A week of cake and silliness in London

Last week my friends and I trekked down to London for a few days of fun. I had a cold and consequently no voice during most of my stay (why did I have to get ill?!) but that didn't stop me. I was a woman on a cake mission! And it didn't stop in London, it continued back in Edinburgh. Here's a collage of what I digested within 6 days.

London food!

Top left: Salted caramel cupcake from Peggy Porschen's cake parlour. Hands down my favourite place.

Top right: Sticky toffee cupcake from the Hummingbird Bakery on Wardour Street. Definitely as tasty as the ones I've baked from their Cake Days book.

Bottom left: Macarons from Harrods. Although the coconut and passionfruit one was good, the raspberry and chocolate was definitely my favourite. It tasted fantastic with a Pret hot chocolate at the end of a very long day.

Bottom right: Oreo cupcake from Lola's Cupcakes in Topshop on Oxford Street. In a funny way I was slightly disappointed with this cupcake as I was expecting a whole oreo baked inside the sponge (like you often see with oreo cupcakes) but the oreos were crushed and mixed through the sponge. Still tasty though.

Edinburgh food!

Top left: Lemon and passionfruit sponge from Love Crumbs on West Port in Edinburgh. My goodness this is a hilariously hipster establishment! Good flavours and a lovely curd running through the middle but I thought the sponge was a little dry, possibly from sitting out on display without being covered.

Top right: A night in at my friend's house updating our scrapbooks (yeah, we're cool) with sponge cake, mini strawberry tarts, tea and the Princess Bride. My friend had never seen Princess Bride before. Inconceivable!

Bottom left: A yummy scone from Casa Angelina, Vintage Tearoom and Patisserie. A place we stumbled upon on London Street after discovering that Mandors the fabric shop had closed down! The scone stopped me from feeling too upset. I loved that the cream had flecks of vanilla running through it -  delicious.

Bottom right: Strawberry dream cake from Mimi's Bakehouse in Leith. I can't believe it has taken me this long to visit! Unfortunately by this point my cake stomach was protesting so I didn't quite finish this slice. As you can tell from the following photo, it was a very sad day.

Quite frankly, I'm embarrassed.

Back to London... other than cake hoovering our main reasons for going to London were to see The Crucible at the Old Vic (excellent!) and visit the Harry Potter studios. I feel like every blogger and their dog has been to the Harry Potter studios but WOW, it was amazing. A bit like a Disney land/ Ikea hybrid in terms of being overwhelming.  The amount of creativity and attention to detail with the whole production is astounding and mind boggling. 

Other highlights from my holiday included matching the seating in Irregular Choice on Carnaby Street, (wooh dinosaurs!) seeing porcelain asparagus and cauliflower tureens (wtf?!), wearing fake moustaches, trying to fit into a trouser press and actually MEETING RICHARD ARMITAGE!!

I think that more or less sums up our trip. Short and sweet. Till next time, London!

(Yes I was roasting in my tights in London. Damn it.)

July (food) travels

Well, wasn't July surprisingly hot and sunny? I certainly picked the best time for my holidays. Here's what I have been up to, illustrated by shoddy photographs from my phone.

The first weekend I headed down to Carlisle to visit a friend. We drove to a couple of the nearby villages (it's possible I may have picked Cockermouth purely for the name *snigger*) where we sampled elderberry ice-cream and the local fudge.

The fudge was lovely and creamy. I think the eton mess flavour was my favourite as there were meringue chunks within the fudge.

We also went to the very picturesque Keswick to visit the chocolate shop. Possibly the hottest day to be sampling rich chocolates but it had to be done! I also had to take a photo of this cafe as I couldn't resist the cute exterior.

The rest of the time I mostly spent at my brother's in Glasgow. He's moving away next month for a new job so I thought I'd make the most of having free accommodation there and visit my favourite places. I'm really going to miss having a home from home in Glasgow.

Since it was so hot I *had* to visit Nardini's a few times. Their strawberry ice-cream is my favourite.

On another hot day I visited the gorgeous Cushion and Cake. (Hi Pamela!) Unusually for me I didn't have cake or tea but I had some absolutely delicious homemade lemonade. Definitely what I needed to cool down that day.

My other favourite cakey place to visit is the Cup and Saucer as it's full of retro charm. I had a tasty little chocolate cake with vanilla butter icing here.

And I can never go to Glasgow without trawling the charity and second hand shops! I was so close to buying this rose teaset as it's very similar to a cake plate I already own.

I also had some fantastic days out with my friend Alice. We spent a worrying amount of money in both Edinburgh and Glasgow's Mandors (a post on all my fabric purchases coming soon) and our usual amount of money on tea and cake (also a lot!) We had a cake day on her birthday, visiting both Eteaket and Cuckoo's Bakery. We decided to split cakes in Eteaket as we were so indecisive. Although the lemon and coconut cake was good we both thought the carrot cake had the edge. I also had a refreshing peach white tea.

I was keen to visit Cuckoo's Bakery as I have been hearing so many good things about them and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Hands down the best cupcake I have bought and we got these just as they were closing at 5.30pm. I had the pink lemonade cupcake: a fresh, fluffy sponge full of lemon flavour with a zingy raspberry lemon curd centre topped with very fluffy raspberry lemon buttercream.

We went back the following week and tried their triple layer sticky toffee pudding cake and it was equally as delicious. I like to think I was the cake champion as I was the only person in the cafe around me who had managed to eat the whole slice. "Epic Win" as all the cool kids would say.

