New York, New York: Part One - Carlo's Bakery

In September I took a trip to New York to try out some of the cupcake bakeries and source new ideas/flavours. Here's a quick round up of where I went and what I tasted!

 The first place we visited was Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey which is about a 20 minute bus journey from Times Square, NYC. As a big fan of Cake Boss, Carlo's Bakery was first on my list and we were very lucky as we only had to wait 45 minutes. This may seem a long time but I had read horror stories of people having to queue for 3hrs before they even got in to the bakery! We went on a rainy Friday morning at about 11am (by the time we arrived) so got straight into the bakery with no long queues outside.        

    

 The counters were full of delicious, brightly coloured cakes and cookies, from cupcakes to biscotti and layer cakes with fresh fruit on them. As much as I wanted to buy something of everything, I thought I had better restrain myself so just went with the classics - a Red Velvet Cupcake, some amaretti biscuits, a cannoli and lobster tail.


 

The cupcake was moist and had a yummy cream cheese frosting. The lobster tail was delicious but the cannoli was a bit rich for me and wasn't keen on the deep fried shell! I did find, whilst across the pond, that the cupcakes in America (as I found whilst in Florida) are much heavier than mine and the cake is a denser consistency which kind of stick when you tear them apart unlike mine which are light and a bit crumblier. I'm not sure if it's to do with the flour or just the different recipes. They are definitely sweeter! And of course, we had to take a photo outside the front with our purchases!

   

 Next post : Magnolia Bakery and Crumbs Bake Shop!

Heaven is a Cupcake Does Florida! (Part 1)

It's been a while since I've posted due to having an extremely busy month, my busiest yet in fact! And then to celebrate ;) I went off to Florida with my sister for a much needed holiday. I've never been before and was very excited to go to Disney, Universal (and more importantly, Hogwarts!), go swimming with dolphins and finally visit as many cupcake shops as I a) could possibly find and b) would be allowed to go to before my sister tore me away! So I thought I would share with you my Florida cupcake shop adventure and let you know what I thought.

Our tour started in Orlando where we went to Disney World (we only had one day there so lots to fit in!) and Universal Studios. We both agreed that Universal was our favourite. We felt it was more suited to us, had great rides and of course, had Harry Potter's Wizarding World. Disney World was great because it fulfilled one of my childhood dreams and although we only had one day there, we managed to fit a lot in - visiting both Animal Kingdom and The Magic Kingdom. I would definitely like to go back and experience it in a more laid back setting, perhaps even staying at one of the hotels. DW was also where we spied our first cupcakes! In Animal Kingdom they had zebra cupcakes and in Magic Kingdom they had chocolate and vanilla. And they were huge! Twice the size of my large cupcakes.  I loved the look of the bakery and the sweet shops on Main Street. It was really colourful and fun.

The cupcakes below were from the bakery on CityWalk at Universal. I actually preferred these as they were slightly smaller than the Disney ones and looked more appetizing.

Now onto the proper cupcakeries! Before we left for Florida I sat down with a nice cuppa and spent an enjoyable evening hunting down all the local cupcake shops to our hotel and I came across Sweet! By Good Golly Miss Holly! When I saw Holly, I immediately recognised her from The Food Network's Cupcake Wars so I was very excited that her shop was just half an hour away from our hotel in Orlando. We walked in and immediately I wanted one of each! Luckily they had a wide range of mini flavours which are also bigger than our minis and are enough for "2 and a half bites" (plenty when you want one of each ;) The display looked lovely and there was a really good choice of classic and more unusual flavours.

After much umming and ahhhing I decided to go for 12 minis (I restrained myself). Miss Holly recommends 3 per person which I think is a good average. We had a few on the journey, enough for a bite each of each cupcake then saved a few for later when we fancied them. Here I am taking time to choose the right cupcakes!

I went for a wide variety, some flavours which I like and have had before, others which I had always wanted to try (like the Boston Cream.) And this is what I went for: Carrot, Boston Cream, High Hat, Key Lime, Red Velvet, S'Mores, White Raspberry, White Out, Banana, Cinnamon Swirl, Dulche de leche and Cookies & Cream.

