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!

Bangles and dinosaurs.

I said the strangest thing to a friend yesterday: ‘Remember that when we were fighting dinosaurs in the past, we didn’t need bangles then.’ Everyone knows I’m a little mental, a little quirky in the head but that completely threw K off a little and I’m not surprised. Even I was a little taken aback by my little out of the blue statement. I blame it on post-exam traumatic disorder.

Our final year ended yesterday at 5pm after our last undergraduate exam. We hit town for some food and ice cream and did a quick shop for some much-needed holiday stuff – you know the whole shebang. I also had a quick look for something pink as two of my mates are throwing a belated 21st birthday party tonight and the theme? You guessed it – pink. Pretty hard for someone like me who refuses to own any sort of pink clothing unless it’s close to fuschia or purple. I had to count my blessings as well that it wasn’t, by some odd stroke of bad luck, Barbie themed. I’d rather have someone shove bamboo under my nails then turn up as a Barbie. Unless of course my life depended on it, then I’d change my tune. What a fickle schmickle I am.

Right. So we left town with nothing pink. I had a back-up plan, obviously. Hairdresser pink nails and loud pink-verging-on-fuschia lipstick. Can’t go wrong there now can I? So where is the relation to dinosaurs and bangles then? Well, in Accessorize I picked up a très cute pink bangle with gold sakura decorations. Pink? Yea it was cute. Sakura? That’s so my thing. K, my Barbie shopping devil, was totally for getting it. Unfortunately, we left town without that particular bangle (I refuse!) and K was chatting about it on the walk home to which, I replied that we didn’t really need bangles. That bangle was a want, not a need. If prehistoric women didn’t need them, I guess I don’t either. 

So the equation goes something like this:

Dinosaurs = no bangles –> ∴ Present day = no bangles 

My pink costume may not compare to the Barbie-inspired get-ups of my fellow friends (it’s about 2 hours to party-commencing time and I’m starting to get a little worried now actually) but I’m hoping the birthday cupcakes will steal the show. Or at least, please – fingers crossed-, impress the people they’re meant for. It has been a very long while since I was in the kitchen for more than 10 mins and it was fab to get back in the zone again today. I may have gotten a little fuzzy and curdled my cream cheese frosting (gosh, it’s always a hit and miss with this one. If you have the same problems, scroll to the bottom of the post for the link to Joy the Baker’s Cream Cheese Frosting 101), but you can’t beat the therapeutic feeling of beating butter or icing a cupcake. Heaven! Apparently, sifting icing sugar into a bowl was rather hypnotic for some as well. Interesting. I didn’t quite realize I wasn’t just quirky and odd, I apparently have magical powers as well. I am soooo liking this.

I see the light (beyond the curdled cream cheese frosting). I anti-bacterialized the sink, soaked the tea towels in hot, soapy water and in the process, pretty much poached my poor hands as well. I am ready to reclaim the kitchen as my holy arena! Blast kitchen slime. Bless lime juice and dusty clouds of powdered sugar. Blast the Wyndham Lewis & Ezra Pound who murdered brain cells and bless the new day of eggs, flour and baking powder. Carpe diem. So much freedom now that we have finished. A week to our Salou, Spain holiday so bless St. Tropez and fruit cocktails. Summer-time fun is the best! 

So anyway, it is off to prep for some 21st birthday bashing. Hope all of you are well. It looks like it is time to wow some friends with Vanilla cupcakes. Woop woop.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients

For the vanilla cupcakes:
230g unsalted butter, softened
2 cups caster sugar
4 large eggs
2 3/4 cup plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350dF.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
Beat the butter on high til it whitens.
Add caster sugar and beat on high til light and fluffy for about 3 mins.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with milk and vanilla, ending with flour as the last addition. Combine to incorporate but do not overmix.

Line cupcake trays with liners and fill to only 2/3 full.
Bake in preheated oven for 20-22 mins.

For the vanilla cream cheese frosting:
230g unsalted butter
6 oz cream cheese (I used light cream cheese)
2 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups icing sugar

Beat butter at medium speed until it whitens and is creamy.
Add cream cheese and beat. Add the vanilla and 3 cups of icing sugar to start. Beat at low speed until light and fluffy. Add the rest of the sugar, if you like, to your preferred consistency and sweetness.

