Fundamentally Loathsome // Marylin Manson

Last weekend I had a foody trip into London, followed by a Christmas Shop-About with Jonny.

I mooched around Borough Market with some like-minded (mulled wine drinking, pie eating, foody) friends. There was a woman selling un-iced 6 inch square Christmas cakes for £47.00!! It was boozy stodge, and not very nice. Anyway, I bought pies and cheese, then we went for lunch at Black and Blue.The burger I had was lovely, but the puddings were a bit meh. I had an icecream sundae, which I suppose you couldn't really go wrong with. Apparently the chocolate brownie was too floury. But I guess that you can't judge a steak restaraunt on its puddings.
After that we hopped in a cab to Knightsbridge and snagged us a table in the Harvey Nichols Champagne bar, and drank some incredible fizz. Amazing.

Then, a little worse for wear I met Jonny and we went and did our Christmas Liberty Trip. Oxford Street and Regents Street were closed for the turning on of the lights, and there was a really nice atmosphere everywhere. Aww.

I went to try on some shoes which I had spent a week lusting over, and they were heart-breakingly narrow. So I cried and Jonny had to take drastic action to cheer me up, the action was attempting to find a tube station and rush home for Strictly.

In hunting for the tube we stumbled across Cox, Cookies and Cake. I admit, I may not have gone in with an entirely open-mind. I'd read a few scathing reviews of the 'Adult' cake shop, a joint venture between Patrick Cox and Eric Lanlard. Yes, it's in Soho. Yes, it's all black and neon. Yes, the staff wear studded leather aprons. Yes, it's crap.

I couldn't see the cookies on entry, just rows and rows of ghastly cupcakes. I asked and the man serving looked at me like I was crazy and pointed out a whole one, thin row of cookies. He said they were all different, but this was clearly a lie, as he named four types, and there were about 9 in the row.

We bought a double chocolate chip one, and ate it on the bus home. Jonny said we could buy a pack of Tesco ones for £1 and photograph those. No one would be able to tell. And the Tesco ones would be better value for money. The Cox Cookies cost £2.50 each. Crazy.

Now the cupcakes. We opted for a Hazelnut and Chocolate one (torso cake) and a Chocolate and Raspberry one (skull cake). None of the cakes were actually labelled with their flavour, which for me, sums up the fact that this shop is entirely about image.

He put them in a box and thrust them towards us.I had to ask for a bag, and they were put into a clear shopping bag. Now, you'd think that this over-publicised shop would have put some thought into the fact that customers will have to travel with their slutty cakes, and therefore would design a bag, in keeping with their theme, that would allow safe transportation of the rude confection. 




Clearly not. That's what they looked like when we got home.

We shared the cakes with my family for a brunch-time snack. The hazelnut one was dry and the frosting was cream cheese which did not go. At all.
The chocolate and raspberry one was a little more moist, but that's because it had a filling of jam. I do not want a cupcake with jam in. Thank you. I can think of many ways to get raspberry into a chocolate cake without having to fill it with jam.

The toppers for the cake were inedible. The torse was made of white chocolate. It was untempered, so chewy and gritty and foul. The skull was made of dark chocolate, which though texturally ok, was very bitter, so I'm going to be mean and assume it's very cheap.

I won't be going back. It's a gimmick, and a very dissapointing gimmick. I did not feel edgy when buying sexed-up cupcakes. I just felt like I'd been conned. The cupcakes cost £4.00 each. £4.00!!!

Jonny also says that a cake shop should really consider it's clientele when choosing door size. It's outrageously skinny, we had to turn side-on to escape.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow // Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Back in September was my friends wedding, I've posted about practice cupcakes for them.
I spent a day solidly baking, decorating and packing up an large amount of cupcakes, just over 150 to be precise. By the end of it I could barely stand up, I was exhausted.



I also did a large chocolate cake, with a Star Wars topper, made by my fantastic brother, Ollie - Glass Candle Grenades.



The day of the actual wedding was interesting, Jonny was official photographer so I was pretty much alone. His Mum, Rosemary shipped me and the cakes about, which I am so grateful for, it would have been very hard to do it on the bus!

There was a small issue of a tablecloth, which a swift jog along the river at Kingston solved, and then I got my own little peaceful trip on one of the Turks Pier boats up to Teddington, where I was met with more cakes at the Wharf.

