put the cream cheese, icing sugar and cream into a bowl. Mix together slightly so the icing sugar doesn't blow all over the place when whisking. Whisk with an electric whisk until you get a good, thick consistency and there's no danger of the icing dripping over the sides of the cupcakes.

Ice the cakes – nice big, billowing slathers to give the illusion of a small, sweet, edible Guinness.

Eat whenever you're ready but there's nothing quite like a warm cupcake topped with the cool frosting….

Thanks to Petra for the cupcakes and the pic!

More cupcake shopping

It's taken a while to load up the pics - and they're a bit pants sorry!

The mug - with the cute sprinkles inside was only £2 from Next. I can't find this particular mug online but they do a set of others with cupcakes online if you can't get to the store!

The Mother's Day card is also from Next and the pen next to it (you can just make out a cupcake on it if you look hard!) is from Paperchase - it's part of their funny food range which also includes a bag and a recipe file which I think I just have to go buy! And finally the magnets are also from Paperchase - seriously that shop is just full of cute!

Mmmm Baileys

I may try and get to Selfridges tomorrow to see if they have any of these gorgeous sounding Lola's cupcakes, but I doubt I'll make it...damn work! St Patrick's day is the PERFECT excuse to drink/eat Baileys!

If anyone tries them let me know!

March 17th is Saint Patrick's Day and Lola's has created a special cupcake to celebrate! We love this new rich chocolate cupcake filled and topped with delicious Bailey's Irish Cream icing and a Shamrock created especially for Lola's. You can also choose from any of our other flavours, which will all be decorated for St Patricks Day. Your order is hand delivered with a personal gift note. Available from the 10th to the 17th March. "For each petal on the shamrock This brings a wish your way - Good health, good luck, and happiness For today and every day. ~Author Unknown"

Could you?

I read Vice Magazine to keep up with the hipsters shennanigans (NSFW has pics of the breast milking!!), however haven't seen the latest issue and their article "Hello Titty" where they compare breast milk cupcakes with cows milk ones, so thanks to Serious Eats for posting about it.

we forced our friend Patrick to do a taste test: Breast-milk cupcakes vs. some regular old cow-milk cupcakes. He was hesitant, but we were like, “Suck it up, wimp!”

After quietly chewing for a few minutes, he whispered, “I… I can’t tell any difference at all.” But we said, “No, you have to choose one.” So he held up the cupcake in his right hand and said, “This one is vaguely tastier.” And guess what, it was the boobcake! Breast milk officially wins!

Cute overload!

Not a cupcake but I just had to share the cuteness!

Thanks to Robyn Lee for the pic and Serious Eats for sharing!!