Cupcake Blog

Article on our name change in the local press! Click the image to enlarge…

Sometimes in life we have to make big changes, something we’re doing right now!

In 2009 the Jacobs family created Indulgence Cupcake Company as a small, at home business. Soon enough the demand for our cupcakes grew and it was in 2012 that Indulgence Cupcake Company were awarded the contract to supply Virgin Atlantic with cupcakes as part of their Afternoon Tea Service in their Premium Economy and Economy cabins.

Our happy customers kept on coming back and asking us for different things like brownies, cookies and muffins so we decided to add them to our product range. The same care and attention goes into all the tasty things we bake as it has done for our cupcakes. The finest ingredients, tried and tested recipes and methods. We soon realised we would need a new company name to reflect the new product range and that we’re not just a cupcake company any more but a fully fledged bakery!

Why “Raise”?

Some people get the connection straight away, the word is a play on the fact that most baked products raise when baked. But there’s a whole other reason for choosing our new name which relates to our family culture. Growing up, raised by Marjory, our Mum and Nan, we were taught that everyone is equal and we should be a useful part of our community. As our business became more successful we realised we had more power and influence to do exactly that.

Whether it be a fundraising event, a sponsored run or walk or even sparing a few hours to help a local community project it was something we enjoyed doing. So much that it’s helped shape the direction and culture of our company. We’re helping people and communities to raise up, and this is where the name came to mean even more to us. We’ll be announcing more about our plans and will be completely transparent about the work that we’re doing to support our communities and charities not only locally but further afield.

Important bits you need to know

If you’re a regular customer of ours or just started to work with us you’ll notice a few changes.

• Raise is our trading name, we’re registered as Raise Bakery Limited. You can just call us Raise.
• Our email addresses have now all changed to @raisebakery.com.
• Our new website is currently being built.
• We’ll be answering the phone as “Raise”
• All invoices and documentation will not have our new company name on it.

If you have any further questions or would like to know more please contact Jeremy Jacobs on 07776 252789 or jeremy@raisebakery.com.

Take a look at these yummy corporate  cupcakes we recently did for a special birthday for Amazon! They went down a treat and the client was really happy with them

Jeremy Jacobs on Cupcake Wars

If you love cupcakes then you must have seen hit US TV show Cupcake Wars which is aired on Food Network in the US and Food Network UK here in the UK?

Earlier this year Jeremy Jacobs was invited over to the US to take part in the hit show and show off what Indulgence Cupcake Company had to offer! We can’t say much more at the moment because at the time of writing the show has not aired in the UK, You’ll have to tune in on Friday 21st September 2012 to find out how they did!

Cupcake Wars UK special edition airs September 21st 2012 at either 4pm or 8pm on Sky Channel 262 (+1 263), Freeview Channel 48 or Freesat 403 (+1 404). Tweet your experience on Twitter

More information:

5 minutes with Jeremy Jacobs from Indulgence Cupcake Company

Behind the scenes at Cupcake Wars

Follow Indulgence Cupcake Company on Facebook or Twitter

A family run cupcake company will soon by flying high after securing a lucrative contract to provide cupcakes for Virgin Atlantic’s on-board meal service.

Indulgence Cupcake Company, a mother, father and son outfit started just three years ago, has signed a supplier contract with the UK’s second largest long-haul airline, which will allow the company to increase its turnover by 250 per cent.

The Sussex based cupcake bakery currently employs just one full-time member of staff, but as a result of its work with Virgin Atlantic it has now recruited two more full-time employees and will shortly be employing another two part-time.

From the 1st June passengers flying on Virgin Atlantic will enjoy the cupcakes as part of the airline’s economy and premium economy afternoon tea service on 15 flights departing from London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow.

Indulgence Cupcake Company managing director Jeremy Jacobs said:

“We’re so excited to be chosen by Virgin Atlantic as a supplier for their on-board meal service. Being a small family run business it’s a big win for us and is made even better by having the honour of supplying one of the UK’s most respected brands and a well-loved airline.

