A Domino's Triple Chocolate Cookie Throwdown!

When Domino's got in touch with me and issued me with a challenge, how could I say no! They challenged me to make a better triple chocolate cookie than the one they have just brought out this week.  My first thoughts were that this was going to be too easy! Of course I can bake a better homemade cookie than any mass produced offering Domino's can put together.

So I went to my local store in Bangor to pick up a box of four Domino's Triple Chocolate Cookies.  First impressions weren't too great, I was a little disappointed by their size and their appearance was not so attractive.  In fact a few of mine even looked like they could have been slightly overdone, I was less than enthusiastic about trying them...

which is why I was so pleasantly surprised when they were actually really good! They are sold warm when you buy them in store but since we live 25 minutes away, we zapped ours for 25 seconds in the microwave when we got home to try them at their best.  They were hard and crunchy on the outside and the inside was so fudgy and moist that it was almost brownie like.  How were they able to create the perfect balance of crunchy edge and fudgy middle? I knew this challenge was not going to be as easy as I originally thought! 

So I whipped up my best attempt at my version of a Triple Chocolate Cookie.  I hope you'll agree with me that mine seemed more aesthetically pleasing than Domino's offerings.  Unfortunately that is where my cookies triumph ended.  

Whilst it did have a lovely fudgy middle, and I enjoyed the gooey pools of chocolate that were achieved by pressing a few chocolate chunks into the surface of the cookie just before baking, it wasn't quite as good as Domino's version.  Something my husband told me rather hesitantly, so as not to hurt my feelings! but I had to concur.  Although I had achieved the fudgy middle, my outsides weren't quite as crisp as the edges on the Domino cookie and for that reason I admit defeat.

Dominos: 1 vs Cupcake Crazy Gem: 0

Defeated by a maker of pizza! So to all those curious about the new cookie offerings from Domino's - I would definitely recommend giving them a try.  They will surprise you and will be a perfectly sweet ending to your tasty pizza feast! 

Here is the recipe of the cookies I baked up.

Triple Chocolate Cookies:
Makes 14 large cookies
Adapted from Annie's Eats

205g plain flour

45g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp coarse salt

145g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125g caster sugar

100g brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

30g semi-skimmed milk

125g milk chocolate chunks

150g white chocolate chunks

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Line baking sheets with tin foil.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and both sugars.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.  Add in the egg, vanilla extract and milk.  Blend until smooth.  With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients until just incorporated.  Add in 3/4 of the chocolate chunks and fold in gently with a spatula.

Use a large ice cream scoop to drop rounds of dough onto the baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart.  Gently press a few pieces of the reserved chocolate chunks into the top of each of the dough balls.  Bake 12-14 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking.  (The cookies may seem too soft immediately after coming out of the oven but they will set as they cool, you don't want to overbake them.)

Let them cool on the baking sheets for about 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Store in an airtight container.

Disclosure: Domino's provided me with compensation for purchasing this product for review.  However, my participation was voluntary and all opinions and views expressed are my own.

United Bakes of America - A Monthly Blogging Challenge!

So I have some very exciting news to announce today! 

Two years ago I received this book for my birthday.  It is an amazing recipe book filled with over one hundred traditional stateside recipes.  They are categorised by state and each recipe is accompanied by a little story about how that particular cake became the state cake.  I have been wanting to try and make a feature of baking a recipe out of this book each month for a while now...and then I thought wouldn't it be so fun if you all baked along with me?

 So the 'United Bakes of America' challenge is born! Each month I will bake a recipe inspired by a state in America from this book and feature all of your American bakes too!

I know you won't all have this recipe book, so there are several ways you can enter:

If you bake a recipe from any American recipe book - think Baked, Martha, Magnolia, Baked in America or whatever else you happen to have...I know you all have extensive recipe book collections! It could even be the perfect excuse to splash out on the new Matha's American Food - I know I'm going to!

If you bake a recipe using American ingredients - think Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Oreo's, Graham Crackers, Marshmallow Fluff, Lucky Charms...the list is endless!

or 

If you bake a recipe inspired by a state favourite - think Tennessee Stack Cake, Bundt cake for Maine, Mississippi Mud Pie, or Key Lime Pie for Florida.

So if you want to join and bake along with us so at the end of the month we have a huge round up of American treats, then here are the rules:

1.  Post your recipe on your blog stating that it is for the 'United Bakes of America challenge', including a link to Cupcake Crazy Gem.  

