Mostly Cupcakes

If you've been in the shop recently you may have noticed an unusually large amount of pink, paint, not to say a great smell of cake, among our usual bookish and serious activities - and wondered what it was all for.

Well, the sign next to the heater saying 'beware wet paint' wasn't anything to do with a bit of springtime DIY, but was the pièce de résistance of our secret Cupcake Window, which we can now unveil.

The twin celebrations of it being Mother's Day - and a new book from those folk at the Hummingbird Bakery - was too much to resist and we wanted to share our new window which went up today! Many thanks to Ellie and Karen for all their hard work.

Ellie's three-tier cupcake stand is the stunning centrepiece of our cupcake window. (The photo doesn't do it justice - I may have to try another tomorrow.)

Even if you've yet to be won over by the wonder of cupcakes, surely everyone likes a bit of celebratory cake.

The Hummingbird Bakery has been at the forefront of the baking trend and was the first American cupcake bakery in the UK. Their new book 'Cake Days', is a beautiful, highly photographic book packed with easy, fun cakes that are focused on those events and celebrations when people love to bake.

And our Mother's Day special offer will give you £5 off the book.

 If you look closely in the bottom right-hand corner you can see Ellie's homemade cupcakes, complete with tiny hummingbird designs.

Ellie's creativity wasn't just about cupcakes - this is her home made three tier cake (book) stand, which is the feature point in our window. As you can't really tell now it is covered with books just how wonderful it is luckily I took a picture when it was still a work in progress.

Finally - if all of this has made you feel hungry for some, erm, cake - drop in on Saturday - while you are browsing for a perfect Mother's Day gift and card you can sample some of our favourite recipes as we will be serving cupcakes all day (while stocks last). And believe us, we have tried a lot of recipes over the last few weeks to find our favourite and our best!