Monday 4 July 2011

The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days - Review








Sticky Toffee Cupcakes





After the success of their first cookbook, last year, here is the second offering on the cookbook front from the famous bakery. The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days by Tarek Malouf and the Hummingbird Bakers published by Collins in 2011.






A very nice book it is bigger than the first one. Plenty of pictures of the finished baked goods too. It has a good layout, with different colours used in pretty ways. Cupcakes, cakes, loaf cakes, savoury muffins and more. This book takes you through a year at the bakery, and this is clearly reflected in the flavours of the baked goods in the various chapters. The chapters are: Valentine’s Day* Spring Weekend Bakes* Mother’s and Father’s Day* Easter* Summer afternoon Tea* Birthdays and Celebrations* Rainy Day Treats* Halloween and Bonfire Night* and Christmas.







I couldn’t wait to get baking from this one! They say the cupcake is waning in its popularity; well not in my heart, head and kitchen it’s not!! Sticky Toffee Cupcakes were my first bake, and they were closely followed by the next two here that I’ve tried. My friend Kate made and gives the thumbs up to the apple and walnut cupcakes too.




Some of the other recipes I have marked to try are: Apple Blosson Cupcakes, Caramel Cupcakes, Rose Cupcakes, Lemonade Cupcakes, Pea, Ham and Feta Cheese Muffins, Gingerbread Cupcakes and Apple Crumble Cupcakes – to name but a few..






Sticky Toffee Cupcakes



Goodness these are so good they are dangerous! Hubby has declared this as his favourite cupcake ever, ever, EVER! Mind you it’s with good reason, moist sponge with the gorgeous mejool dates I used providing contrast and a dulce de leche buttercream frosting. I topped them with a few more chopped mejools. There was a lot of icing left over, and I’d halve it next time. There will be a next time, I think these might become hubs ‘birthday cake’ this year. I didn’t work out how many calories these have, and I definitely don’t want to know, it would spoil the joy! What I will say though is that I would have bought the book for this recipe alone.






Malteser Cupcakes



As if to contrast the success of the first one, this one didn’t do it at all for us, the cake was neither chocolate-y or malt-y enough and the frosting was just not sweet enough. Can’t win them all.







Banoffee Whoopies



This one however was another hit. I’ve been working myself up to making whoopie pies for some time now, and they are fabulous. They are really filling so small to medium in size would be better than large – well that’s what I think anyhow. Cakey, creamy, moist – delicious!






Next Up: Custard Creams



Next Review: Taste Le Tour


12 comments:

Nickki said...

I've slowly been working my way through the recipes in this book too! The sticky toffee cupcakes are delicious, also the chocolate whoopie pies are really good. My favourite recipe so far have been the chocolate orange cupcakes. I highly recommend those :-)

Maggie said...

The recipes you have chosen look fabulous, I especially like the toffee cupcakes.

Manu said...

Love these recipes! LOL

Anna's kitchen table said...

Ooh, I never noticed the sticky toffee cupcakes! I'll have to take another look after seeing yours!!

Please Do Not Feed The Animals. said...

Well I got this book for Mother's Day but haven't made anything from it at all yet!!!! OH dear!
Well, I know what my first recipe to be used will be - thanks for the review!

Aveen said...

I love this book! My copy is getting quite muchky already, which is always the sign of a good cookbook I think. Try the apple streusel cake, it's lovely.

Kelly-Jane said...

Thanks for your comments. I'll mark up the chocolate orange cupcakes and apple steusel cake, they both sound good :)

bakingteacher said...

I got this a few weeks ago but still haven't used it. Will make sure I start using it!

pharmacy reviews said...

The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days??? what, do they make cake of hummingbirds?? LOL I just find the name a little strange, maybe you could explain a little bit more the name of this event

Shirley Broadway said...

Just made the chocolate whoopie pies and am so disappointed. Mine look nothing like the photograph. The recipes advises to place the mixture in ' mounds' on the oven tray, I did this and they cooked without flattening out like the picture. Therefore when I put them together with the filling inside they were far too big. The texture is too heavy and ' cakey' I imagined they would be lighter and I find them too filling. I am a very capable cake maker and the recipe is very simple so, not sure where I could have gone wrong. Any tips?

Jemmalina said...

I'm baking my way through this cookbook, recipe by recipe (http://www.jemmalina.blogspot.co.uk/) - I LOVE IT!

Every recipe seems to turn out well, apart from a couple of exceptions but that's probably my fault. Their cupcakes are amazing and consistently tasty and by baking through page-by-page I'm trying recipes I would never have tried!!!

Thoroughly recommend this book!

Unknown said...

Your blog is amazing! I've just read pretty much all of your posts, and I'm so inspired to go back to some older, more forgotten cookbooks now. I hope you come back to the blogosphere! Rosie x
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