Embrace the Cake: four of my favourite temptations

There aren't many foods that are more welcoming than cake, if you think about it (and believe me, I have thought about it longer than most normal people would). Cake is like the equal opportunity posterboy of food - it welcomes everyone with open arms, regardless of colour, creed or taste. There's a cake for everyone, even vegetarians. Cakes come in all forms, shapes and sizes: fruit cakes, chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, hell even ice cream cakes. I mean, a pork pie is basically just a meat cake when you get down to it (Heston made one out of ice cream just to prove it). I have yet to meet a person that didn't like any cake....you may hold out and dislike a certain type of cake, but there are so many different ones that eventually you'll come across one that hits the spot. A good cake is like a hug from that auntie you really loved when you were a kid, you know, the one that gave you sweets on the sly and liked a bit of a drink.

Many will argue that the best cake you can get is the one made by your mum or your grandma, the one with the secret ingredients where you get to lick the bowl. And while I believe that's largely true for other dishes, when it comes to cakes I've got to give credit the real experts. Nostalgia tastes better than almost any ingredient you can buy, but sometimes you just have to tip your hat to perfection.

So with that in mind, I wanted to write about the best cakes that I have found in London, and where you can find them. Now this is hardly a definitive guide, but these are my go-to places after many, many years of eating cakes in London. If you have tried these places and found somewhere even better, then by god I want to know about it. If you haven't tried the places below, I cannot recommend them strongly enough for any fellow-cake lovers.

My Favourite Chocolate Cake

To me, chocolate cake is very much like spaghetti bolognese. Virtually anyone can make an average chocolate cake, but to make it incredible takes serious skill, talent and restraint. I've lost track of the number of average chocolate cakes out there, from the plasticy Cadbury's-esque birthday cakes you get (bit like eating a huge Mini-Roll, although there's nothing wrong with that) to the overly dry, hard chocolate cakes that go stingy on the icing. Getting it absolutely right is bloody hard, because chocolate is one of those flavours where the typical "just add more" logic can ultimately be its undoing. When you get an average chocolate cake, it's usually completely overloaded to try and mask its shortcomings in a flood of sugar and sickliness and therein lies the problem. You have to pick your moments, and hit the perfect chocolate taste in such a way that by the end of the meal the person doesn't feel sick to death. The very best chocolate cakes make you immediately consider having another piece, and to hell with all the people staring at you.

(On the side-topic of chocolate overload: on very rare occasions, and in the hands of experts, chocolate overload can be a good thing. The best example of this has to be the Chocolate Nemesis dessert at the River Cafe. The Chocolate Nemesis is basically what would happen if a chocolate cake, mousse, and fondant all had a baby together. And then bathed it in chocolate. But this particular dessert is made with some of the best chocolate money can buy, and is a bit like a visit from Jesus, but without the lectures.)


No, the perfect chocolate cake for me, is about quality and not quantity. Taking an average chocolate sponge and then drowning it in chocolate icing, chocolate bits and chocolate shavings is more of a shortcut to diabetes than a great cake. There's a balance that's essential, I think. And the single greatest embodiment of that balance for me, is the Curly Whirly cake from Konditor & Cook.

My girlfriend had been raving about K&C to me for ages, so when I finally made it to their little cafe inside the Curzon Soho, it was with great expectations. Even for a small concession, it's got a warm and welcoming vibe, cinemagoers mingling with shoppers and cakeaholics alike. They do a great variety of miniature cakes, cookies, meringues and brownies, but I was magnetically drawn straight to the Curly Whirly. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest to hear that this is their top-selling cake by a considerable margin. Delicate, fluffy, yet dense chocolate sponge layers are draped in a velvety smooth vanilla bean icing, with a token swirl of light milk chocolate on top. The quality that most immediately strikes you when you plunge your fork into its juicy chocolate heart is how light the whole thing is. The chocolate sponge is luscious and moist, yet doesn't clog up your mouth and has a gorgeously rich chocolate flavour that is immediately countered by the luscious vanilla icing. The second thing that strikes you is that it's not too sweet - you're not reaching for your water after every single bite. It gets everything right that you can ask for from a cake, and it's chocolate flavoured as well as an added bonus. I pretty much devoured the entire thing without blinking, before staring longingly at my victim's family trembling behind the protective casing of the display counter. As far as chocolate cake goes, it's my perfect 10.

A Small Answer to a Big Question

When you go to someone's place for dinner, the standard assumption is to bring some wine along, at least for the dinners that I go to (I'm missing out on the crazy dinner parties where you bring absinthe). Generally speaking, you bring a little tipple so that you don't drink your hosts dry. But one curious situation that I have come across is when you are either A) dining with a host who has great taste in wine and an ample supply of much better stuff that you can find at your local off license, or B) going to dinner with a load of people who are also all bringing wine and there's no way in hell you will drink it all. So let me suggest a little twist - take cupcakes.

The cupcake craze swept across London a couple of years ago, and thanks to places like the Hummingbird Bakery, these little parcels of joy have slowly embedded themselves in our confectionary subsconscious. Cupcakes also come with the added bonus of the "how do you eat it" game. I say this because people have a myriad of different ways of consuming cupcakes. While most of you probably peel away the casing and then go to town, devouring icing and sponge in equal measure, the popular thing to do in New York, for example, is to tear the bottom half of the sponge off and stack it on top of the icing to create a makeshift mini victoria sponge-type contraption. Other people, nutters though they may be, eat from the top down and just vaccuum all of the icing before polishing off the naked sponge below. Frankly, I'm not one to judge - whatever way gets the cake into your face without any of it touching the ground is A-OK with me.

