Rainbow Cake, Hummingbird Bakery

I can't believe I'm 17!

In today’s (short) post I wanted to share a new discovery of my mine the delicious Rainbow Cake from the Hummingbird Bakery. It was my 17^th birthday a few weeks ago and of course there had to be cake :) This year I was well and truly spoilt rotten by my lovely friends and family. The highlight of the day was receiving this giant yummy cake from my favourite bakery. A lovely treat courtesy of my mum – thanks mum!

For those of you that don't know the Hummingbird Bakery is a unique American style bakery in London, which offers a range of American style cupcakes, brownies, pies and cakes.

The bakery only opened in 2004 and is celebrating its 10th UK anniversary this year. Unfortunately, they only have branches in the London area at the moment. I wish they would open a branch closer to where I live (sigh)...wait perhaps on second thoughts that’s for the best otherwise I would probably end up a couple of dress sizes larger!!

The Rainbow Cake is the yummiest cake I have tried from the Hummingbird Bakery soo far…

It had a bubblegum flavour in both the frosting and sponge!

There was plenty to go around - we even managed  a second helping in the day! 

I also received a copy of the Humingbird Bakery Cake Days recipe book and will be attempting to recreate some of the hummingbird magic at home soon, particularly the gingerbread cupcakes, which look amazing for Christmas - I will let you know how I get on!

Hope you enjoyed today's post :)

See you next time for more of my ramblings! 

xx

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Afternoon Tea at The Bloomsbury Hotel

It's been a while since I’ve done an afternoon tea review, I'm at sixth form at the moment and unfortunately getting to grips with A’Levels hasn’t left much time for indulging in afternoon tea sittings. So during half term I headed into London for the day for a much deserved break and of course a spot of afternoon tea!

London has soo many choices when it comes to Afternoon tea, there really is something for every budget and every taste. This time we headed to the Bloomsbury Hotel, located just off Oxford Street. The Bloomsbury is a 4-star hotel in the heart of the Bloomsbury district, which is renowned for its literary tradition and is also a stone’s throw away from the shopping district. Culture, shopping and fine dining - the perfect Saturday afternoon!! What more could a girl ask for :)

Although, not the most impressive of Hotels from the outside (well in my opinion anyway), the Bloomsbury definitely does not disappoint on the inside. We didn’t get a chance to explore much of the hotel but the lobby was gorgeous. As you enter the hotel you are greeted by some gorgeous decor - very modern, elegant and chic.

Afternoon tea is served in the Lutyens lobby lounge, which is located in the hotel lobby – surprise surprise :)

FUN FACT:  The Lutyens Lounge is named after Sir Edwin Lutyens who has been referred to as the greatest British architect, who designed The Bloomsbury Hotel in the 1930's - his picture is behind the bar in the Lutyens Lounge.

Sir Edwin Lutyens

We opted for the Bloomsbury classic afternoon tea, which consisted of four scrumptious sweet treats, two freshly baked scones and an amazing selection of FIVE different veggie sandwich fillings!!

The selection of cakes and pastries consisted of:

• Seasonal Tart - This was topped with strawberries and blueberries and had a lovely creamy centre, but the tart itself was very hard and a tad difficult to eat.  
• Lemon Meringue – Mini lemon meringue – fresh tangy flavor and very very sweet. Best to save this treat until last!
• Victoria Sponge – A bitesize version of the classic Victoria sponge, with shredded coconut around the edges and topped with a cream and strawberry decoration. Would have loved a full size version of this!
• Fruit Loaf - This wasn’t really to my taste, I generally find fruit loaf to be a bit dry and bland, so this didn’t really do it for me!

The selection of sandwiches consisted of:

• Egg mayonnaise and cress on white bread 
• Smoked salmon with crème fraîche on malt bread
• Cream cheese, chive and cucumber on caraway bread       
• Pickles on brown bread
• Avocodo with sun-dried tomatoes on brown bread

I can honestly say all of these sandwiches were incredibly filling and delicious. We forgot to inform the hotel about dietary requirements in advance, so were pleasantly surprised by the selection of veggie choices offered. We did have to wait an extra 10 minutes though, which was tough given our growling stomachs, but well worth it :) 

The tea selection on the other hand was not as vast as in some hotels, there were only 9 options to choose from and disappointingly no green tea. I did however really like the way the teas were presented to us in a box by the waitress, which I thought was a really nice touch. 