Then back to get ready and off to enjoy the wedding. Everything was so beautiful and perfect and I got fantastically drunk.

Red Velvet // OutKast

I've long avoided writing this blog to avoid writing something libellous.
The main fault with libel laws is that at the end of the day the publisher is guilty until proven innocent. Or to put it another way; if i was going to call one of London's most successful bakers "morons who know nothing about cooking"
I would be forced by a court of law to prove that this was irrefutably the truth while, until I had done so, I would be expected to cough up the sum of damages to the "moronic" baker's reputation each time the words get published.

Ladies and gentlemen, In the delightful world of the Internet, every day is a new publication. As such the delightfully nick-named and over paid libel lawyers criticised weekly in Private-eye are able to open a new case and compensation claim every day. The one and great defence against the libel lawyers is the fact that you are telling the truth this makes a claim no longer libellous and simply a fact. I concede that probably a successful baking company does in fact know a bit about cooking and as establishers of a working and growing business are probably not moronic.

In conclusion, your honours, I would like to state that the humming-bird bakers are NOT morons who know nothing about cooking. In fact they are shrewd marketers who are bloody good at scamming their customers. So you get hyperbolic online reviews like these:

"incredible cup cakes Red Velvet is incredible if you fancy one BUY 2!!! Trust me on this…" said BigBruv from Cardiff


"This place never fail [sic] to deliver. It’s the best place to hang out with a mate or two on a saturday afternoon, having a slice of cake.
My favorite is the Red Velvet cake. They are delicious!"
comments beequin from London


"I have heard that the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor come to buy cake here and I wouldn't be surprised!
They sell the most amazing cakes and cupcakes. The best are the red velvet cupcakes. This also comes in a full sized cake.
It is a sponge which is red, iced with the most delicious cream cheese icing I have ever tasted."

That's right dw27 from London it is a cake that is red.

Hold on.. what do you say? a cake that is red! ... you mean... NO! you don't say? someone has put red food colouring in a cake.
HOLD THE PHONE GUYS. Call the Times and hold the front page on the Wall Street Journal and while Murdoch's on the blower we'll get this in the Australian Sun.

Someone SOMEWHERE Has had the tenacity to put food colouring into some food!


I first encountered this scam about a year ago. Libby had reason to make some cupcakes to impress and she had heard of these great "Red Velvet" cupcakes.
Everyone said they were the best, "there must be some baking trick" she said. Some kind of secret ingredient..
I countered that this was silly and in fact they can't be that good chocolate cupcakes would be nicer. "But" our lovely lib said, "but everyone on the Internet says they're the best".."they cant just be ordinary cakes"

I gave in, there must be some trick I thought. Because, sometimes reluctantly, I usually trust Libby when it comes to cake.
She scoured one recipe book then purchased a new cupcake recipe book.
It didn't have a red-velvet recipe. She then forked out a bit more for the Humming-Bird Bakery recipe book. This book told her the secret. The trick. The hidden ingredient. The baker's special flick of the wrist that makes red velvet the top cupcake of the day.
It told her to make a cake and to put in to the mix some red food colouring.

I don't know why it's so disappointing but I just feel cheated. We eventually wound up in Portabello and got a black bottomed cupcake and a red-velvet. It was so red! It was like a cupcake had been slaughtered and bled onto another cupcake then covered
with frosting. Aesthetics aside the cupcake was under filled and over topped but that's ok as the cake (once you've had a swig of whisky to help you overcome the shock of it's cakey redness) is pretty dull and wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny if presented on its own. Cupcakes dry out quickly so it was our fault for carrying the cake all the way home from Portobello before tucking in; It was dry, but there should have been some flavour.
The icing is nice but if I want a cheesecake I'll buy a cheesecake thankyouverymuch.


As you may have gathered I have a general contempt of excessive food colouring. It's not big and it's not clever. Colouring foods unnecessarily was in its last throes when Fanny Craddock dyed hard boiled eggs blue in the 70's in an attempt to reinvigorate her image. Are you surprised that it was a total flop?

If you're still taken in by the red-velvet phenomenon, come to my house and I'll cook you a purple roast chicken and I hope you choke.

