Plant-Based Cakes at Harrods

Be careful what you wish for. Somehow, I’ve not yet slipped into a diabetic coma; a miracle given the amount of sugar I’ve consumed over the past few days. turns out that having a birthday does not immunise one from sugar spikes. Perhaps in trying to keep my sugar high going and avoid the inevitable crash, Himself came home the other day with a quartet of individual plant-based cakes from Harrods. Let the birthday festivities continue!

Although they came in a lovely (Tiffany) blue Harrods box, the creators of these delicacies are Ruby’s of London. It seems they have a presence in Harrods food hall. There were four cakes in all: red velvet, carrot cake, chocolate dinky donut cupcake and vanilla dinky donut cupcake. As they were gifted, I had to do a bit of research to figure out exactly what they’re called; pretty sure I got it right, apologies if I’m off. What I can tell you for sure, though, is that they taste great.

Red Velvet

First off, it looks the part, with the red sponge topped with vanilla cream and dusted red. Cutting it open reveals it’s anatomy of about 40% cream, 60% cake. Being a glutton, I was happy to see this. The cream was as rich as you would want but also light and not cloying. Perhaps leaning a bit sweet but as vegan creams go, it was excellent.

The sponge was dense, moist, and tasty with good texture, a nice contrast in consistency to the cream. Sometimes I find vegan cream cakes can lack in texture variety, being one lump of sweet softness, but not here. It was the red velvet you would want it to be, delicious and decadent.

Carrot Cake

The carrot cake looked as you would expect, a small brown log with cream nicely piped across the top and garnished with a few carrot shavings and crushed walnuts. Cutting it open revealed a decent cream to cake ratio; less than the red velvet but appropriate for a carrot cake. The cream is soft but has a sweet icing sugar like consistency, dissolving quickly in the mouth with a caramel after taste. It is distinctly different from the the red velvet cream and not as successful. The cake itself is tasty, very moist with big walnuts inside. It’s a solid carrot cake but not a standout.

DINKY DONUT CUPCAKE - CHOCOLATE

The last two cakes are dinky donut cupcakes. They both look fantastic.

Let’s get the worst out of the way first: the donut. Delicately placed on top of each was a small, glazed donut. It looks delicious but once you take a bite you realise there’s nothing donut about it and it doesn’t taste very nice. It has the consistency of a dry sponge. It tastes sweet but the texture is mealy and in no way resembles an actual donut. Surprisingly, the glaze of the donut itself is really good, in stark contrast to the donut itself.

The cream on top of the cupcake. is it’s rich, creamy and smooth. Another excellent plant-based pastry cream. After testing the donut, my expectations for the sponge of the cupcake were rather low. Happily, the sponge is proper chocolate cake; moist with good texture and passes the closed eye test. When you taste with your eyes closed, you can still tell it’s chocolate. You’d be surprised how many chocolate cakes are only chocolate in appearance and ‘neutral’ or vanilla in flavour. When your brain sees something that looks like chocolate cake, it fills in the taste bud blanks to give the full experience.

A decent cupcake overall. My advice is to enjoy the donut glaze, throw away the donut itself and devour the rest.

Dinky Donut Cupcake - Strawberry Vanilla

The last on the menu is a vanilla cupcake with a strawberry donut. Again, it looks great garnished with some freeze dried strawberry pieces

As with the chocolate version, the strawberry icing of the donut has great flavour. However, the donut itself is, again, is dry and mealy, only to be used scrub the crispy bits off your bakeware. The vanilla cream is proper creamy, smooth, and satisfying. While the sponge doesn’t really taste of vanilla, it is moist and delicious all the same.

TLDR

The red velvet cake was the highlight, followed by the dinky donut cupcakes (sans donut) with the carrot cake coming in last. If you have a sweet tooth, they are worth a try. I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find significantly better in London, definitely worth a trip to Harrods.