I’m in Ghana until the beginning of August and will not be posting on this blog regularly. If you want to read about my travels check out Leah Goes to Ghana to read about my adventures.

The last cupcake place I tried in London was Candy Cakes in the Covent Garden Piazza. Candy Cakes is a chain of coffee, cakes and shakes shops, though there are five in the city, this is the only one I ran into during my travels. The cupcake I had from here was unlike any I have ever encountered before. The topping is not really icing. It’s sticky and super sweet, but I don’t really know what it is.

I had a blueberry gourmet cupcake from there. The cake was pretty good, but I couldn’t really get over the icing. I did enjoy the cupcake overall, but I don’t know if I would have another. I like candy and I like cupcakes, but I don’t want candy melted on top of my cupcake. Candy Cakes does carry a series of more traditional cupcakes, but I didn’t try and out, though I wish I had so I could see if they were more my taste with normal icing.

The one upside about Candy Cakes is that the icing doesn’t damage despite the fact they put it in a plastic bag. I crammed mine in a bag with other shopping and it remained undamaged after a walk about to find a place to eat it (there was a eat-in price for the cupcakes I wanted to avoid.) Even though Candy Cakes wasn’t my favourite cupcake during my trip (probably ranks third out of four), I would still recommend trying it, even just for the novelty of it. It’s like The Magnolia Bakery in NYC – the cupcake isn’t the best, but you still have to try one, just because it’s Magnolia.

The second last stop on my cupcake quest through London was Hummingbird Bakery in Portobello Market. This was the only bakery I had heard of before hitting the streets with my cupcake finding senses, as my dear friend Carly told me about their cupcakes. She also gave me a Hummingbird Bakery cookbook for my birthday, which due to the fact I don’t have a scale/haven’t had a chance to convert recipes I have yet to actually try. Summer project maybe?

Anyways I went to Hummingbird after stumbling across the Cupcake Company, which is located fairly close by. As I had already eaten one cupcake that day, and Carly had headed home to rest after our excursions to Madame Tussaud’s and Abbey Road, I decided to get a couple boxed up and take them back to her flat to eat after dinner.

For Carly I bought a red velvet cupcake and for myself a chocolate with buttercream icing. After having brought back Kooky Bakes, Carly was disappointed by Hummingbird’s red velvet. My cupcake was also not the greatest. I’m skeptical about these types of sprinkles on cupcakes, as I find they detract from the cupcake. In this case I felt that this usual skepticism was justified, as the cupcake was amateur at best.

Hummingbird gets points for pretty packaging and a lovely storefront, but that’s about it. They do have a bunch of different flavours of cupcakes offered every day, and I’m curious how those measure up. If you’re in the Portobello Market area go out of your way to try The Cupcake Company and skip over Hummingbird.

The second cupcake shop I went to in London was The Cupcake Company, which was in Kensington, not too far from Portobello Road Market. My sixth-sense for cupcakes led me wandering down from Notting Hill tube station when it was the opposite direction from Portobello Road. Lucky for me I ended up across the street from The Cupcake Company.

Inside I ate a banana cupcake with caramel buttercream. It’s rare to find banana cupcakes, especially ones that are closer to a cake than a bread. As much as I like banana bread, I find it too dense to eat with icing. This cake was light, moist and very tasty. This was my favourite of the cupcake places that I tried when in London.

This little cupcake shop was not all that far from Portobello Road, and worth the trek down, as the cupcakes were much better than Hummingbird Bakery which is in the market. I’ll write about those cupcakes a little later. While I was in the shop a women was picking up a bunch of cupcakes for her son, and placing an order for his birthday. Loyal customers are always a good indication at businesses, especially happy moms!

Photo Credit

For my reading break I spent the week visting my friend Carly in London. This was both my first time in London and my first trip overseas. As with every city I visit, I went out in search of cupcakes, trying four different bakeries in my week there. As I didn’t take notes while eating the cupcakes as I usually do, I won’t do my usual rating system. Instead I’ll just provide my thoughts about the cupcake, the location, selection, without giving it a grade.

First up is Kooky Bakes, the cupcakes I purchased from just outside Brick Lane’s Sunday Up Market. There were so many vendors selling cupcakes around Brick Lane that I had trouble deciding which to choose. Kooky Bakes’ white chocolate and raspberry cupcake drew me in, so I returned there at the end of the day. While I’ve eaten a lot of cupcakes over the year, I’m not actually sure I’ve ever had a white chocolate and raspberry one. This is however my favourite flavour of gelato.