In fact everything about the service was impeccable, there was always someone on hand to offer help and a refill but I didn’t feel like the staff were constantly towering over you, as I have in some hotels. 

The only downside to the whole experience was the location. The tea was served just off from the hotel entrance in the lobby, meaning you could hear traffic from outside and people coming in and out of the hotel - not the most relaxing place to unwind with a cup of tea! I also felt there were a lot of tables compressed into a small area, although it wasn’t at all busy when we went, at busier times I can imagine it feeling quite crowded.

Overall, I would rate the Bloomsbury afternoon tea as 4 out of 5 for food and service. But unfortunately, the environment was a bit of a let-down for me. I believe the décor and ambience of the surroundings play a big part in the whole experience, so for this reason only I probably wouldn’t opt for afternoon tea at the Bloomsbury Hotel next time. However, that said if you don’t mind being sat in the lobby area and close to the entrance then I would recommend checking out the Bloomsbury afternoon tea offering - it was delicous :) 

See you next time for more of my ramblings!

xx

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Halloween Themed Afternoon Tea

Those of you who have been following my blog posts will know that I LOVE the whole traditional afternoon tea experience and I am always on the lookout for any excuse to partake in a spot of afternoon tea.

Today I will be sharing my very first attempt at a DIY afternoon tea with you. With Halloween fast approaching almost every supermarket and food store is brimming with Halloween themed treats, so I thought why not organise my very own Halloween inspired tea party.

Moving away from the elegance and refinement associated with a traditional English afternoon tea, I decided to unleash my inner child and go all out with spooky decorations, complete with Halloween themed paper plates! :) 

As this was my first afternoon tea at home, I decided to keep it simple and make three different cupcakes: 

Spider Web Cupcakes: This is by far my favourite cupcake, I made a chocolate buttercream and tried to spread it as smoothly as possible. I then piped three circles of white chocolate and used a toothpick to drag through the circles, from the centre to the edge, in order to create a cobweb effect

Tombstone Cupcakes: To make the tombstone cupcakes I spread the same chocolate buttercream I made onto the cupcakes and topped it with an edible tombstone decoration.

Scary Pumpkin Cupcakes: To make these I added orange food colouring to some butter cream I made and for some extra flavour I grated some orange zest into it. To create the scary faces I used ready rolled black icing – mine look slightly evil, but I can assure you they tasted divine and were perfectly sweet!

Sandwiches: Again I kept it simple with my favourite veggie options: cucumber, cheese and onion and egg mayonnaise.

And finally no afternoon tea would be complete without some freshly baked scones topped with jam and cream! In keeping with the Halloween theme I decided to give these an evil face as well :) 

My first DIY afternoon tea was soo much fun to make I would definitely like to do another girly tea party at home. Next time I will ditch the paper plates and try to recreate the elegance of the traditional English tea room - putting my inner child away until next Halloween!

Have you ever hosted your own afternoon tea party? Any ideas on what sweet treats I could make for next time?

See you next time for more of my ramblings!

xx

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National Chocolate Week

Did you know that it’s National Chocolate Week?? - Chocolate week is an annual celebration of all things chocolaty in the UK. This year the celebration runs from 13th to 19th October and is apparently in its 10th consecutive year. With my weakness for a sweet treat, why in my 16 years of existence haven’t I heard about this before?!?

a motto I seem to live by...

I’ve decided that chocolate week is my new favourite week of the year and to get in the spirit of things I decided to dig out my fave chocolate recipe book and get involved in celebrating chocolate!!

This little book is packed with lots of yummy recipes,  all using my favourite ingredient…chocolate!