Brown Eyed Girl // Van Morrison

Jonny and I went to Portabello Road yesterday. I wanted a suitcase and a tea cup, Jonny wanted a flannel shirt. You tell me. Anyway. We both failed in our objectives. You'd be hard pushed to find a suitcase under two hundred pounds, and all the crockery was manky.
Jonny's ideal flannel shirt he'd already seen on a friend, so seeing as it had already been sold I think finding it for sale would be a challenge.

As soon as we got off the tube at Notting Hill Gate it was manic. Oh the crowds. And we were early! We walked from Notting Hill to Westbourne Park and it took forever. It was nicely broken up with stall browsing and a mandatory visit to the Hummingbird Bakery. They were queueing out the door when we arrived, but I was determined.

The service was remarkably brilliant, fast and polite. Though the people behind me obviously had no concept of personal space and kept crowding. Chill out people! There is enough cake for everyone! You will get your turn.

At first I ordered a slab of frosted brownie, a black bottomed cupcake and a carrot cupcake. But then a fresh tray of Red Velvet appeared so I changed my mind on the carrot. Jonny has requested to review the Red Velvet, so I'll leave that to him.


We sat outside on the curb to eat the brownie. God it was good. So close to the brownie perfection we seem to be on a never-ending mission for.
Jonny said 'The most important thing about a brownie that has been cooked wll is it makes you wonder ''has this been cooked?' '' which I suppose sums up his tastes. For me it's winning for it's use of whole hazelnuts and crisp top and gooey middle.

I'd bought a black bottomed cupcake to see what cake/cheesecake ratio it had, as I'm never sure if I've put too much or too little on when I bake them. I don't know if it was just this individual cupcake, but it was greatly lacking in cheesecake. The cream cheese frosting made up for it a little, but the cake was dry. And when I bake them I don't frost them, so this seemed really over-sweet.


I think I am arrogant enough to say that I much prefer the ones I make to the one I bought. Wow. I bake a Hummingbird cupcake better than they can.

All in all I feel like it was a little bit of a wasted trip. I had a great time mooching with Jonny. It was perfect in that respect. But I do wish we'd headed to Pimlico to try out the newly opened dessert bar at William Curley.
Soon though. Soon.

China in Your Hand // T'Pau

I can't remember if I said before, but I've been asked to do some cakes for a friends wedding. Jonny has been asked to do the photography too. I always said that I wanted to steer well clear of weddings and angry brides. But this is entirely different. I can't imagine them stressing out too much about their wedding.

At some point in last week we took six flavours of cakes for them to taste. They said that they looked how they imagine they should, and the sprinkles went down well. Much to my happiness. Jonny had earlier disagreed on the sprinkle front.


We gave them 6 flavours. Chocolate, lemon, vanilla, sea salt caramel, carrot and orange and coffee. The flavours they chose (and probably the ones I would too) were chocolate and lemon, and another to be confirmed, which will either be carrot or vanilla. They're having a meal with 3 courses (including dessert) so the cakes can't be too sickly or heavy.

It was really nerve-wracking putting my cakes up for judgement like that, but they were very polite, and I think that if they hated them they wouldn't want them at the wedding and they'd tell me. I hope. They''ve asked for 150 anyway, so I best get planning.

I have a couple of obsessions, the first being obviously sugar and everything to do with it. The second is stationary. I can spend hours in paperchase touching notebooks and paper. I'm a bit weird. But these two obsession happily collided when Paperchase introduced a whole cakey range!! I bought as much as I could, including a completely useless minature tea set. And then I had to buy a new cake tin from lakeland so I could bake mini things to go on it. The results follow.

It's Not Easy Being Green // Kermit the Frog

''Blaaarghh'' is the only word for me today. I've been feverish and poorly. I think people are suspicious it's a hangover after Jonny's birthday, but I am certain it's not. I have a horrendously sore throat and am all weak and pathetic.

Jonny's birthday picnic was a success. Isn't everything I have a hand in planning? We had to hold it indoors due to crummy weather, but other than that it was a really lovely day. And it was themeless. Which left me at a bit of a loss as to what cake to make. He'd muttered something about chocolate, but other than that I had no clue.