Legendary.

The Hummingbird was actually started by a guy that went to my old high school, the American School in London. Noticing a cupcake-shaped hole in the market, he leapt in and set up the bakery with a clear identity and a killer product. To this day, there are few places in London that deliver a more consistent, high quality cupcake than the Hummingbird. They have branches in Soho, South Ken and Notting Hill, and you will see queues out the door on a daily basis. Kids, parents, tourists and students, everyone wants a bite. They were the first people to introduce Red Velvet cupcakes to the wider London audience, and these little badboys are their hallmark so you would be insane to visit without trying one. That said, their one-offs like the Sticky Toffee Pudding cupcake (epic) are always worth a try. Their cakes are certainly not too shabby either, but their real strength is the cupcakes.

The Ultimate Cupcake

Now after all that, it would be entirely understandable if you expected me to say that the Hummingbird does the best cupcake in London. And here's the thing - they do great, affordable cupcakes, and a wonderful variety that's great for accommodating guests and dinner parties. But if you want to really go after the Everest of cupcakes, the one cupcake to rule them all, you have to head over to the darkside.

Nestled within a patchwork quilt of sex shops, bars and bookshops in deepest Soho, Cox Cookies & Cake is not your typical cupcake shop. In fact, it looks more like a cross between a peep show and a neon Dentist's surgery. It's the sort of place old tourists probably rush past hurriedly, heads lowered in fear of what lurid affairs lurk inside. What they miss of course, is that instead of actual boobies, they sell boobie cakes (brown and white, of course).

Take your best shot, punk.

If there was one quality to Cox Cookies & Cake's products, it would be that they are both a little bit racy, and expertly crafted. They are also tremendously expensive for what you get. But in the case of one particular cupcake, what you get is the single most perfect cupcake I have found in the city. A cupcake whose every element is better than you would have any right to expect. A friend of mine vehemently called it the equivalent of a foodgasm, and after having finally sampled one myself, I would have to agree. I am, of course, talking about the Red Skull Cake.

A sumptuous chocolate sponge with a raspberry compote centre, tucked underneath a mountain of cloud-like red frosting. On top of this volcanic carapace perches a dark chocolate skull, questioning the bravery in your soul. Can you handle a cupcake this badass? Let me tell you right now, you can, and you should. It could be the harbinger of your eternal doom and you would still eat it in a heartbeat. It is certainly more expensive than your average cupcake, but then the Red Skull Cake laughs at average cupcakes and kicks them into a pit full of rabid tigers. It is a true guilty pleasure, and it is unrivalled in its delights.

The Four Corners of Awesome

For the longest time, I thought the best brownies ever were the ones made by my mum. Even though she would put frosting sugar on them, and occasionally added chopped walnuts, they were still the best brownies I had had. They were certainly superior to the icky, "luxury" brownies you seem to find in various bakeries here in London, where the chocolate is so unctuous it's a bit like trying to eat wet ceiling paste. I can kind of understand why people like brownies that wet, but for me they seem to miss the ultimate point of a brownie: it should be chewy, slightly crispy on the edges, and have a bit of substance when you bite into it. It should also have at least one edge extra crispy from the baking pan, which actually led me to a thought - since everyone's favourite bit of a brownie tin is the corners, why don't we make brownies that are all corners? I think we could be on to something here people.

Yes, you want it. I know. It's ok, it was amazing.

Until the day that some wonderful plagiarist creates the four-cornered brownie, we will just have to do with the wondrous squares of chewy chocolate goodness from my lovely neighbours at The Brownie Box. Located on Old Brompton Road in Earl's Court, the Brownie Box has been an absolute godsend on those weekends when I'm craving something cakey and nearby (which is most of them). Imagine my joy then when I discovered that this newly opened little shop serves up the best brownies I have ever tasted in London. The main thing I have to stress, is that they just don't taste anything like other brownies. They are richer, chewier, and more dense, with a deceptively light taste and glorious little nuggets of milk chocolate hidden away inside like small pleasure buttons for your senses. But the texture is closer to a really moist cookie, rather than the gooey schlock that you get in other brownies. There is definitely a secret ingredient nestled away in the depths of their recipe, and I think I may have figured it out, but I will leave that for you guys to figure out on your own. Pay them a visit and treat yourself to a couple of brownies, you won't regret it.

P.S. I should also just note that the Brownie Box also does a staggeringly good Carrot Cake, which my girlfriend happily devours (when I don't eat it before she does or am distracted by other cakes). It is the size of a small ship, lathered in cream cheese frosting and drizzled with a light caramel sauce that just yells at you to eat it without hesitation. Their Red Velvet cake is also glorious.

It's probably safe to say, after all this, that I am a fan of cake. I would probably bleed cake. I have had a love/love relationship with cake for the better part of my life, and will happily continue to seek out perfection wherever it lies. If you've never quite understood the attraction, go and see some of the people above; you might just discover you've been a fan all along.