Today, I decided to have a go at making Chocolate and Vanilla Creams. This is a really elegant yet simple treat to make at home. It only took 15 mins to make and tastes amazing!

I would love to see what all my fellow chocoholics got up to during National Chocolate Week, you can email me pictures on ramblingsofadevotedteadrinker@gmail.com 

See you next time for more of my ramblings! 

xx

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White Chocolate and Raspberry Tart Recipe

I was watching the Great British Bake Off the other day and every time without fail no matter how full I am that show always gives me the sudden urge to rush to the kitchen, grab my “I’ll diet tommrow…” apron and whip up some scrummy sweet treats! Today I will be sharing my latest attempt at home baking with you. I’m certainly no Nigella that’s for sure, but I love to bake, and I reckon I’m alright at it (…well as far as my food technology GCSE stretches!).  

In today’s post I will be sharing my utter most favourite sweet treat – White Chocolate and Raspberry Tart (ooo - just saying it is making my mouth water). I hate sickly sweet cakes… however, with the power of trial and error I have finally found the perfect amount of each ingredient without it being too sweet, but still satisfying my sweet tooth.

This recipe is incredibly simple to make and truly amazing! Hope you like it as much as I do :) So without further ado - let’s bake!!!

Ingredients:

For the Shortcrust Pastry:

180g Plain Flour

110g Butter

45ml (2-3 tbsp) Cold Water

For the filling:

150g White Chocolate

250ml Double Cream

For the topping:

150g Raspberries

Method

Step One: Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line the flan dish that you will be baking it in.

Step Two: To make the pastry, put the flour in a large bowl and add the butter. Just a little warning this bit could get a little messy, especially if you are a clutz (like me) Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until there are no large lumps of butter remaining and it resembles breadcrumbs.     

Step Three: Now in order to bind the dough, stir in just enough of the water you may not need the full 45ml

Step Four: On a lightly floured surface knead the dough for a few seconds until it is smooth. Then, roll out the pastry, make a bigger enough circle to fit in your 23cm flan dish! If you use your rolling pin to lift the pastry over your dish it will prevent from those dreaded tears in the pastry! Make sure you leave enough of the pastry to overhang the edges of the dish slightly.

Step Five: You will need to blind bake the pastry so before you put it in the oven make sure you line your dish with baking parchment and fill with baking beans so the pastry doesn't rise in the oven – baking beans can be fairly pricey so instead you could use any dry rice you have lying around to prevent the pastry rising!

Step Six: After all that hard work put your feet up while the pastry blind bakes for 15 minutes! or if you are good you can start on the washing up…

Step Seven: After 15 minutes take it out the oven (using oven gloves!!) Remove the baking beans (or whatever you used) – be careful they will be VERY hot now and bake for 10 minutes more. Then, leave it to completely cool.

Step Eight: While the pastry is cooling you can start on the scrumptious filling…I like to melt my chocolate in the microwave as I feel it’s the easiest way, but you can use a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water if you feel more comfortable doing it that way. Start by breaking your white chocolate in a microwaveable bowl, then pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds and mix, repeat this step until the chocolate had melted completely - you have to be super careful if you are melting it in the microwave, white chocolate burns very easily!

Step Nine: This is the part where you’ll wish you had three hands! Pour a little bit of the double cream at a time into the chocolate and mix thoroughly – you have to work quickly here as you don’t want the chocolate to harden!

Step Ten: Pour your scrumptious filling into your cool pastry case! This is only part of the whole process I hate…waiting for the tart to set in the fridge, I always end up checking whether it’s set every 5 minutes!!

Step Eleven: Once it has completely set and when you lift it the filling doesn't move then you can move onto the raspberries...if you have the patience you can design a pretty pattern with the raspberries on top, but I like to just scatter them all over the filling! You can also dust it with some icing sugar if you have any lying around!

Step Twelve: Enjoy!...

I hope you enjoyed today's post :) Comment down below if you have any suggestions for future baking projects! You can email me pictures of your creations on ramblingsofadevotedteadrinker@gmail.com 

See you next time for more of my ramblings!

xx

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