Last week I joined my mum on a long awaited shopping trip to Chichester after finishing university . Our mother and daughter days out usually involve numerous sweet treats and this day was no exception. After coffee and cake for breakfast, a trip to two chocolate boutiques and an Italian lunch we were pretty full, but couldn’t leave Chichester without visiting our favourite local cupcake shop, Swallow Bakery. I LOVE cupcakes and I am always on the search for the best around town (my current favourite being Peggy Porschen in London).Swallow Bakery is a cute little shop in the middle of Chichester High Street with both inside and outside seating. It boasts a large selection of savoury pastries and cakes, specialising in scrummy cupcakes. When testing a cupcake from a new shop, I usually go for vanilla sponge with butter icing as it is easier to compare quality by tasting the same flavour. However, because this was my third visit to Swallow Bakery, I thought I would try something different – banoffee!
One may say I’m slightly fussy when it comes to cupcakes. I won’t even consider a cupcake unless the icing covers the entire top of the sponge and it HAS to be butter icing. I don’t like hard icing, drizzled icing or even whipped creamy icing – not on a cupcake anyway!
The banoffee cupcake consisted of a banana sponge filled with gooey toffee sauce. The sponge was light and bouncy and included chunks of soft banana. The toffee filling complemented the sponge perfectly and really added to the banoffee flavour and moistness of the sponge. As all cupcakes should, a rich butter icing was generously placed on top of the sponge, finished with a triangular slab on white chocolate for decoration. Pure bliss!
My only criticism with the cupcakes from Swallow Bakery is that they are VERY sickly and it would be impossible to have this as an after meal dessert or have more than one at a time (where as I can easily consume multiple cupcakes from Hummingbird Bakery!). When compared with other cupcakes, I think the sponge could be a little lighter and the icing a little less sweet in order to offset the sickly feeling you get after indulging in the last mouthful. That said Swallow Bakery still scores pretty highly in the cupcake ranks with an impressive 7/10.
Living life, loving cake,
H x