A week of cupcaking and the best new job ever!!

So I forgot to mention that this week I’ve moved to London and am living the dream working for The English Cheesecake Company.  All week I have been baking up a storm on their behalf….and getting paid for it! It’s pretty amazing!

Have you ever been in that really annoying situation of baking something or when you’re about to bake something and you run out of an ingredient? That just doesn’t happen in my job! You should see the amount of ingredients and supplies I have access too! How I love going to the ‘stores’ and scooping up caster sugar or pecans or chocolate chips to replenish my dwindling supplies, everything is at my disposal!!

Living in London also means lots more access to great cupcakes so I have taken full advantage.  On Monday night after the first of many of our Mexican Monday’s we stopped at Ottelenghi’s and grabbed a raspberry and lemon cupcake.

It was definitely one of the best we’ve had in a while!

A window full of yummy delights! 

On Wednesday we stopped by The Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road, just a stone’s throw from our work! We went specifically for their special of the day – the pineapple cupcake, as for the month of May and June they are making fruit specials for each day of the week.  I was worried at that time of day they would be all sold out, they were....every variety of cupcake had been sold out with the exception of a whole tray of Pineapple cupcakes.  Apparently for Hummingbird customers variety is not the spice of life and they prefer to stick to the regular cupcakes! Which worked in our favour this time around…but maybe they play it safe because they have been less than impressed with Hummingbird’s specials in the past.  I was excited and a little overwhelmed at the prospect of a ‘pineapple cupcake with pineapple jelly inside and a pineapple frosting with a pineapple to garnish’ it sounded a little too pineapple-y for me, but actually it ended up lacking in pineapple flavour altogether!! (but they do get points for having such cute little cupcake boxes!)

 I tried the cake by itself and could detect no hint of pineapple at all, there was a very subtle mild flavour of it in the frosting and again just a touch of flavour of it in the filling.  At the end of the cupcake I felt cheated! And I really hadn’t got my pineapple fill! We were keen to try Thursday’s offering of Passionfruit and Saturday’s offering of Mango but we’re just not sure whether it will be worth it next time around!