The first one I tried was the red velvet. I found the cake was quite sticky but it was very light and I enjoyed the frosting. My favourites were the boston cream *I loved the filling!*, the high hat and the carrot. I prefer cupcakes that aren't overpoweringly sweet so am a big fan of cream cheese frosting. My least favourites were the white chocolate ones simply because they were a little on the sweet side for my taste but those of you with a sweet tooth would love them. Overall it was a great start to my cupcake tour and I was pleased with the range of flavours available.

Our tour then continued to Naples where we planned to stop at two bakeries on our way from there to the Keys but unfortunately neither opened til 11am and because we'd got up early to visit the Everglades on route they weren't open when we popped by! And we didn't have much luck with any bakeries in the Keys, although I did find a couple of cupcakers that were based online in the area. In Key West, I did have the yummiest banana bread with maple syrup and flamingo crossing tahitian vanilla ice cream at The Flaming Buoy Filet Co. so that made up for the lack of cupcakes!! We also tried the famous Key Lime Pie at our hotel in Key Largo which also did not disappoint but did not top the banana bread.

Next stop...Miami!!

Lemon Drizzle Guglhupf

I can't believe how long it's been since I updated my blog. It's awful! I am so busy, which is great, but means I don't have much time to blog. However I tried out a non-cupcake related recipe/project yesterday so thought it was a good excuse to blog :)

My family from Austria arrived on Thursday and bought with them some mini guglhupf tins or as you may know them, bundt tins. So I took this opportunity to try out the lemon drizzle cake recipe from 'The Great British Book of Baking' which accompanies the tv series The Great British Bake Off. Now, the actual cake recipe turned out great, it was lovely and moist and had a nice zingy flavour. However, the cake was too moist for this type of mould. Next time I will try a denser cake.

Here's the recipe:

For the cake:
200g Unsalted Butter
250g Caster Sugar
3 Medium Eggs
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
250g Self-Raising Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
100ml milk

For the topping:
100g Caster Sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
Zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 fahrenheit. Put the butter, sugar, eggs and lemon zest into a large mixing bowl. Sift the flour and baking powder into bowl then pour in the milk. Beat with a wooden spoon, or an electric whisk on medium speed until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.

Transfer the mixture into the tin(s) and spread evenly. Bake in the oven until cake is a good golden brown and firm and a cocktail stick comes out clean - 50 to 60 minutes (I cooked these for 25 minutes).

 Meanwhile, make the topping. Mix the sugar with the lemon juice and zest to make a runny glaze. As soon as the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and stand the tin on a wire cooling rack. Prick the top of the cake all over with a cocktail stick, then quickly spoon the lemon topping over so that it trickles down into the holes. Leave to cool completely before removing the cake from the tin(s).

It looked great in the tins....

However they didn't want to come out!

This one came out the best:

BUT, it tasted great so I will definitely be making it again. Just not in guglhupf tins!

If you want to buy the book (which I would definitely recommend if you love baking, it has some great traditional recipes), it is available on amazon:

 Great British Book of Baking

Review: Cake Stand from CSN Stores

A few weeks a go I received an email from the people of CSN Stores asking if I would review one of their products.Well,I couldn't choose just one because they have so many fab things to buy. But my favourite was this beautiful Victoria & Albert Museum cake stand. It's very classy and perfect for afternoon tea. They have a range of different cake stands from the V&A and let's just say this isn't the last one I will be ordering :)

Here's a picture of it on its own.

And with some yummy cocktail cupcakes on! Check out their website for more great products: http://www.csnstores.co.uk/

CSN Review

I will soon be reviewing a product from one of 6 CSN websites where you can find everything from baking equipment, cake stands and wardrobes . I am very excited about doing a review for CSN as the giveaway was so successful and the winner, Daisy was very pleased with her purchase.

I'm a big fan of the distressed look and love these wardobes:

Watch this space!