Also by complete accident we stumbled across The Marshmallow Lady, another place I have been hearing great things about. I've never tried homemade marshmallows before and wow, they are soft, pillowy, sweet yumminess! I tried the millionaire's shortbread, lemon meringue and strawberries and cream flavours. Don't ask me for a favourite, I loved them all!

I also managed to squeeze in a visit to the Glasgow Vintage Fair on my last Sunday. Unfortunately the weather that morning was horrendous but I was more than willing to look at pretty things in the rain.

Other travels included visiting Dunfermline and going to Stirling Castle. Great views from up there!

And that's pretty much it. Congratulations if you got to the end!

Has anybody else been having a "local" holiday this summer? Where have you been?

Cake obsessed?

Let's re-enact a lunch scenario which happened a couple of weeks ago:

Friend: Where should we go for lunch in town?

Me: Well suchandsuch a place does really good raspberry and chocolate tarts, soandso does lovely fresh cakes although I wasn't so keen on their brownies, whatyoucall'em has good rockyroad, haven't gone to thingymabob again because the banana muffin I had was a bit rubbish.

Friend: ummm, do you only go to places for cake?

Me: .............yeah. I have no idea about sandwiches.

I then discovered that pretty much all the photos on my phone this year were of cakes. Therefore this post is a yearly round up of cakes and fancies I have eaten at cafes. Enjoy!

 

A disappointingly bland vanilla cupcake. Great tea though, I think it was vanilla based too.

A generous slice of Victoria sponge.

A passion cake with amazing cream cheese icing.

Raspberry and almond tart, blogged here.

Coconut and lemon square (it was massive!)

Cinnamon swirl pastry.

Brownie (I was having a chocolate day it seems!)

Lovely lemon cake. A special mention goes to the cafe, Cushion and Cake in Glasgow. I would live in the shop if she'd let me (oh dear, sounding like a creepy stalker now). Beautiful homebakes, decor, china, utility china.... so go there if you're in Glasgow!

The most massive slice of Mars Bar cheesecake to grace the earth. Even I was defeated by this one.

How cute is this gingerbread man I had last week? His expression is priceless. 

Does any one else choose cafes by their homebake selection? Which homebake tempts you the most out of these?

Utility China update

Remember when I acquired a fairly substantial stash of Utility China from a store clearance a few weeks ago? Well Fiona, my sister-in-law, found more this week and gave me 5 Johnson Bros plates. They were sitting in a cardboard box outside a shop (still part of the same store clearance) along with yet more sideplates. Check this out for a bargain, they were FREE.

FREE!

They don't look big enough to be dinner plates but they are certainly bigger than sideplates. I'm guessing salad/dessert plates? Either way, they're ideal for dinosaur shaped ham and philadelphia cheese sandwiches.

I also had lunch with my friend Sarah yesterday, and naturally every lunch must be rounded off with a slice of cake.

I had a very juicy banana cake. It had a strong citrus/orangey flavour running through it and the icing was very cream cheesy. Yum!

Cafe adventures in Edinburgh

I was in Edinburgh for a quick visit this week and pretty much spent a whole day going in and out various cafes with friends. I started the day by having elevenses with my two childhood homies Alice and Sarah at Eteaket on Frederic Street.

I took all my photographs with my phone so they're not up to their usual standard.

Alice goes to Eteaket a lot with friends and I practically begged her to take me there. It's a tea boutique and cakey cafe which is right up my street. Can't believe I lived in Edinburgh for four years without going there!

It has a cute window display of bunting and chintzy crockery which is contrasted with a sleeker interior of hot pink and turquoise walls and seating.  

Everything is served on mismatching crockery which I loved. Sarah went for a cappuccino and lemon tart (as she's such a bitter woman!), Alice had a pear and honey(?) tart with a breakfast tea and I went for a raspberry and almond tart with Royal Earl Grey tea.

In the words of Craig Revel Horwood, it was AH-MAY-ZING! I am definitely going back there when I'm next in Edinburgh.

We then did a spot of shopping, as girls do, and Sarah tried on these MASSIVE Banana Man style platforms.

MASSIVE SARAH!
And unimpressed, short Alice.

After trying on various shoes and clothes we had lunch at Costa in Princes Mall.

After lunch I met a couple of uni friends at Cafe Nero on Lothian Road with Sarah. By then I had moved onto hot chocolate.

Before we knew it, it was dinner time so Sarah and I finished our day with baked tatties (potatoes for the non Scottish) at Cafe Luciano on George IV Bridge.

 

Did I buy anything else in Edinburgh other than food and drink? Of course I did! I shall put my exciting purchases in a separate post within the next day or two so stay tuned!

Ladies who lunch

My friend Sarah was home for the weekend so on Friday we did what we do best, go out for a jaunt and eat cake!

 

This is Sarah (on the left), ma home gurl! (yeah, we're trendy and  gangster.) We've known each other since nursery, it's a  wonder she still puts up with me. She had a chocolate and coconut cake and cappuccino. I appear to look very serious, eating a Victoria sponge must be serious business. Tea is my preferred  beverage of course.

We had lunch too which was so amazing we forgot to take photos, but we remembered to photograph the cakes which is the most important thing. It was great to be served for a change, someone to make tea and lunch for ME! I made two little purchases on Friday as well:

I've always fancied having a cute coaster for my cuppa beside my bed as I sit there a lot when I'm using my laptop, usually watching Neighbours on five demand (Sad? Definitely, but I love Neighbours!) This most certainly fits the bill, it matches my bedding too. 

Dinosaur bun cases, because, well, who doesn't love dinosaurs! *Adds them in her ever growing collection of fancy bun cases*