Birthday Cupcake from Agnes

I am back from a rain filled birthday weekend in Copenhagen.  The rain held off on Friday (my birthday), but the rest of the weekend was pretty dreary and wet.  A little rain and cold did not stop us from exploring the city though.  With umbrellas, rain gear, gloves and scarves in tow, we walked all over the place to get a sense of the landscape of the city.

I think our best unintentional find was Agnes Cupcakes, Copenhagen’s answer to the North American cupcake craze.  Agnes Cupcakes was started in 2010 in Copenhagen by founder, Kristian Vangsgaard.  Agnes runs on a calendar system of flavours so everyday, there will be a combination of staple flavours such as Red Velvet, Carrot and Dark Chocolate and specialty flavours such as Liquorice, Caramel, Sicilian Lemon, and Quince-tea.

The interior of Agnes Cupcakes is a combination of glass, marble and wood; a reflection of Scandinavian minimalism meets cupcakes.  I actually thought, their interior reminded me of Karas Cupcakes in San Francisco with its glass, and wood- or maybe I’ve visited too many cupcake shops and they are all starting to blur together.

I really liked the Agnes Cupcakes display case because their cupcakes are quite textured in their frosting and decor and visually looked attractive on display.  Some of their cupcakes are simple like the one I tasted with a swirl of icing and a fondant cutout on top (think Sprinkles). Others, in contrast, are rolled in chocolate curls, toasted coconut, sprinkles or other fun items to bite into.

Take away cupcakes are packaged in beautiful, brown, branded boxes and dine-in cupcakes are served on a ceramic plate/platter that has a groove to hold the cupcake and a groove to hold a beverage.  Or I guess you could say there were two grooves for two cupcakes.

We arrived at Agnes at around 7pm for a pre-dinner birthday cupcake.  There was some promotion going on where you could buy a cupcake and a beverage for a reduced price, so we went with a tea and a carrot cake cupcake with a cream cheese frosting.  The carrot cake was spongy and moist and the cream cheese frosting had the tang I was looking for.  It was not the stiffest or densest cream cheese frosting that I’ve tasted, but its gooier consistency complement the carrot cake nicely.

I am a firm believer that you can’t judge a book by its cover, which is why we returned to Agnes Cupcakes on our last day in Copenhagen and sampled two (more) of their mini cupcake, just to make sure!

We also tested a dark chocolate cupcake that had a superb, rich, (bitter) dark chocolate frosting that was like biting into a truffle and their toasted coconut cupcake which was fun to eat thanks to all the little coconut shavings.

What I’ve learned from travelling and eating in Europe this past year (and from personal baking experience here) is that ingredients vary from country to country and things like flour consistency can really alter an end product.  I would say that Agnes’ Cupcakes were spongy and moist but not dense, in comparison to a cupcake that you may taste in North America.  However the flavours and frostings were all terrific.  This is the real deal in Europe!

Other People Who Are Talking About Agnes Cupcakes:

1. Unlike.net: Agnes Cupcakes

2. Umamimart: Packaging w*&$^) Agnest Cupcakes

3. New City Mums: Agnes Cupcakes

4. Anarka: Agnes Cupcakes

Sprinkles Ice Cream

For all you Sprinkles cupcake fans out there around the world, here is some exciting news.  You may already know this, I did not, which is why I am excitedly sharing this tidbit of information today: Next month Sprinkles is launching its first ice cream shop in Beverly Hills.  Just look at that shiny, new, white building with a brown ice cream logo just screaming for attention next to their cupcake shop. It’s saying, pay attention to me.  We are coming and it’s going to be amazing.

Photo Source: Sprinkles Facebook Page

If you haven’t heard of Sprinkles cupcakes, you must be living in a cave (I mean that in the nicest way possible).  Sprinkles was one of the pioneers that made cupcakes into a serious, big business for a lot of bakeshops and cupcake entrepreneurs.  If you are interested in learning more about the Sprinkles story, there is a great interview about Candace Nelson (the owner) here and a New York Time article on cupcakes + the Sprinkles story here.  Both very inspiring.

Just look at all the delectable flavours Sprinkles has (see below).  I can’t wait to see what they come up with for their ice cream shop.  Stay tuned!  I wish I could fly to Beverly Hills for the opening.

Photo Source: Sprinkles Facebook Page

Chinese New Year Treats

via the smiling baker

Cupcakes from Lithuania: Kepejai

I’m always a fan of writing posts on baking; an activity near and dear to my heart.  The location of this post may be a bit exotic to my North American readers but I love it as it demonstrates how universal the cupcake trend has truly become.  Kepejai, is a bakery in Vilnius, Lithuania.  How did I find out about Kepejai you ask?  I’ll tell you.  If you don’t mind a somewhat convoluted web search story that I am about to type…..  Here it goes:  I discovered their shop while reading through a cool, new, online Lithuanian (English) design magazine called “Llamas’ Valley” (page 122).  I came by Llamas’ Valley in a post written last week by one of my favourite blogs, Vosgesparis.  Complicated web-searching aside.  I fell in love with Kepejai’s contribution to a wedding photo shoot by Fotopastele (seen below) and decided to share it with my readers.  I hope I have the opportunity to visit Kepejai in Vilnius while I am living in Europe.  I was already planning on making a trip to Riga, Latvia sometime in the future to check out an old-world Jewish bakery in the city that I read about in this article.

 All photos via Fotopastele and cupcakes from Kepejai 

Halloween

Happy Halloween from Prague. Belive it or not, Halloween is celebrated here, however not to the North American standard and extreme with crazy decorations and trick or treating.    I had a great weekend visiting a local farmer’s market, shopping around several grocery stores in search of baking supplies and baking up a storm for a Halloween party.  As I was researching what to bake for the Halloween party, I stumbled a cross a couple great recipes that I would like to go back and try such as Chef Dennis Pumpkin Crunch Cake and Sweetapolita Autumn Delight Cake.  Both of these cakes look sumptuous.

I ended up baking two items from classic New York bakeries: Magnolia Bakery Vanilla cupcakes with a lemon butter cream (from cookbook: More from Magnolia) and decorated them with chocolate sprinkles and colourful gummy worms. I also made a batch of Fat Witch Bakery chocolate pumpkin brownies covered in a chocolate icing (from cookbook: Fat Witch Brownies) and my own scary mix of crushed vanilla wafers and fall coloured chocolate covered pumpkin seeds.

Halloween marked my first baking endeavour in Prague and boy did I learn something about the availability of baking ingredients fast.  Apparently, it is IMPOSSIBLE to find food colouring in Prague, hence why no orange frosting on my cupcakes.  It is also IMPOSSIBLE to find vanilla.  Instead I found some gross smelling vanilla extract in 15ml bottle (the size of your pinky finger) and vanilla sugar, which I am familiar with from European cooking shows but I was not about to attempt to introduce a new ingredient to my repertoire last-minute and risk having to throw out two batches of baked goods.  The other thing I found perplexing was the brown sugar situation.  Brown sugar comes in crystal form, not the rich, soft type you can buy in North America.  How am I supposed to make chocolate chip cookies with brown sugar crystals….  I hope someone who is reading this post will have some insight. Anyway, the baked goods turned out great.  The process was good fun and a good adventure. Happy Halloween.