“We are committed to supplying the best Britain has to offer. Our cupcakes are 100% British produced using my late Grandmother’s recipe, she would be so proud of us. Our cupcakes are hand baked just a few miles down the road which is great for keeping those food miles down.”

Steve Griffiths, Virgin Atlantic Chief Operating Officer, said:

“Indulgence Cupcake Company is a fantastic little business. Its ascent from start-up family outfit to a company which supplies a number of global brands embodies the Virgin spirit, and we’re delighted to be working with a local company.

“We are passionate about supplying our passengers with the very best product and service on our flights, and we are confident that they will absolutely love having these cupcakes as part of our new afternoon tea service.”

Indulgence Cupcake Company will be moving premises to a larger facility to cope with the demand and may look to expand staffing levels still further.

High volume production is nothing new to the company as they currently handle regular orders from other brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Sky, American Express, Europcar and sister company Virgin Holidays. The contract with Virgin Atlantic also fits in line with their business plan to expand and offer their cupcakes through retail outlets and expand their product range beyond just cupcakes.

ENDS

For further information, please contact Jeremy Jacobs at the Indulgence Cupcake Company on 01273 419727 and the Virgin Atlantic Press Office on 01293 747 373. Alternatively log www.indulgencecupcakecompany.co.uk or www.virginatlantic.com

Notes to editors:

Indulgence Cupcake Company is a family run Sussex based cupcake bakery supplying the highest quality British cupcakes to the retail, consumer and corporate market. All their cupcakes are hand baked in Sussex using the finest ingredients and free range eggs.

I have been a keen baker all of my life and love to try out new recipes, and sometimes I know what I want to bake but can’t find a recipe for it. This is when I get all experimental!!

Last weekend I baked an absolutely gorgeous Farmhouse Fruit cake and promised to post the recipe, which I will do at the end of this blog.

One of my favourite recipe books is a 1967 edition of Good Housekeeping’s New Basic Cookery. Yes, the book was born before I was, and some of the recipes are extremely basic (the custard sauce recipe always makes me laugh as the ingredients are: custard powder, milk and sugar. I think the author just read the instructions from the side of a Bird’s Custard Powder tin!) but it has some great classic cake recipes.

I wanted to bake a nice Farmhouse Fruit cake and in this book there is a recipe for a Plain Fruit Cake which I used as starting point, but I wanted it to be extra moist and have a nutty texture so I reduced the fruit content and added a banana, some chopped walnuts and ground almonds.

Don’t be scared to play with your food! Baking is fun. Yes, sometimes it can go horribly wrong but, as with everything in life, you learn from your mistakes. I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t had disasters in the kitchen. I for one have had more than my fair share, but as time has gone on and I have become more experienced they are becoming few and far between. Start with a good vanilla cupcake recipe and you can create different cupcake flavours, change it to a chocolate cupcake recipe, or add grated lemon rind to make lemon cupcakes. Once you are confident with small and simple changes you can start getting braver!

Cake recipes contain a balance of ingredients. There are no rules to say that you can’t put your own twist on a bake, you just need to keep the balance right. In this instance I calculated the total amount of dried fruits (5oz) and instead added just 3oz of sultanas, 1oz of chopped walnuts and 1oz ground almonds. As the walnuts and almonds are a lot drier than the fruit I knew that adding a small mashed banana wouldn’t make the cake too heavy and wet.

There is nothing nicer than creating your own recipe.

 Jo’s Farmhouse Fruit Cake

8oz / 225g Self-Raising Flour

3oz / 85g Butter

3oz / 85g Demerara Sugar

3oz / 85g Sultanas

1oz / 85g Chopped Walnuts

1 small / medium Mashed Banana

2 medium/ large eggs

Milk

Heat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line (or use a cake release spray) a 7inch deep sided cake tin or 2lb loaf tin.