2. Add the logo (found at the top) to your post and 'United Bakes of America' as a label or in the title.

3.  Only one entry per person and all entries must be sweet to qualify as a bake.

4. Email your entry to cupcakecrazygem@gmail.com by the 30th of each month and include:

The name of your blog

Your blog post URL

Photo of the recipe

Recipe title

It's as simple as that! I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!

If you want to bake with American ingredients but aren't sure where to get them then my favourite website to buy supplies from is American Sweets.  If you're lucky enough to live in the great city that is London then Partridge's and Outsider Tart have a good range of American groceries.  Nationwide, Asda also now sells Marshmallow Fluff, Reese's peanut butter cups and Hershey's Cookies n Creme kisses.

Happy Baking! 

This month I will be baking Key Lime Pie (for Florida).  If you would also like to bake a Key Lime inspired treat or a treat inspired by the state of Florida then that would be awesome, otherwise it's free reign for you to bake anything at all American! 

Some Awards, Random Facts and Plenty of Procrastination!

Caroline Makes, one of the hosts of the fabulous Alphabakes Challenge has very kindly gifted me with these two awards.  I very much enjoyed reading her random facts.  My favourite was when she revealed that one day when she used to be a journalist and was about to meet the CEO of Burberry, she realised she was wearing a fake Burberry scarf and so had to quickly hide it in her bag just before she met him!

Rules for both the awards are :
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this Award and link them back.
2. Say some 5 random facts about you.
3. Spread the  joy by nominating other bloggers.
4. Convey the blogger about the nomination. 

1. This week I am writing the last ever essay I hope I have to write in my entire life! (aside from a monstrous essay I will still have to write called a dissertation, but we're forgetting about that for a little while thanks!)

2. The other day when I was bored in my lecture I decided to test myself on making a list of all 50 U.S states (because I'm America obsessed...but you know that fact about me already!) I speedily got to 49 and then for the next 20 minutes I scrolled through every state related song I could think of (there's alot you know aside from the obvious ones like Sweet Home Alabama and California by Phantom Planet.  One of my favourites is Kings of Leon - The Runner 'She's got a birthmark the shape of Maine' and I also love Why Georgia by John Mayer and an old teen favourite of Ohio Is For Lovers by Hawthorne Heights) eventually I remembered this song and Indiana took my list up to 50! Boom! I was super happy, I certainly can't tell you what I learnt from that lecture on precision teaching but I can tell you all 50 states and I can even map them geographically in their correct places too! so I considered that quite an achievement! 

3. Whilst we're on the subject of geography and travel, I've been meaning to write a big long post for months about our super exciting news but thanks to all the essays and work from random point no.1 I just haven't gotten around to it sooooo....WE'RE MOVING TO VANCOUVER in September for a year! Oh yes, I already know where my local Wal Mart will be and my local Taco Bell - it is beyond exciting, you can read more about that and my love of google street view here.

4. My husband told me we need to get fit and so he's going to close my blog down...no jokes! I reminded him that he's the one most evenings who says 'what treats have we got' and prompts me to whip up something calorific - he could say no if he wanted to! but he doesn't.  So we're just going to continue eating like fatty's...and come September we'll snowboard all our calories away....wahoooooo.

5. My essay writing currently looks something like this:

5 minutes - work on essay
5 minutes - facebook check
15 minutes - google reader check
20 minutes - stumble upon some new found blogs through links of links
5 minutes - twitter check
5 minutes - pinterest check
5 minutes - work on essay

and then the cycle continues...does anyone else see a problem in this schedule?
I would be seriously interested in conducting a study to see how productive and studious university students were 25 years ago (pre the invention of the internet) compared to now.
I think it would make for some pretty fascinating results! but probably results that would have me looking the other way too! Did you know the only time I have been in the University library this whole year I have been doing my masters was not to study but was in fact due to not being able to make it through a whole long day of lectures without checking up on my google reader!

So there you have it...5 random facts!

I am tagging 5 more of my favourite bloggers to pass on the randomness...and hopefully fill my google reader with a few more distractions ;)

Daisy from Nevertoosweet
Mel from Let's Get Scrappy
Susie from Fold in the Flour
Sarah from The Salad Days
Jo from What do you make of my cake?

A Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Layer Cake for when you are in need of a cookie overdose!

