My Riviera Wedding

I first started hearing about cupcakes in a big way through a friend in London who was raving about a new bakery and tea shop in London’s South Kensington; the now famous Hummingbird Bakery. Cup Cakes are increasingly ‘en vogue’ and are replacing more and more the traditional wedding cake. Cupcakes, otherwise known as ‘fairy cakes’ in the UK, are an American invention consisting of a sponge cake cooked in a cupcake baking tray then decorated with different colours and flavours of brightly coloured butter icing topped with edible decoration.

The great thing about cupcakes is that they are completely customisable and can be made to coordinate with any theme or colour scheme, also, they are a perfect one portion size; not too heavy or filling after a large meal. The downside however is that the traditional ceremonial cake cutting is a little more challenging. What many cup cake suppliers offer is a tier of cup cakes with a regular cake on the very top which is used for the cutting of the cake.

Below are details for two cupcake companies that I have recently come across on the French Riviera:

• Scrumptious: I found Scrumptious through google a few weeks ago and have since met up with the owner of the company Naomi Parsons. Naomi is based in Le Bar sur Loup about 25km from Cannes and 30km from Nice and delivers homemade cupcakes anywhere between Saint-Tropez and Monaco for weddings, birthdays and other special events. Naomi has a culinary background as a chef, working both for catering companies and for her own private clients. Her cupcakes are delicious and come beautifully presented in fun pink packaging. Naomi pays special attention to the creative, edible decoration which she uses to add the finishing touch to her cupcakes. You can reach Naomi at Scrumptious by email naomi@scrumptious.fr or by telephone on +33 (0)6 11 66 29 71. www.scrumptious.fr

• CupCakes Blvd: I met the owner of CupCakes Blvd at a wedding fair in Cannes and was so thrilled to have found my first cupcake baker in the South of France. CupCakes Blvd is a new company which started out in June 2009 and is run out of a unit in Golf Juan. The company offers made-to-order personalised cupcakes, traditional American style wedding cakes, fun personalised cookies and cakes made from candy and sweets. The owner, a Francophone lady called Anna Perrotin, is contemplating opening a ‘salon de thé’ selling her cupcakes and other products in either Cannes or Monaco, at some point in the not so distant future. You can reach Anna by email on contact@cupcakes-blvd.com. www.cupcakes-blvd.com