Cookie Girl

Have you heard of Cookie Girl www.cookiegirl.co.uk? A regular supplier of cupcakes and sweet snacks to the stars, she's a pretty well known figure around the Kensal Rise way - back when i was living there, we used to receive a free magazine where she would have a column every publication.

So when an opportunity arose to spend 2 hours learning to improve my cupcake decorating piping skills for a mere £20 each via Time Out vouchers I jumped at the chance.

Held in the upstairs area of Idlewild http://www.idlewildmaidavale.co.uk/ (where we incidently had our dinner - sausages, squid, chips and other munchies - highly recommended), around 20 of us gathered round tight tables, sharing decorations and passing around coloured icing.

We learnt 4 techniques and took away a decent 8 cupcakes to share with friends and family (or to scoff on the way home).  Some of them were incredibly basic, and I was a little disappointed not to have learnt more detailed decorating technique (but then again, we had booked onto the 2 hour slot) and i'm sure some of the other classes were more detailed.

My friend and I had a fantastic time and the recipe for the icing was amazing, and i've been using it since on all my cupcakes.

I would definitely recommend a team bonding/friend outing/hen do event with cookie girl.

Book it!

My Kitchen Mess

Here's a quick picture just to show how incredibly messy I am when I bake. Note the complete chaos and mess which is my kitchen!

Afternoon Tea at The Botanist

Time Out listed The Botanist as one of the top places to go for Afternoon tea in London, so we headed there with high expectations. A glass of champagne accompanied a delicious selection of hand cut, tiny sandwiches - cucumber, egg and smoked salmon. Two gorgeous melt in the mouth scones and a Victoria sponge cupcake each - break into the centre and jam oozes out.

If you are looking for a classic afternoon tea - then head to The Botanist.


However, if you are looking for good service - give it a miss! Having had the most fantastic service at Bob Bob Ricard the same week - I was expecting roughly the same at The Botanist - but received nothing like it.




We arrived ten minutes early for afternoon tea and were told we would have to wait before placing our order. Making us feel stupid, just sitting there without a menu. We then ordered our afternoon tea with a waiter, asking him to make sure that there were no nuts in the cakes. He came back ten minutes later telling us that as they didn't mill their flour on site, this couldn't be guaranteed - Please, Mr Waiter, point us to a restaurant which does mill it's own flour - as that is something I want to see. Finally he accepted our order!

45 minutes after placing the order, I asked another waiter where our afternoon tea was - he took our order again. Turns out the other waiter had gone on a break without passing on our order. So roughly 3 hours later, we had finally finished our tea.

Check out The Botanist at www.thebotanistsloanesquare.com

Venue: Lovely, traditional setting 4 stars
Food: Amazingly delicious 5 stars
Service: minus 1 - Explained above

Stumble Upon

Has anyone spent half an hour going through Stumble Upon with a focus on food? It's amazing the websites, recipes etc you can find.

I stumbled across Foodbeam.com this morning and what a treat. I'm definitely going to try the Smores cupcakes. Take a look at Foodbeam.com and search for Smore