Sift the flour. Cut the butter into cubes/small pieces and rub into the flour until the mixture is like fine breadcrumbs. You may wish to use a food processor for this, I confess to being a traditionalist and enjoy doing this by hand. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix together.

In a small bowl mash the banana until smooth-ish (I quite like the odd small lump) before adding it to the dry ingredients along with the eggs, and stir gently but thoroughly. Add the milk 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time until the mixture is of ‘dropping consistency’ – this is when the mixture is firm and not sloppy, but will drop off of the spoon.

Pour the mixture into the tin and level the top with the back of a spoon.

Bake for approximately 1¼ hours – if you are unsure check the cake after just over an hour. Do this by sticking a skewer / knife down through the centre and seeing if it comes out clean. If not, continue to bake, checking not more than every 5 minutes. When baked, remove from the oven and leave it in the tin for just a few minutes to begin to cool. Then carefully turn the cake out onto a cooling rack.

When completely cooled cut a huge slab and enjoy!

Jo

We a very lucky cupcake company to have such loyal customers! One of those customers is Virgin Atlantic who have place a number of orders before and who we now supply cupcakes for their pre-order inflight shopping service.

The latest job was for an event at London’s Canary Wharf. For this job we used their logo on our printed edible discs. We then colour matched from their logo to produce three colours; white, purple and red. We’re really please with the result and can see the coloured buttercream not only adds a layer of decadence but also helps encourage Virgin Atlantic’s branding! Tasty

If you would like to know more about our excellent corporate cupcake service then just give us a call on 01273 419727 or email us at contact@indulgenceupcakecompany.co.uk.

Jeremy

We were contacted by a lovely customer who wanted some very specific designs for their cupcake order. One of them being these fanatic Union Jack cupcake designs. Well done to Jo for putting these together.

We have to admit they were a little more time consuming than we hoped but we hope you’ll agree the end result has a great impact. These would be perfect for a Jubilee street party or a celebration to kick of London 2012!

If you would like to place an order please call us on 01273 419727!

Jeremy

What’s the best colour for a company they deals in sexy lingerie? Pink of course! Another example of our popular corporate cupcakes that we recently did for La Senza in Brighton.

If you want to know more about our tasty cupcakes give us a call, 01273 419727.

I heard on the cupcake grapevine that a certain LA based cupcake bakery called Sprinkles is looking to set up shop in the UK. For those of you who don’t know Sprinkles claim to have kick started the whole gourmet cupcake crazy globally. Less we forget the whole Magnolia Bakery/Sex and the City craze that, to me, was the true catalyst.

I have had the pleasure of visiting their original shop in LA, nice, small and soon to be opening a 24 hour cupcake ATM, lovely for the cake addicts of LA! I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting the founder Candace, she’s nice too! On the whole I wish them ever success, in the US!

Something irritates me about their global expansion plans in the UK, their product isn’t suited to the UK market. Some of the cupcakes are nice, some are not! In particular the vanilla cake which was bland and dull, border lining on bread! Nothing like the rich and buttery cupcakes we supply our customers!

I have visited the US a lot, my Granddad is American and I have a real affinity with the country but when it comes to cake I believe there’s a massive divide. The texture, the ingredients, the flavour, everything about an American cupcake is different. Us Brits love our cake, I mean we love our Afternoon Tea. We have a staunch, institutional attitude toward cake, much like our cup of tea and our highly refined palate means we’re quite particular about our cakes.

So does the UK need another US style cupcake bakery? Short answer, No.

I know what you’re probably thinking, I am getting my knickers in a twist because it’s more competition for us? Short answer, No. We know our cupcakes are loved and we use a uniquely British recipe which is tailored for the British market and something we know whichever country you are from you know you’ll be getting the very best cake the UK has to offer! I mean hey, even Virgin Atlantic loves our cupcakes.

So Sprinkles, and you other cupcake bakeries thinking of come over to dominate our green and pleasant land with your American cupcakes, think again. We’ve worked very hard to provide the UK with top quality Great British Cupcakes so you stick to your side of pond.