Cupcake review – Planet Organic

Planet Organic is an organic supermarket  (unsurprisingly!) in Muswell Hill. It provides fresh food as well as normal groceries, as well as baked goods.

Me & the boyfriend stopped here to grab some gluten free cupcakes after a hard day doing absolutely bugger all!

There isn’t really anywhere within a 5 minute drive of East Finchley to get our gluten free cupcake fix, so North London really is slightly limiting if you’re wanting a cheap GF cake sample!

Ok onto the cupcakes…! We got one vanilla and one chocolate cupcake to share, and at £1.99, they are quite cheap for London!

The cupcakes….

I have to say these weren’t the prettiest cupcakes but at 4pm, they had probably been sitting out all day, which also probably accounted for the slightly dry cake. I definitely preferred the chocolate one, it had a good taste and the icing was nice too, and tasted really chocolatey but wasn’t sickly. The vanilla had a funny taste, probably down to the raw cane sugar, which I am not a fan of.

We did manage to polish both of these off, so all in all definitely not a bad experience! A cheap/friendly option to have a gluten free cupcake with your coffee.

I give this a respectable 5/10.

Have you had better gluten free cupcakes?

Gefiltefest 2012

On Sunday I attended the 3rd Gefiltefest, the Jewish food festival, and tweeted from there the whole day!

There was a mix of cookery demonstrations, discussions, chances to learn and also workshops for the kids. I had a brilliant time, meeting legends like Claudia Roden and Sula Leon, as well as learning from amazing chefs like David Mendes and Sarah Magnus.

I loved the Falafel from Falafel Feast

Sula Leon’s pastry session was fabulous, and I especially loved the savoury smoked salmon cheesecake!

A highlight of the day was the Shakshouka competition – as a hater of tomato I adored the spinach shakshouka which won the first prize (jointly with Ilan Scorer of the UJIA)

I helped out Sarah Magus, pastry chef and culinary goddess, creating marshmallows and turkish delight.

The kids had a great time making their chocolate Mount Sinai (and I had a great time eating it!)

The last session I attended was a chocolate truffle demo by David Mendes, assisted by the lovely Steph of Kokopellis chocolates.

David showed us how to make some gorgeous peanut butter truffles, which I enjoyed immensely!

All I saw the entire day were smiling faces, stuffed full of food! And here’s me… doing just that!

A massive thanks and well done to Michael who organised the entire festival. If you didn’t make it this year, you must go next year!

The best cupcake in London

It’s that question that’s been bugging me ever since I became obsessed with making my own cupcakes… who makes the best cupcake in London?

I’ve decided to document this journey and add in all my comments and try to taste test from all the good bakeries.

First up: Lola’s Cupcakes - I’ve tried these quite a lot, having them so close to work and not being able to resist! I’ve long been a fan of theirs and today I tried a custard cream cupcake, and it was yummy. I tend to find store-bought cupcakes slightly dry as they have been sitting out for most of the day, and this cupcake was slightly dry, however the custard filling inside definitely helped keep it moist. The buttercream on top was nice however ot exceptional. A good all round cupcake for custard lovers.

Overall I give this cupcake a 7/10 as it was nice but not groundbreaking!

Where shall I review next? Suggestions welcome!

Superman Cupcakes

Sometimes in life you need to be a kid again… and celebrate with themed cupcakes! These Superman ones are extra fun and have the added bonus of having ring toppers so that guests get a small gift too! These were also ALL gluten free! Flavours were: Vanilla bean cupcakes and bite size brownie cupcakes with Marscapone topping. YUM!

From this…

To this…!

If you could theme cupcakes, what theme would they be?