Thursday was my husbands birthday.  It brings me immense joy to create him decadent layer cakes each year when April 26 rolls around, even if he has rather boringly requested smarties cakes for the past 3 years running.  So I was ready to be done with smarties and move on to something far more exciting, so imagine my disappointment when I asked him what flavour cake he wanted and he told me he just wanted some cookies!! Some cookies?? on your birthday! I wasn't impressed - everyone needs a cake on their birthday! So I started dreaming up how I could incorporate cookies into a cake and this over the top cookie dough layer cake was born!

I took inspiration from these cookie dough cupcakes I have made in the past, we both agree they are some of the best we have ever had so I knew using this recipe I couldn't go wrong!

There are not many days where I will play Fifa alongside my husband on his playstation (in fact yesterday was the first time this has ever happened, and probably will ever happen considering just how badly I did!) or when I will happily listen to him mixing drum and bass (I can't stand drum and bass music at the best of times, let alone when it is played at about 20 decibels louder than my ears can handle!) and watching Avengers in 3D at the cinema would certainly never be my first choice but birthdays are all about indulging the one you love so that's exactly what I did! Although I will say that the only thing motivating me to sit through that crazy superhero movie was the thought that as soon as it was done we would be heading home to finally try a piece of this 5 layers of deliciousness! 

and it was so amazing I'd sit through that whole movie again if it meant getting a slice of this cake! 

I will start by saying this is not a quick to throw together sort of cake! By my count, there are 5 separate parts that make up this recipe, and so this cake is definitely a labour of love! Not your everyday bake sort of cake but certainly worth putting in the extra effort for a special occasion!

On Wednesday evening I whipped up the batch of chocolate chip cookies I was going to use to decorate the cake because the dough needed to be chilled for 24 hours.  

On Thursday morning I woke up super early and baked up 2 layers of chocolate chip cake.  Whilst the cake was baking, I made up the batch of raw cookie dough for the middle of the cake.  After that was ready, I made up a batch of chocolate fudge filling.  I put all of those layers together and refrigerated the whole thing to give it some stability before I made the frosting.  When you break it down, there is no single step that is particularly time consuming and they can easily be split over a number of days.

I have seen many variations of cookie dough cakes sweeping the internet, most of them just sandwich cookie dough between two layers of standard white cake.  I really thought the additional layers of milk fudge either side of the dough kept the cake from being too sickly, and so I'd recommend you don't skip out that step! 

This is a must bake for any serious cookie lover in your life!



Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Layer Cake:
Serves 12-14
Adapted from Tracey's Culinary Adventures


David Lebovitz's Cookies:

From Tasting Table

312g plain flour

3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/8 tsp salt

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature

200g packed light brown sugar

168g granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs, at room temperature

400g milk chocolate chunks (you can use dark if you prefer but I don't like the taste of dark)

For the Cake:

340g unsalted butter, at room temperature
300g packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
333g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
225ml whole milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
182g milk chocolate chips

Cookie Dough Filling:

56g unsalted butter, at room temperature
75g packed light brown sugar
140g plain flour
200g condensed milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
75g milk chocolate chips

Milk Chocolate Fudge filling:
From Cupcake Crazy Gem

100g unsalted butter
13g cocoa powder
212g double cream
5g cornflour
5g unsalted butter, melted
280g liquid glucose
150g dark chocolate (I used 66%)
270g milk chocolate

Cookie Dough Frosting:
340g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g packed light brown sugar
438g icing sugar
125g plain flour
3/4 tsp salt
55ml whole milk 
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

To make the cookies: This needs to be done 24 hours before you make the cake because the dough needs to chill.  In a small bowl whisk the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and set aside.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter with the brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly incorporated, then blend in the flour mixture and chocolate chunks (these should be chopped into 1/2 to 1 inch chunks). 
On a lightly floured work surface, divide the dough into quarters.  Shape each quarter into a log about 9 inches long.  Wrap the logs in cling film and refrigerate for 24 hours.  Slice the dough logs into 3/4 inch disks and place on a baking tray 3 inches apart.  Bake the cookies at 180 degrees C, rotating half way through, for about 8-10 minutes or until the centers are lightly browned.  Let the cookies cool on the tray for 5 minutes and then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.  This will make more cookies than you need for this cake, dough logs can be kept refrigerated for up to a week or up to a month in the freezer.


