We Love Local: Crumbs & Doilies

Tell us a little bit about Crumbs & Doilies.

Crumbs & Doilies is a bespoke cupcake and cake bakery. We bake to order and we also sell our cupcakes at market stalls in Covent Garden and Chelsea. C&D is made up of a small team of dedicated and skilled cake obsessives, baking in small batches in our Wandsworth kitchen.

When and how did the bakery first begin?

I set up Crumbs & Doilies in 2006 with my very first market stall in Brick Lane. I had been working at Rose Bakery in Comme Des Garçons’ Dover Street Market store in Mayfair but felt I needed a new challenge so I decided to start something of my own. Cupcakes were almost unheard of back then so the stall was a big hit and soon I needed help! My friend Sam came on board, built us a website and we started taking orders. Since then, Crumbs & Doilies has gone from strength to strength and now we operate out of a big kitchen in Wandsworth Town and have six employees, supplying our customers with anywhere between 1 dozen and 10,000 cupcakes!

What do you think makes Crumbs & Doilies unique?

Crumbs & Doilies makes some of the best tasting and best looking cupcakes in London. Everyone who works here has an unmatched obsession with quality, great ingredients, attention to detail and creativity. We have some truly unique flavours on our menu; Cinnamon Toast, Lemon Mess, Honey & Rosemary and Caramel Pretzel, to name but a few.

Have you worked with any amazing clients? If so, do you have any particularly funny or memorable requests?

We have made cakes or cupcakes for some fairly big names, such as Lily Allen, Paul McCartney, Keira Knightly and many more. Our clients have really put us through our paces and we have made some pretty interesting orders over the years. The biggest order we ever made was for 10,000 cupcakes which were used to make a mosaic of a cherry blossom tree for a Japanese TV show. The best wedding order we ever did was a countryside theme complete with a 6 foot tableaux with rolling hills, flowers, cows and sheep. Instead of cutting the cake the couple poured liquid nitrogen out of teapot to make it go all smoky!

What goes into creating the flavours behind your cupcakes?

We work as a team to create new flavours. Everyone brings their ideas in, and we make a shortlist of ones we think would be a hit. Then we split into teams to create the recipe; there is tasting, tweaking, more tasting and then the finished product is presented! It sounds great, right? But you try eating upwards of 8 pinches of cake in the same hour! Our inspiration comes from all over the place. I’m particularly fond of turning dishes and desserts we know and love into cupcakes, like the Cinnamon Toast and Cherry Bakewell, for example.

Tell us about the different services you offer.

We supply cupcakes and cakes to order. We can make anything from all-white vanilla cupcakes to a mix of flavours and colours with completely themed and customised bespoke cupcakes. It’s the same for our celebration cakes. We have a great range of affordable off-the-shelf cakes in a variety of flavours but if you want to re-create the entire Mario Kart computer game over 6 tiers of delicious cake then we can do that too! Our cupcakes are also available to buy at our regular Thursday market in Covent Garden and Saturday market on The King’s Road.

At Douglas & Gordon, we love local. Why do you love Wandsworth?

I was born and raised in Wandsworth and so I have a deep connection with it. My mum still lives in Earlsfield! I love the variety of people, I love how big it is and how it varies section to section. You get the little boutique atmosphere of places like Bellevue Road and Old York Road but with just a bit of urban reality scattered in between! I absolutely love Wandsworth Common and like to walk my dog there when I come to visit my mum.

I am really excited to see what is going to happen to Battersea Power Station! It’s been one of my favourite buildings in London since I was little and it’s had so many false starts over the years so I really hope this is The One! To a lesser extent I am also looking forward to seeing The Ram Brewery develop over the next few years. It’s a big part of my childhood memories. I remember seeing the Shire horses pulling the carts filled with beer barrels all the time when I was little. They still come out once a year for Young’s AGM and they sometimes rest on Old York Road while the meeting is going on!

Crumbs & Doilies is collaborating with Douglas & Gordon for the love of all things local. To find out more about their delicious cupcakes and cakes, follow them on Twitter at @crumbsandoiliesor visit them on their website at crumbsanddoilies.co.uk.