I bought two cupcakes from Kooky Bakes near the end of the day, and was given a 50p discount. The two cupcakes cost £4 and were wrapped individually in paper bags in a way that didn’t damage the icing. The other cupcake I bought for Carly was red velvet with cream cheese icing. The white chocolate raspberry cake was moist and had an unexpected, but pleasant, surprise in the form of a raspberry filling (see below). The icing was the right level of sweet, and overall very delicious.

For a small vendor at a market, Kooky Bakes had a large selection of cupcakes, whoopie pies (which in general I have yet to try), and possibly even cookies. Full section is listed on their website. The vendor has prime real estate just on the way out from the Sunday Up Market, making it easy to find amidst a large number of vendors. The only downside is the plethora of baked goods vendors to choose from. I will definitely try to eat my way through more of Brick Lane on my next visit to London. If you’re there, go try Kooky Cakes; you won’t be disappointed.

Bryant Park cupcake from Crumbs Bake Shop (Leah Wong)

On my last day in New York I went to Crumbs Bake Shop across from Bryant Park, as I was in a rush to eat it, get back to my hostel and head to the airport I didn’t make a lot of notes on this cupcake.  The cupcake I had was the Bryant Cake cupcake, I know, I’m lame, but I thought there was no better place to eat a Bryant Park cupcake than in Bryant Park.  This cupcake has chocolate cake with chocolate mousse inside, topped with cream cheese icing, chocolate cake crumbs and white chocolate curls – an absolutely divine cupcake.

Bryant Park cupcake filling (Leah Wong)

Flavour: Bryant Park
Cake: 4/5
Icing: 5/5
Presentation: 4/5
Location: 5/5
Flavour Selection: 5/5
Total: 23/25

This was a very good cupcake, though I did find it to be too big.  The cost of a cupcake is $4.50 here, and definitely worth it.  I love cupcakes, but part of the appeal is the individual size of them.  I felt that this would be a cupcake much better shared, which I find difficult to do with a cupcake, especially this one, as it was slightly flaky and hard to hold together – something I typically find with filled cupcakes.  On a nice day, I would definitely recommend sitting in Bryant Park with a Crumbs cupcake as it was a very nice area.  I did a little damage at the Original Penguin store.  All in all I would recommend checking out Crumbs, just make sure you go with an empty stomach as their supersized cupcakes are difficult to finish alone.

Cupcake and Coffee from The Magnolia Bakery

I recently took a little trip to New York City, so of course I had to try a cupcake from the world famous, Magnolia Bakery.  With three locations in Manhattan, I went to the location in the West Village, right across from the Marc by Marc Jacobs store. This is the bakery’s original location, since it opened in 1996.  This bakery has been credited with the “cupcake craze” that emerged in the late 90s.  It is also a stop on the “Sex and the City” tour, as in one episode Carrie and Miranda sample their cupcakes.  I was almost hesitant to try the cupcakes as I’d heard mixed opinions about the bakery’s most popular item.  As they also offered up many tasty looking mini-cheesecakes, I was tempted not to try a cupcake.  However, my inner cupcake connoisseur knew I had to be able to compare all other cupcakes to the one that started the craze.

Vanilla Cupcake from Magnolia Bakery (Leah Wong)

Flavour: Vanilla with Vanilla Buttercream
Cake: 4/5
Icing: 4/5
Presentation: 5/5
Flavour Selection: 4/5
Location: 5/5
Total: 22/25

Initially I found the icing on the cupcake a little too sweet, and considering I have a major sweet tooth, that’s saying something.  The more I ate, the better it got.  For once, I was happy not to have the cupcake towered high with icing, as it was super sweet.  There were quite a few flavours to choose from, but they were all pretty standard.  The cake was good, but not anything special.  Overall, the cupcake was worth it, though I can’t see standing in hours for a good, but standard cupcake.  As I went first thing in the morning on a Thursday, there was no line up, but I’d been warned by friends that I should be prepared to stand in line.  I adore the location of the West Village location, it was right across from Marc by Marc Jacobs, down the street from James Perse, and a few blocks from a major sale at Olive & Bette’s.  While it wasn’t the best cupcake I’ve ever had, it’s easy to tell how they are the basis of a craze, which other bakers have built upon and improved.