The Sugar Bar

(*Cupcake teaser only. Real feature next week!)

I’ve been thinking, dreaming, sleepwalking cupcakes all week.

Every day I’m saying to myself “All I want is a cupcake!”. When the sun has set and dinner is polished off the plate, all I’m thinking is “I need a cupcake!”

No doubt my favourite motto in general is “When you’re feeling blue, have cake (or a cupcake if you prefer smaller portions)!” I mean there are quite a few signs showing here, aren’t there?

And when I went for my first job trial at LUSH, this is the new season product that I purchased - Let Them Eat Cake lipbalm which smells of cinnamon, orange peel, vanilla and black treacle. Simply gorgeous and smells a little bit like Christmas. It’s hard not to bite my lips or eat the balm off it. Unfortunately (and also thankfully), the balm is taste-free. Other than its wonderful scent, its main function is to condition and moisturize your lips!

I was in Harrods a couple of days ago. I was literally in the area and wasn’t intending to go shopping at all in Harrods. Honest, I promise! I was there in this house of ridiculously ostentatious goods simply to use their bathroom as the bladder was giving me the ‘Red Alert’ sign. I couldn’t have possibly survived the tube journey home across London in such a state. Strangely enough I got lost very quickly attempting to maneuver myself out of the building only to find myself in the Food Hall. Surprise surprise. And which counter was I standing directly in front of? Lola’s Cupcakes! Another sign!

In such a situation, who would ignore all the signs and deny themselves one of the simple pleasures of life - the enjoyment of a little harmless, albeit naughty, indulgence in the semblance of a sugary cupcake? I’ve never known myself to utterly resist my fate to the end so I gave in. After I left the university library today, I hopped - hang on, no, I descended into the Inferno-like underground at Russell Square - and zipped my way to Hummingbird Bakery in South Kensington. I may have spoilt my appetite a little (Mummy always said no sweets before dinner!) and feel a tad bit sick from all the sugar and creamy goodness of the icing, but I do not regret it one bit.

The last time I visited Hummingbird was a little over 2 years. And at that time, I really wasn’t impressed at all. We’d visited the shop on Portobello Road and my sister and I each had bought a mini cupcake, mine obviously being the Red Velvet which is my prized and most treasured flavour. A mini cupcake was about 95p for one with the red velvet costing 20p more. They were definitely small but we were blown away, not in a positive way, by the sugary-ness of it all. It was small and had simply no other taste than vanilla and sugar. There wasn’t any fancy packaging at the time either and we were served our cupcakes over the counter in a little square bit of tissue paper. We weren’t impressed. In fact, we had to chuck about 3/4 of the generous icing dolloped and shaped onto the cupcake just so as not to choke and spasm out on the sugar overload. Nevertheless, it was a busy Saturday and we managed to find something else to amuse ourselves with and other yummy stuff to munch on amongst the many stalls in Portobello Market.

I suppose that memory has stuck very much with me and I always write off Hummingbird as a sorry and melancholic wish to be like NYC’s Magnolia Bakery. I think I might have to change my tune now, however. 

My mate and I are planning to make a little tea trip down to the cupcakery café some time next week but curious me simply couldn’t just wait til next week. Besides, I wanted so badly to post up a cupcake teaser on the blog so I decided to pop in and take-away 2 cupcakes. The one with the green vanilla icing is a chocolate cupcake with vanilla icing (£1.55/cupcake for takeaway). Just like the Magnolia cupcakes, they have a pretty selection of coloured icing ranging from pink, blue, green to yellow topped with different types of sugar sprinkles. The cupcakes in the window are iced with shocking pink frosting and sprinkled with gold dust. They were a looker! And definitely made the cupcakery easy to spot.

But what about my all-time favourite and truly adored Red Velvet (£1.85/cupcake for takeaway), which is also the star of the show - Cupcake von Tease? Did it still taste disappointingly sweet and unexciting or had Hummingbird totally upped its game in the last 2 years?

Verdict? They certainly did! And I loved this cupcake so much I gobbled it down real quick. The cream cheese icing was just perfect and I found myself licking up every bit of it, even the bits that got away along the cupcake liners. It wasn’t too sweet and you could certainly taste the smooth cream cheese. The cupcake itself was a gorgeous red colour with a wonderful cupcake texture. Flavour-wise, it was rich, lush and accented with chocolate and vanilla. Red velvets aren’t heavily chocolatey and this one wasn’t either but it had a deeper savoury-ness I found absolutely delightful and contrasted the cream cheese sweetness of the icing perfectly. Nothing was chucked and definitely not disappointing to me at all. In fact, I was so pleased with my cupcake I’m determined to take-away another box of them to share on my next trip down to Hummingbird. So damn, I should’ve warned you about these cupcake spoilers huh? Time to getchaself some cupcakes people.

Nevertheless, here’s a bit of a teaser for the next feature on the Hummingbird Bakery! Or a cupcake strip-tease if you like. Apologies for totally disregarding the chocolate cupcake but I truly love the red velvet and thought something red, such a vibrant bold colour, would be more of a tease when stripped. Funny? I hope!

Like my hot red nails too? Yea. All for the true and very dedicated cause of the Red Velvet. Whey.

Okie dokie. End of teaser. Hope you enjoyed it. I know I sure did enjoy stripping the red velvet and then eating the damn thing in less than 4mins. I mean eating it from frosting to sexy cupcake bottom! I stopped all I was doing, didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t breathe, didn’t look at anything else but focussed all eyes and mouth on the cupcake. All good!! Mmmm. If you want more cupcake tease, please stay tuned to The Sugar Bar for Diva’s proper visit to the Hummingbird Bakery!