Flavour of the Month - October!

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here but here's a sneak peak at next month's Flavour of the Month - Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Frosting! These autumnal little chaps boast a super-moist, squishy pumpkin sponge infused with ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg, and are topped with a delicious dollop of smooth, cool, cream cheese icing. They're amazing, and if you'd like to try them for yourself we'll have some at our regular Saturday hang-out on the Kings Road tomorrow on Duke of York Square. They're also available to order in the usual way of course, and will be at all our markets throughout October.

Free cupcakes at Johnny Cupcakes this weekend!

Hi all. A little bird's told me that the lovely folk at Johnny Cupcakes on Fouberts Place will have a supply of our wonderful mini cupcakes to give away tomorrow. Sweet threads and free cakes? It's a win-win! Shop opens at 11am and of course it's a bit of a first-come first-served type deal. See you there!

New Home cupcakes!

Here's some dual purpose Happy Birthday and New Home cupcakes for Sarah!

Ingredients: Organic Free Range Eggs

The quality of eggs is a huge factor in the taste and texture of any sponge, and of course the quality of the hens' lives is equally important. Happily, the two things tend to go together; happy hens make for great eggs. All our eggs are certified Organic and Free Range, and are delivered fresh from a family-owned and operated farm in West Sussex. The hens that lay them are free to graze and forage outdoors all day, and live in mobile hen houses which are moved periodically to ensure they always have fresh pastures to enjoy. Because the eggs are collected daily and sorted, graded and packed right on the farm they're super-fresh when we receive them (Duncan, the farmer, drops them off at C&D HQ every Tuesday). This freshness and the healthy outdoor lifestyle and natural organic diet enjoyed by the chickens makes for the best eggs we've ever tasted and, of course, amazing cupcakes.

Some of the hens that lay our eggs, doing their thing in West Sussex.

Chocolate SOS cupcakes!

Here's some pretty fun cupcakes we did for the guys at Bloomsbury to celebrate the launch of Sue Limb's new Jess Jordan book Chocolate SOS. I'm not too sure what constitutes a chocolate SOS but I do like to keep a few chocolate cupcakes on hand at all times in case of emergency.

Light peacock wedding cupcakes

We recently the pleasure of setting up these lovely cupcakes for Su's wedding at the Trafalgar Tavern in Greenwich...

Mastodon cupcakes!

Here's some pretty cool cupcakes we did for Mastodon and the guys at PublicCity to celebrate the launch of their new album, The Hunter.

Super Mario Birthday cupcakes

Here's some more Super Mario cupcakes we did for Kai's birthday.

Happy Birthday Kai!

Ken x

Hen Night cupcakes

And continuing the 'same decoration on all cupcakes' theme here's some L-plate hen night cupcakes for Sarah!

21st birthday cupcakes

Here's some big cupcakes we did for Cathy. Not too sure what the occasion was though...

Ingredients: Lescure Butter

Hi all. We're kind of cupcake nerds here at C&D, and the guys thought it might be interesting to take an in-depth look at some of the ingredients that go into what we do. We'll be posting them under the tag ingredients so if you fancy reading long and potentially slightly boring ramblings about butter, flour, eggs and the like then you know where to look... Anyway, what better place to start than with our butter?

It's one of the most important ingredients in any cake, or icing, and we only ever use Lescure unsalted butter for all our cupcakes and buttercream. Lescure has Protected Designation of Origin (Appellation d'Origine Protégée, or AOP) certification, which means it can only ever come from dairy herds in the Charente region of France (a little like Champagne from vineyards in Champagne or Parma ham from Parma). This small, tightly-controlled production area helps ensure that quality is kept consistently high.

When choosing butter for baking the key things to look for are fat and water content; Lescure has a very high fat content and a very low water content, which helps make for a richer, moister sponge, as well as amazingly smooth buttercream icing with a beautiful 'mouthfeel'. It's also matured for a relatively short period during the manufacturing process, which together with the soil, climate and feed enjoyed by the cows (they call that stuff terroir in France) produces a fresh, creamy and very slightly nutty-tasting butter.

Like a lot of the ingredients we use Lescure is a bit more expensive than other options (around 20% more than President and other premium butters) but having tried pretty much everything else going it really is the best butter out there. If you've ever made or tried buttercream icing that left a claggy or oily taste in your mouth, or been left scratching your head at a sponge that came out a little dry, our advice would be to get hold of some Lescure and give it a go. And of course if you're not so much into the whole baking thing then you can always bag yourself some of our cupcakes - it's all Lescure all the time, and we'll never use anything else.

Wonderland cupcakes

Here's some great wonderland-style cupcakes we did for George's wedding. Check out the awesome custom cake stand - the bowls at the end are for dry ice!

Cookery coach talks cupcakes with Crumbs and Doilies

Hi all. Just a quick note for people who like reading nonsensical cupcake-related ramblings (hey - you're reading this right?) that our glorious leader (ahem) Jemma, recently met up with the guys from Cookery Coach to talk about cupcakes, ingredients, Harry Potter and, um, boobs. You can read the interview over on their blog!

Black and White cupcakes

Colourful cupcakes are all well and good, but sometimes you can't beat a bit of monochrome, y'know? Here's some black and white mini cupcakes we did for Anita and Mapara...

Cupcake wedding tower catch-up

Hey guys. Thought it might be a good time to catch up with a few recent wedding cupcake towers, starting with the lovely arrangement from Laura's wedding.

Here's some lovely yellow and lilac cupcakes from Justine's wedding.

And more from Clare...

A ravishing lilac selection for Katy and Ian...

And a fun mix of fuscia and purple for Emily.

Congratulations guys!

Ken
x

Colourful Sprinkle cupcakes

Want all-white icing but still yearning for some colourful cupcakes? Here's a colourful sprinkle selection we did for Katie...

Dar Marrakesh cupcakes!

Here's some cupcakes we did for Sophia for the guys at Dar Marrakesh restaurant, complete with Hookah pipe piping!

Smurf cupcakes!

Two things: 1) Here's some Smurftacular birthday cupcakes we did for Georgia's tenth birthday. 2) My main aim in putting these up was to use the word Smurftacular.

Happy Birthday Georgia!

Ken
x

Blue hydrangea cupcakes

Here's a couple of close-up pics of some delightful wedding cupcakes we did for Emily to tie in with her flowers - blue hydrangeas.

Nanos cupcakes

More super-cute piping work here on these delightful cupcakes we did for the guys at Nanos to help celebrate the opening of their new Notting Hill childrenswear shop.

Air Asia cupcakes

I know these cupcakes we did for the Interstate guys are a little corporate but I just couldn't resist putting them up - check out that piping!

Pink rose wedding cupcakes

Here's a lovely cupcake tower we did for Michelle's wedding...Nice roses!

Daybreak cupcakes - closer look

...Here's a closer look at the Daybreak cupcakes we did - a box of Daybreak ones...

...and a box of OTT spangly ones for Strictly Come Dancing contestant Dan Lobb.

C and D Cupcakes on Daybreak!

Eagle-eyed viewers may have spotted some of our cupcakes showing up on ITV's Daybreak show earlier this week in celebration of National Cupcake week. For those of you that didn't, here's a couple of quick pics!