I didn't eat a single cupcake for a whole month! Yes that's right from the 25th of December till the 25th of Jan I was cupcake-free! So after some thought I decided to end my cupcake-fast at Lola's cafe in Selfridges (somewhere I've been meaning to visit for ages!) with a couple of their charity cupcakes.
I previously blogged about Lola's Kiss it Better cupcake, and Manny had expressed an interest in their Hazelnut Vanilla cupcake after I mentioned it on here. Since blogging about it, Lola's had announced that 100% of the retail price from their nutella cupcake was going to survivors of the Haiti earthquake - so we were not only stuffing ourselves but doing our bit for charity too.
The cafe is very small, with only enough seats for about a dozen or so people, and as its in Selfridges and looks rather inviting, its difficult to get a seat. This was my 3rd try at a sit down cupcake experience in Selfridges and we got lucky - grabbing a table being used by a member of staff, who kindly took her laptop elsewhere :)
We ordered our cupcakes and a cappuccino for me, mocha (with whipped cream) for tubby Manny. Firstly the coffee, provided by Vida e Caffe is amazing, some of the best I've tried - really flavoursome and well made, and they came with a little square of Lindt dark chocolate which made Manny even happier as he now had something to dunk in his whipped cream. I had seen him eyeing my flake and was guarding it from him.
So, the cupcakes. Last time I tried Lola's Christmas cupcakes I was a little over-whelmed by the amount of food colouring and a lacking of vanilla flavour, however there were no issues with these, they were wonderful. The base of mine was soft and flavoursome and the frosting was very tasty indeed. The smarties and flake worked really well - and I loved the fact that it was designed by a 4 year old - it looked and tasted like something a 4 year old would love! Having said that the 37 year old me loved it too, but then I'm a child at heart, especially when it comes to food! Manny's nutella frosting was fantastic (I took a little smidgen to try it). Oh and as well as the lovely cakes, you get proper mini-cutlery to eat your cupcake with, which is ideal as sometimes wooden forks impair the taste of your cupcake!
I'm not sure if you can still get these cupcakes in Lola's as tomorrow is February but I urge you to pop along and see - the money is going to good causes, and the cakes are definitely worth trying.