To make the cake: Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease two 8" cake pans.  Measure the flour into a medium bowl, remove two tablespoons of the flour into a separate bowl with the chocolate chips.  Coat the chocolate chips completely in flour using your fingers (this will prevent them sinking).  Add the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt to the bowl containing only the flour and whisk to combine. 


In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy (about 4-5 mins).  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, adding the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  With the mixer on low, alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk to the bowl, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Mix until just incorporated.  Mix in the vanilla.  Finally, add the chocolate chips that were combined with the flour and stir them in with a spatula.


Divide the batter between the two pans.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Let the cakes cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.


To make the cookie dough filling: In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy (about 4-5 mins). Add the flour, condensed milk and vanilla and beat to combine.  Stir in the chocolate chips using a spatula.  Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate until it firms up (about an hour).  Once it has had time to firm up, remove it from the fridge and shape it into a circle shape using a small rolling pin.  


To make the chocolate fudge filling: Melt 100g butter in a pan.  Once melted, add the cocoa powder and mix for 2 minutes.  Pour double cream into the pan and mix until thoroughly combined.  Melt 5g butter in microwave, stir in the cornflour and add this to the pan.  Mix for 3 minutes.  Add the liquid glucose and turn off the heat.  Mix for 3 minutes and then add the dark chocolate, followed by the milk chocolate.  Keep mixing until all the chocolate chunks are melted in and the fudge is completely smooth.  Leave to cool and so it stiffens up a little.

To make the cookie dough frosting: In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy (about 4-5 mins).  Mix in the icing sugar until smooth.  Beat in the flour and salt.  Mix in the vanilla and milk until well blended and smooth.  

This recipe makes me really glad that I have two KitchenAid bowls! haha

If you did want to cut out one of the steps, you could double the amount of cookie dough filling you make and just bake up your 10 cookies using that dough to decorate the outside of the cake.  It makes great tasting cookies too but because this was for a special occasion I wanted to try David Lebovitz's cookie recipe since it's meant to be the best.  It was a very good cookie recipe but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's the best - my search continues for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe! Let me know if you've found it!

If you do make David Lebovitz's cookies you will have tons left over and you will also have lots of fudge left over, you know what that means - fudge filled cookie sandwiches! oh yeah, we tried some last night and they were so tasty!

To assemble:

Cut the excess domed tops of the cakes off so that they are nice and flat.

Turn the cake upside down so that the crumbs are on the underneath.  Cover the cake in a thick layer of chocolate fudge, spreading it out using a palette knife.  

Get your round shaped raw cookie dough and carefully place it on top of the fudge.  You may need to reshape it slightly with your fingers so it is not larger than the layer of fudge beneath it.

Get your other cake and frost it with a layer of fudge.  Flip the cake over so that the fudge layer sticks to the cookie dough.  At this stage put the whole cake in the fridge for about 45 mins to an hour.  It will help it firm up before the frosting stage.

Take it out of the fridge.  The fudge will be firm at this point so reshape any areas where fudge might be dripping over the side of the cake.  Get your cookie dough frosting and do a crumb coat using a palette knife.  Put it back in the fridge for 30 minutes.  Take it out and do your final layer of frosting (you may want to whip up your frosting again to make it fluffy just before you do this).  Get a pint glass filled with hot water and a knife.  Put the knife in the water and smooth the top of the frosting and the sides.  Once your cake is completely covered and smooth use 10 cookies to place around the side of the cake.  Use 1/2 cup chocolate chips to decorate around the edge of the top of the cake.  I melted 1 cup chocolate candy melts in the microwave and then put them in a piping bag to pipe the message.  I piped it onto a piece of greaseproof paper and once it was hard, I used a knife to transfer the message to the cake.  If you are confident in your piping skills you can pipe it straight on! 

Serve and enjoy! 

I'm sharing this cake over at Six Sister's Stuff for Strut Your Stuff Saturday.

White Choc Chunk Banana Bread

The last time I made this banana bread it was so tasty that it never even made it to the photography stage! So I exercised a great deal of self restraint this time around to make sure that did not happen!

I made it with milk chocolate chunks the past few times which is super delicious, but this time due to my husbands request I made it with white chocolate instead.  Strangely enough, it just seemed to bake out altogether and disappear! The reason I loved it so much with the milk chocolate chunks was the melting pools of chocolate you would find in each slice so cutting in to it with no white chocolate in sight was a little disappointing!

