That's Noice!

I was in Melbourne for a short trip last week, and thought while I was there I would have to find a cupcake bakery to visit for a review, as we are running out of Sydney bakeries ;)

Little Cupcakes was closest to where I was staying, so it was the chosen one.

I found the super cute little store tucked away in a side street. The cupcakes look fabulous all neatly lined up in the display window. They have regular and mini sized cupcakes. Couldn’t wait to try one, had been a few months since my last cupcake!

I bought the Strawberry, Red Velvet, White Choc + Raspberry and Vanilla. I should have known better than to wait… should have gotten a picture and had a little taste straight away but after a long tram trip in the warmish weather they didn’t fair so well. Such a shame, they were beautifully packages in a little box and a cute little carry bag.

I wasn’t about to let appearances put me off and despite looking like a jumbled mess, I could still taste each of the icing flavours and cakes. They were delish! Icing had wonderful flavours and wasn’t too sweet. The cakes were lovely and fresh, not dry at all. The White Choc and Raspberry one was divine, with a lovely raspberry centre.

Little cupcakes, as must visit. But i’d suggest stuffing them in your face asap ;)

Little Cupcakes
Shop 7 Degraves St and TG06 Goldsbrough Lane Melbourne.

I don’t think there were too many Aussies who didn’t watch and get totally hooked on the ch10 reality show Masterchef.

One of the highlights of the show was patissier extraordinaire Adriano Zumbo and is amazing creations like his crockenbush and chocolate mousse cake, that have become somewhat of a household name.

Adriano is now giving you a chance to get your hands on one of his amazing Masterchef chocolate mousse cakes!

Adriano is making a limited edition run of 100 Chocolate Mousse Cakes for sale to the public.

Due to the popular nature of these now infamous cakes, customers will be drawn at random from a ballot system and be given the option to purchase the cake for $90.00.

5% of the proceeds will be donated to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Last week he also held an auction for a crockenbush and a slice of chocolate mousse cake. He raised over $1000 and all proceeds went to The Children’s Hospital.

Simply email your FULL NAME and a contact number to gimmecake@adrianozumbo.com and you could be in the running to buy one!

Anyone care to buy one and share a slice? Check out Adriano’s site for more details.

Brasserie Bread in Botany is an AMAZING place. It has been voted #1 for breakfast in Sydney by a number of newspapers and magazines.

I was lucky enough to pop in there a few weeks ago for quick coffee and dessert. The bakery is viewable through a huge glass window and it’s fascinating to see bakers do their thing. Oh, and the food tastes great, too!

The best part was the classroom – Brasserie Bread offers classes for adults and kids. When I took at look at the classroom it was full of kids making pizza dough – flour was EVERYWHERE and the kids were having a ball rolling out the dough and adding all the ingredients. I wanted to get in and join them!

The team at Brasserie Bread also blog and tweet regularly, giving us even more insight into how a bakery operates.

I’m thinking of booking myself in for the Artisan Baking Workshop later in the year – hope they’re patient enough to deal with me, hehe.

It was freezing cold when I was cruising by the sleepy mountain town of Katoomba, but I knew I had to stop by and check out Cupid’s Cupcakes. Rumour had it that these cupcakes were worth driving from Sydney for.

The shop itself it quite small – only a couple of tables inside to enjoy a coffee or hot choc with your cupcakes of choice. They had a special offer of buy 10, get 2 free, so I splurged and bought a dozen large cupcakes for $35.00.

There are a huge variety of flavours, which seem to change daily – jaffa, cookies and cream, devonshire tea, lemon meringue, rainbow sprinkles, orange, strawberry, mocha, passionfruit, choc mint… My favourite was the raspberry and white chocolate, a surefire combination to win me over every time.

I drove these cupcakes 2 hours’ west to my sister’s and we scoffed them all up within 12hrs of me arriving at her house:

All of the cupcakes are a mud cake base with frosting on top. Some of the cakes were a teensy bit dry but the frostings were all delicious. The decorations are simple, allowing more room for frosting – the best part!

When I drove past Katoomba again the following day, I couldn’t help myself and bought another dozen cupcakes. Michelle and Phillip, the owners of the shop are incredibly friendly and offer all sorts of information about the cupcakes and try to help making the difficult job of choosing flavours a bit easier.

The store is currently for sale and all I can do is hope that the cupcakes stay the way they with the new owners. It’s hard to find a cupcakery that has a nice balance of aesthetics, flavour and quality and Cupid’s Cupcakes is one of the best.

And yes, definitely worth driving all the way from Sydney!

Cupid’s Cupcakes
30-32 Katoomba Street, Katoomba
(02) 4782 1244

Sydney’s My Little Cupcake is offering a selection of Easter-themed cupcakes including chicks, bunny faces and Easter eggs.

Their cupcakes are available in chocolate or vanilla cake with the trademark My Little Cupcake pink, green and yellow vanilla butter cream frosting.

My Little Cupcake is also selling Easter gingerbread biscuits, which are available individually or in gift boxes of 6.

It’s been a while since I’ve driven north-side, so I think I’m going to have to make a trip to My Little Cupcake soon. It’s worth going just to see the store—it’s adorable!

My Little Cupcake
62 Ben Boyd Road, Neutral Bay
Phone: (02) 9909 3908

It’s taken me over a month to get to The Cupcake Room, after much drooling over their web site. Looking at the beautiful designs, it was hard to believe that they would look just as good in real life.

I was due to visit some friends for afternoon tea and knew I wouldn’t have the time to make my own batch of cupcakes and it worked out perfectly for me to get to The Cupcake Room before they closed for the day.

Parking in the local area can be tricky, but not overly difficult with lots of side streets to choose from. The shop is very simply decorated, allowing the cupcakes to really speak for themselves.The cupcakes are colourful and the varying designs were stunning — I dare you to walk into this shop and NOT be inspired.

The girls behind the counter are friendly and happy to answer my questions before I put in my order. Unfortunately, because I arrived an hour before closing time, I only had the vanilla flavour to choose from, but there was no shortage of designs. My selections are piled onto a platter and taken to the back counter to be packaged up.

Other staff were icing special-order cupcakes just behind the counter and I got to ogle at their supplies and try to work out their techniques. I like that I could see the bowls of coloured icing and the piping bags and little drawers filled with decorations — definitely no factory production lines here.

Cupcakes are $2.50 each and I consider the price to be a dead-set bargain. Other cupcakeries focus on flavours and have simple decorations. These cupcakes, while not as adventurous in the flavour department, are beautifully decorated with a mixture of royal icing and buttercream icing shapes. All my friends who saw my purchases were in awe of them!

The flavour of the vanilla cupcake and the buttercream icing was tasty enough, fresh and a nice size — not too big or small.

If another time comes when I need some cupcakes and I don’ t have time to whip up a batch myself, I’ll definitely be going back to The Cupcake Room!

The Cupcake Room
131 Balmain Road
LEICHHARDT
9564 2642