Cupcake and macaron tour of London

Yesterday my boyfriend Tim and I went on a cupcake and macaron tour of London run by Best Tours. Definitely a fun day - would really recommend it. Obviously lots of tasty treats to try, but the tour itself was really interesting as well, learning about the different bakeries and shops, as well as local London knowledge. 

We started our tour at Ladurée in Covent Garden. They had an amazing selection of mini macarons of all different flavours. They had beautiful displays in the window too. Loved how glamorous it was, complete with chandelier! 

The beautiful window displays:

       

        

The beautiful display with chandelier!

The flavours on offer:

We got a lucky dip of a macaron to try each; I think we were lucky as I got raspberry and Tim got toffee. One man on our tour got a ginger one and was not impressed! 

Our second stop was BB Bakery. 

This is somewhere I have always been interested in as I have heard about their afternoon tea London bus and really want to go on it one day. I mean, look at it!

http://www.bbbakery.co.uk/afternoon-tea/afternoon-tea-bus-tour/ 

Here we tried mini cupcakes. These were called Berry Surprise, vanilla icing with different berry fillings (Strawberry, raspberry and cherry). They were so full of flavour - gorgeous! 

The Hummingbird Bakery was next on our tour. This is somewhere that I have been a couple of times before, and absolutely adore. We got given a signature red velvet cupcake here which is my favourite so I was very happy! Just as we were leaving apparently Josh Harnett went in... Our tour guide only pointed this out as we left so didn't see him myself unfortunately...!

Very happy faces! 

Next up was Yauatcha, a Michelin star restaurant that specialises in dim-sum and handmade desserts. 

The array of macarons and desserts was incredible. Such amazing details, colours and flavours. 

Here we got to try two macarons each. I chose mango and passion fruit, and vanilla. They were very powerful flavours - very different to anything I have tried before. 

Our final stop was a lovely little cupcake shop called Crumbs and Doilies. 

They had lots of different flavours, some were quite unique, with others being more classic flavours. We got to try mini cupcakes again here. I chose salted caramel which was gorgeous. 

As you can see, we got to try a variety of lovely cupcakes and macarons, and visit some amazing businesses. If you are ever in London and fancy going somewhere different, I would strongly recommend any of these places! 

First attempt at Claire Bowman Cake Lace!

This week I invested in some Claire Bowman Cake Lace equipment including two mats, Chantilly and Serenity. This blog is about my first attempt at using them!

First off you need to mix water, the powder and the liquid together to make the paste. 

Part A - The powder. 

Part B - the liquid to add to powder and water mix. 

This is the Chantilly lace mat. 

Next you spread the mix across the lace mat, backwards and forwards making sure all the gaps are filled, and the excess is removed. 

Finished mat before going into the oven. 

The other finished mat. These then go into the oven on 60-80 degrees for about 20 minutes to dry out. 

The finished result! So pleased with how they came out. Still needs some practice as there were a couple of breaks but still pretty good! Very delicate to get out of the mat so worth only peeling about an inch at a time rather than the long strip all together. Once they are dry they are easy to pick up and move around. 

Here are some close ups of the various pieces of lace:

Very pleased with the results of this experiment. Looking forward to trying it out on one of my display cakes and other cakes in the future!

My new favourite cutter/mould

A little while ago, I bought a Petunia cutter set from the Pretty Witty Cakes online shop (https://www.prettywittycakes.co.uk/shop/cutter-embosser-sets-flower-cutters-embosser-and-cutter-sets-cutters-veiners/petunia-cutter-set). I have recently started to use it on some of my cake projects and I love it! It is such a simple but effective way of making flowers to add that pretty decorative touch! 

The cutter itself is a simple metal flower shape, which is actually quite nice on its own. Using some fondant, you cut out this shape and then move on to using the mould part.

As you can see, this has been well used - there is still icing sugar on it to stop the fondant sticking! So as you can guess, you sprinkle some icing sugar/corn flour or similar into the mould, and then place your pre-cut fondant onto one side and then close the other side together, squeezing the fondant in between. 

You then gently ease the now fully formed flower out of the mould, and dust the icing sugar/corn flour off using a small brush and voila! Try to leave them to dry on flower drying foam so that they hold their shape before applying them to your cake if possible.

Here are a selection of some Petunias that I have made recently for a dummy wedding cake that I am creating to have on display at fairs and events. So pretty!

Here are some examples of these Petunias on two of my recent cakes - one for my boyfriend's grandma's birthday, and one for my mum's retirement party. I dusted the pink Petunias with some edible glitter dust to give them a shimmer. The teal Petunias was bold enough by themselves!

As you can see, they are very effective on cakes to add some simple, but beautiful decoration. A firm favourite in my decorating tools!

Giant 60th Chocolate Cupcake - Pretty in pink!

Here is my most recent order for a customer at the end of last week. I forgot to share it sooner because of an event I co-ran with another local business on Saturday (which I will publish another post about soon!).

This is a chocolate sponge cake with chocolate icing and chocolate fingers as the base of the cupcake. It was decorated with fondant butterflies and fondant letters spelling out the message on the cake board, as well as the white chocolate numbers on sticks. 

Was really pleased with this one - pretty in pink!

Welcome!

So I have been inspired to start up my baking blog again by a friend of mine who has just started up her own blog (well worth a read! - cinskip.blogspot.co.uk). Another friend of mine has also started a brilliant cooking blog (also well worth a read! - http://thisguycooks.co.uk ), and there is also a brilliant well established blog written by another lovely friend of mine (www.prettyposhohmygosh.com/) so lots of inspiration!

I used to write a blog on Tumblr but unfortunately that isn't widely accessible, so here we are! Welcome to the blog that will keep a record of the progress of my little business, but also showcase my cake creations!

Here is a photo of some Hummingbird Bakery cupcakes from my trip to London with a friend yesterday. So nice to eat someone else's cupcakes for a change! I will soon be back to showing mine, but just thought I would share these beauties for now. 

Thank you for reading and I hope you will join me along the way and enjoy my cake-y posts!