I used some of the leftover chocolate frosting I had from when I made rainbow cupcakes and after warming up a slice in the microwave for 20 seconds (because in my opinion eating banana bread warm is the only way to go!) I spread some frosting on and it definitely made up for the lack of chocolate coming through.  It started to melt into the banana bread as it was warm and it was a perfect afternoon treat for a rainy Welsh day we were experiencing! 

White Choc Chunk Banana Bread:

Makes 1 regular and 2 mini loaves

From Whipped

1 1/2 cup all plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup caster sugar

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

4 medium, ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 cup white chocolate, chopped

Grease  loaf pans with butter. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar.  Mix in the slightly beaten eggs and mashed bananas. Slowly stir in the melted butter just until incorporated. Chop white chocolate into chunks.  Put it into a bowl and toss it in one tablespoon of flour until all the chocolate is covered (this prevents the chocolate sinking to the bottom). Stir choc chunks into the mix.

Pour into prepared pans. 

Bake  for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center. If you use the mini loaf pans, adjust to about 30 minutes. Just take a peek and if the top is starting to brown and looks cooked, try the toothpick to test for doneness. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.


I'm entering this into the Alphabakes challenge, hosted by The More Than Occasional Baker this month.  The letter for the month was B, I am sure my banana bread will be one of many! 
If you want to join along, Caroline Makes will be announcing the new letter for next month if you keep an eye on her blog.

Some Birthday S'mores Bars...For My Favourite Aunt!

Do any of you have a cool aunt? I have 10 aunts in total and they're all great but Lynne is my very cool aunt who is favoured above all other aunts!

The first time I got to meet her I was 11, she was 28.  She lives in South Africa and so that is why it took us so long to finally meet! The first time I knew she was super cool was when she had just taken us to get some lime milkshakes and we were driving around in her car with the music blasting and she started slurping the last bit of her milkshake, that is something my mom would never allow me to do so I told this to Lynne and she told me I was definitely allowed when I was with her! So we slurped up our milkshakes as loud as we could, and as an 11 year old I thought that was pretty fantastic! 

The fun didn't end there! Every trip I have ever made to South Africa, I have always been crazy spoilt by Lynne! She would always take me on shopping trips, all expenses paid! and she always knew the best spots for cake and frulattas (a South African drink - a cross between a milkshake and a smoothie with chunks of real fruit on top).  We would talk about guys non stop and I would tell her all about my little crushes and who was the current boy of the moment! 

After the first trip I made out there we became permanent 'pen pals' and I still have boxes of the letters she sent to me.  These days it's easier to keep in touch through Facebook and email...although I do miss our letter writing days, since getting post is always that little bit more fun!

Lynne also has a very sweeth tooth, just like me! In fact she was the one who helped inspire me to start this blog because she took me to lots of South African cupcakeries back on my visit in 2009 before the trend had really begun in the U.K.  When I came home I was crazy for cupcakes and I started to bake them whenever I could! There is nothing we like better than going to grab a cake and a shake, oh and occasionally we like to get our nails done too!

 

She also knows all the best restaurants! She took us to one of the Top 10 restaurants in South Africa while we were in Durban, and also to Kream in Pretoria where we had amazing biltong soup!




Harrie's Pancakes was also another great find, a My Old Dutch Style pancake house but with delicious fillings like mango!



and of course all the best little cafe's with cakes and tasty treats...




So it makes me sad that because of a huge ocean and a few dozen countries that separate us I'm not able to bake treats for Lynne on her birthday! but I decided I could bake some treats and share them with her virtually (that's the next best thing right?) So I sneakily looked on her pinterest to see what sweet treats she had been pinning recently and when I stumbled upon these s'mores bars I knew that's what I would bake for her!


Happy Birthday Lynne! I hope you have a really amazing day filled with lots of cake and delicious treats (even if you are only able to look at pictures of it, and not try it!)
Come back to England soon and I will bake you round two of these!

These are definitely the best thing I've baked in a while, the dough actually tastes like a graham cracker so it does taste like you're eating an enormous s'more.  I love the sticky marshmallow and the gooey warm chocolate in between the layers of dough, all the flavours compliment each other perfectly!