*Note: I find cream cheese frosting a real pain. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it so wrong. The final result being a curdled, separated mess. Frustrating and annoying, there have been times I have just thrown spoons of frosting down on the floor, thrown a little tantrum and cried. For the best tips and proper (when I say proper I mean relatively fail-safe, the more careful method really) directions to make them, I recommend going to Joy the Baker‘s site for her Cream Cheese Frosting 101.

I wonder if it’s the advent of the Spring/Summer 09 Collection, MAC’s release of its Creme Team collection, Valentine’s Day or just a general sense of girlishness overcoming me that’s starting to get me to fancy the colour pink. I’m talking about the pink of pinks – the sweetest, sugariest pink you’ve ever come across. I’ve always been pretty adamant about pink being an empty colour, simply a non-colour – a mere shade. Talk about the hierarchy of colouration and pigments! Frankly speaking though, it’s somehow been drilled into my head from young that pink is a shade lacking in sophistication, associated with whimsical froufrou-ness, found wanting in the depth and strength of hues like fuschia, violet and turqoise. Hence, when it comes to lipstick shades I find myself steering towards (if I have to) going for pink shades with either tints of blue/orange in it or going for a pink shade that’s rather dark and not at all baby-ish.

Somehow, my head’s gone a little weird and I find that baby-ish pinks are so it for Spring/Summer. I’ve gone and bought myself a Vivienne Westwood brooch in shades of light pink and purple. I leave a Firefox tab on for Deeba’s  Strawberry Refrigerator Cheesecake and gush at the gorgeousness of that pink cheesecake for hours on end. I’m making a date with my ex-Beauty/Fashion editor on Monday to go makeup shopping, and the end result of that is definitely a couple of lipsticks and glosses in that kitsch shade of pink. I have a feeling I’m to become completely maniacal and funkedelic in my choice of colours. Somehow, that’s going to affect my cooking and I’m gradually getting fearful of the bottle of red food dye in the right corner of my kitchen cupboard.

YIKES!

It hasn’t not happened before. Half a year ago, I went insane over green and still am – just check out my window sill and overall bedroom decor (some examples below). You can imagine how my love for matcha and the colour green came together in some sort of passionate explosion of green gooey edible whatsits everywhere, every day… Still is today actually. It hits me in waves.

After visiting the lovely Milk and Honey Cafe, I fell in love with Sarah’s Strawberry Cupcakes (click the link for the recipe) and absolutely knew I had to have some as well. These were simply the perfect St. Valentine’s treats. The drool was literally rolling off my tongue and spilling onto the laptop. In my cupcake-stunned state, I made a very grumpy and embittered Goodchild drive me to Sainsbury’s for ingredients. Talk about the bitter singles on Valentine’s Day, geeez!

My cupcakes aren’t half as beautiful as Sarah’s. I really should have made an effort but at 4 in the afternoon, it was getting dark. I was getting a little sleepy. I kinda slowed down a little. Nonetheless, I love Sarah’s recipe. I followed the cupcake bit exactly and my oh my did they taste fantast-alicious! Frosting wise I messed up a little as it just got a bit too wet and drippy. Ended up making a buttercream of sorts, adding a couple of tablespoons of the strawberry sauce and adding some red food dye (I can’t resist this stuff). One thing about being away from my home kitchen is that we don’t have a sieve, an electric mixer or proper mixing bowls. Hence, I’m always hesitant when it comes to the icing and never confident that I can make good, stiff enough frosting without my proper equipment. It’s a gamble each and every time. Today, I might’ve messed up a little but thankfully it still sorta worked out and the end result is fairly pretty.Most of my housemates have gone home for the weekend. This year is a little depressing for all of us as we’re all – except one – single! Left alone in the house, Anna and I were definitely not going to let ourselves get moo-moo ish about it at all. Kitchen’s cleaned, music’s pumping, cupcakes-a-cooking. Blimey, we were in a well good mood. Not a sight of a grey cloud hanging over our heads. Nothing wrong with being single. In fact, there is nothing wrong at all with being single or attached. So come on, let’s really enjoy Valentine’s for what it really is. Let’s go non-commercial and have just good ol’ fun with friends, families, loved ones.

Happy St. Valentine’s everyone! Have a joyful, laughter-filled and wicked time.

If you’re looking for the recipe, check back up this post for the recipe link to Sarah’s blog Milk and Honey Cafe. Now I shall change out of my floury scruffies, sit back relax, and wait for Anna to whip up some posh dinner for 2 tonight. Fantastic!