On Wednesday, his actual birthday, I went hunting for a picture to post on his facebook and had googled 'Kermit Birthday' and I stumbled across daveandraina's Flickr and instantly knew I had to make Kermit the Frog cupcakes. They fit in every way, firstly Jonny is a complete Muppets freak and secondly I was short on time.


I used, again, Hummingbird's vanilla cupcake recipe, and vanilla frosting recipe both with healthy dollops of green colouring gel. I seem to know this recipe very well by now and ended up making the cakes in very little time, which meant I could watch Ashes to Ashes while making the mento-eyes.

Some of the cakes were a little low in the case, which meant I ended up using quite a lot of frosting on some, and hardly any on the other. I need to work on this. I also wasn't very happy with the eyes. I had to use blue food colouring to draw them, and let's face it, I've never been one for any kind of artwork.

But they looked like Kermit, and I think most people liked them, and the actual cake being green was a nice surprise. And Jonny got to do his Kermit impression, which is always a crowd pleaser.

Sugar Sugar // The Archies

I've had a very lazy bank holiday weekend. Though I did cook for 8 people at my house in an impromptu dinner party. I made a risotto! It was the first one I'd ever made. I think it was ok, it all got polished off. So did the black bottomed cupcakes I'd made for pudding.
They were exactly the same as last time, but without the raspberry cream. I had to keep it simple you see. I had a lot to make. I had also dragged out my bread maker and whipped up a loaf to serve warm. I think people prefered that to the risotto!

On Saturday I'd read the lovely Penny's blog, Penelope's Pantry. She'd been making cinnamon rolls out of her leaven starter. And since then I'd been craving something cinnamonny. Which is crazy and wrong, as I am one of the rare people that can't stand cinnamon, ever since going to a party when I was younger and getting rather trollied on home-made cinnamon wine.

So today I decided I needed to make something, and it needed to contain cinnamon. I turned to the Hummingbird Bakery Book again. I don't know why. It's strange for me to use a book so much that isn't Mary Berry. Especially when I've had to edit quite a few of the recipes during use.
I picked the banana and cinnamon muffins. And I doubled the mix so that I could eat some and still take enough to work tomorrow.

I ended up with tonnes of mix. I made 24 muffins and one massive muffin cake after panicking and just shoving it in the first oven proof thing to hand.

They are a bit dense and chewy and the paper cases don't peel satisfyingly off. The cake is a bit flat as the tin I picked out was huge. But they have fulfilled my cinnamon needs. Hopefully for a while.

In other news, I am going on a proper diet. I feel like if I write it here then I will have to do it.

Mother // John Lennon

I just had a very busy weekend. I am quite knackered. And I ache all over. That would be down to over doing it at Ballroom I suppose. And then going to the gym yesterday.


You see, the problem with this love of all things sweet is that I'm getting fat. I didn't really notice as at work I tend to go for comfy skirts that sit on my waist and give the illusion of having no hips. Friday evening ended in a massive panic when nothing would fit. Not even the dress that I bought when I was the fattest I'd ever been.
That means I'm now fatter than I have ever been. Gosh. If it is of interest in the end I had to make the dress into a skirt and wear a top.
Anyway in conclusion this all means that I am going to the gym, and anytime now my cravings for sweet things should be replaced by cravings for peas. This could be damaging to the blog for a short while.

The other part of my busy weekend was Mothers Day. It started with an almighty strop because the card I had made was shit, and I couldn't be arsed with getting up stupidly early (9.30 am) to go to Church.
It seems to be tradition now that I don't bother with gifts and just attempt to do all the cooking. I made a chilli and a pudding that Mum had eyed up from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook.
It was a chocolate brownie base, with cheesecake and then a raspberry cream on top.
I think the jist of it was that you bake the brownie, then stick cheesecake on top, then bake it again and then stick the cream on. I don't trust myself or my oven and decided that I really didn't fancy baking brownie twice.


So I made black bottomed cupcakes, which is pretty much the same thing. Chocolate sponge with a dollop of vanilla cheesecake all baked at once. Then to make it more puddingy I made the raspberry cream to blob on.

Issues; I didn't read the recipe and got massively confused when after adding all the wet ingredients the mix was still dry. I'd missed the bit about 125ml of water. Mum had to read it to me. Blame the hangover please.
After adding the water the mix turned into a dough. I'm sure I'd measured it correctly.
Anyway, this is where I went wrong. I sploshed in a load of milk until it was a trustworthy consistency. This isn't helpful for anyone else looking to make these. But you know.. It was a large splosh.