S'mores Bars:
Makes 9
From The Apron Gal

113g unsalted butter, at room temperature
50g dark brown soft sugar
112g caster sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
162g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
60g graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp baking powder
3 x 120g Dairy Milk chocolate bars
180g marshmallow fluff (available at Asda or TK Maxx)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Grease an 8x inch sqaure dish.  I also lined mine with parchment paper.
In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light.  Beat in egg and vanilla.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt.
Add to butter mixture and mix at low speed until combined.

Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan.
Place chocolate bars over dough.  They should fit side by side, but break the chocolate if necessary to get it to fit into a single layer.
Spread marshmallow fluff evenly over the chocolate layer.
Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until lightly browned.  Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Bake these for a loved one today - you will not regret it! 

London Town...and the best cupcakes around!

So a few weeks ago I had the chance to go down South for the weekend and I knew exactly what I wanted to do - a day of cupcaking in London with my sister! 

We had planned that we were going to visit a few new cupcakeries that have popped up in the past few months.  The plan was to meet at St.Pancras - I suggested we meet in front of Peyton & Byrne.  That was my first mistake! We were just meant to meet there and then head off to the respective cupcakeries...but as I sat waiting for my sister staring at these cupcakes piled sky high with frosting how could I resist! 

So when she turned up we decided we would pick one cupcake to share, and save it for later and be on our way.

Along the way we stopped off at the Kings Road to visit Partridges and buy some graham crackers.  Of course we just had to take a little stroll around their food market (which is one of our faves!) and when we saw that Crumbs and Doilies speciality flavour was buttered popcorn how could we resist!

This was one seriously amazing cupcake! I don't know how but the frosting managed to taste just like creamy buttery popcorn flavour and having actual popcorn on top was just ingenius - we loved everything about it and devoured it on the spot!

and then we stumbled upon another stall, whose name I didn't even manage to look at since I was mesmerised by these super fudgy raspberry and white choc chunk brownies!!

How could we say no! So we bought one and shared it on the tube as we headed on with the trip.  This was one of the best brownies I've had in a very long time - I must find out the name of the stall and hunt them down again...very soon!

It was getting close to lunchtime and of course we needed to eat some real food so we decided to head to the new Westfield at Stratford.  It opened the weekend after I left London last summer so I hadn't had the privilege of checking it out yet! and in my family we are big Westfield fans.  It certainly didn't disappoint and I think it's got some of the best food courts I have ever seen!

My sister suggested we get a pizza from Franco Manca because she had gone there before and loved it.  Now I am a pizza fan and I eat a lot of it at home, but when I got out for meals Mexican and American cuisine and sometimes Indian just always grab my attention.  Going out for a pizza would probably be at the bottom of my list...so I wasn't too thrilled by this idea but I decided to go with it and trust my sister - she usually has good foodie instincts! and oh my goodness this was definitely the best pizza I've eaten in the UK.  It is made with sourdough bread and you may notice it didn't have any toppings on, just cheese, but it didn't need any other toppings because it was so delicious as is - I can seriously recommend trying this delicious pizza.  It was a hit.

How can it not be when accompanied by a Root Beer float though - courtesy of Chicago Rib Shack!

You definitely don't get those kind of lunches in North Wales, I was loving it! 

After some shopping around, my sister told me we simply couldn't leave without getting a Pinkberry - because, shock horror, I haven't tried one yet! Again I'm not that much of a fan...when in London I would much rather stuff my face with cupcakes/brownies/cookies than with frozen yoghurt, but I went along with it anyway and oh my gosh it was amazing! I am a Pinkberry convert! Did you know they have the yummiest flavours - we got two swirled together...coconut frozen yoghurt and mango frozen yoghurt! How good does that sound, even just on it's own! and then we got it covered with shredded coconut, fresh strawberries, raspberries and mango! 

So by this point it was time to leave Westfield and head to the 2 cupcakeries we were meant to be checking out that day, but have you even just seen the amount of stuff we had eaten already! There was no way I was going to be handle 2 more cupcakes! So we decided to call it a done deal and leave those 2 cupcakeries for another day!

We headed back to St.Pancras and while we waited for my train we ate our Peyton and Byrne cupcake that we had carried around with us all day! We had opted for the toffee and banana, my sister is a huge banana fan! It was sooooo tasty.  You could see the fresh bits of banana actually swirled through the frosting and when cupcakes have a high ratio of frosting:cupcake that is just fine by me! I was loving it! It was a seriously tasty end to a seriously tasty day!

You know it's been a great day when the only photos you took were of food!

p.s can anyone else tell that I am still procrastinating my essay, ahh!