Then the cheesecakey bit.. I whizzed it all up like it said and it was very very runny. So I ended up putting the same amount of cream cheese in again. This meant that I over-mixed it and in the oven it split.

But anyway they were very tasty and I've eaten 3. No more treats for me for a while.

Comfort Eagle // Cake

A second lot of cupcake practice for the big batch. It's this weekend! Eep! I'm starting to think I must be mental for agreeing to make 75 cupcakes.

This practice went well. I didn't overfill the cases and they rose beautifully. This time we were organised enough to remember to put vanilla in the frosting.
Jonny doesn't really get my frosting style. But I don't like to put loads on and I don't like it to look like we've slathered it on with a hot knife. Even though we have.
I can't explain why. I just prefer them to look a little rustic.

Enjoy the following cupcake porn!

Cups and Cakes // Spinal Tap part two

Libb is napping on the sofa, she just told me to stop distracting her from the nap. I blame her day of sugar and cake for this afternoon nap. Up to now she has eaten:

• Weetos
• Hazelnut Hot Chocolate
• Blueberry Muffin (skinny)
• Carrot Cake
• Cheese and Pickle sandwiches
• Cupcake trimmings
• Frosting
• Carrot Cake
• Marmite Rice Cake
• Coffee Cake
• Cupcake (with frosting)

She also had two apples which apparently makes it all ok. Thats just under 50% of all things eaten today containing the word "cake". I'm surprised she's not eaten any cups if I'm honest.

Anyhow this extensive cake eating is half due to lots of birthdays at work and also training for her 75-cup cakeathon thats coming up at the end of Feb. She brought round 6 of the trial cupcakes at lunch and we set to work making the frosting; butter, loads of icing sugar and a spot of milk, unfortunately libb had got "goseberry" food colouring but thought that gooseberries were yellow not green so we ended up with a pastel green icing instead of the pale yellow she'd planned for.

The frosting was lovely, firm but still mouldable for easy decorating. We were working against the clock as Lib only has a 45 minute lunch-break, and quickly discovered that you need a big bowl to make this icing as most of the sugar ended up on the floor when first combining it with the butter.

We popped the icing on top of the cakes and shaped it with a hot knife but I found it very tricky to get a rustic heap of icing, Lib says I smooth it all too much, anyway this was just a trial run right?

Anyway with the base of yellow (oops I mean green) frosting on we added the finishing decoration. Blue, pink and white sugar balls where accompanied by sugar dolphins, Hearts and stars respectively so we ended up with two blue, two pink and two yellow (the stars were white & yellow). It was immediately apparent that the green didn't really go. A pale cream/yellow base would have allowed the decoration colours to stand out much more clearly but at least this time there's a next time and I think there's some powder yellow in Libbs' cake toolbox so I'll remind her of that when I bring her a wake up cup of tea.

Cups and Cakes // Spinal Tap

Part One.

I have begun the grand cupcake rehearsal. I'm full of fear and excitement as I've put myself up to make 75 cupcakes for a big district guiding event at the end of February.
Which is probably crackers, as I've never attempted a cupcake in my life, and have always been a bit anti-cupcake, more of a fairy cake girl, and then I was a bit snobbish for this trend which is seemingly tailored for yummy mummies.

Anyway, the challenge was too tempting. So.

Practice run one;
Vanilla Cupcake recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Book.

I used to enjoy a wander along Portabello Road to the Hummingbird Bakery. Made a hard day at work and long journey almost worth it. And they are one of the most highly regarded cupcake bakers in London.
So I put myself in their hands and currently have some buns in the oven.

I only got 7 cakes, not the 12 I should have. I assume this is because they realise most people would pop to the supermarket for bun cases, which is standard size, whereas I've used larger ones.
The mix was like pancake batter. It seems to be mostly milk. I have no faith in the professionals and I doubt that they will rise.

Watch this space...



One Hour later...
I think I must have over-filled the cases, but they taste gorgeous! I'll have another go soon and put less mix in. Tomorrow I'll have a bash at carving these ones down and icing them..