Oh Edinburgh! SO much food, so little time! we are usually only ever in Edinburgh for half a day or so and we try to fit in as many tasty treats as we can!!
The first week we moved to Scotland happened to be my birthday, and as we all know I love spending my birthday's eating as many baked goods as possible! So we had a rather awesome bakery crawl around the city, starting off with Mademoiselle Mac! I had heard great things about this mac-ery. Sadly most of the flavours were either whisky or irn bru or just standard fruit flavours. Nothing too inventive here, so I ended up just ordering a chocolate and mint flavour one - they were pretty good but not the best macs I've ever had.
We headed onto Lovecrumbs, this was one of my favourite Edinburgh bakeries the last time we lived in Scotland. Sadly on this visit I wasn't too keen on many of the flavours of the cake but I did spy some key lime pie that of course I had to get a piece of!
We headed to lunch at Burger...
which I've heard being compared to the Shake Shack of the North. I still haven't made it to Shake Shack in the UK which pains me so much so I was definitely expecting big things!
The burgers were super tasty, but even better was the create your own milkshakes! Raspberries, oreos & brownies? all in a thick shake - yes please!! and it was an oreo, peanut butter combo for By!
It was also Ella's first time trying a milkshake. She had never been able to work out the mechanism of a straw up until this point, but miraculously after being presented with the milkshake, she worked out how to sip that thing up in no time! definitely her mommy's daughter!!
We finished off our day by heading to our other fave bakery, Mimi's Picnic Parlour. This is the smaller version of their original bakery in Leith. Fortunately, unlike Lovecrumbs -they definitely didn't let me down on flavours and I literally wanted everything in the shop! Snickers brownies? Coconut bounty slices? Nutella cupcakes? and then I saw this nutella raspberry slice and it looked so dreamy I knew I had to get it!
Coconut, walnuts, chocolate and caramel? all in a delicious magic bar type slice for By! The perfectly sweet ending to a very sweet birthday!
We also took my mom and aunt to the original Mimi's Bakehouse in Leith when they came to visit...
Not only do they do amazing cakes, they also have a great savoury menu consisting of french toast and pancakes with bacon and maple syrup and these great pulled pork rolls we had!
but of course we were most excited about what was going to follow...let me explain how hard it is to choose when you go up to their cake counter -
So so hard! but I can never pass up a coconut treat, this coconut bounty traybake slice was out of this world good!
and we all fell in love with By's creamy dreamy cinnamon roll!!
My mom and Aunty Di shared a beast of a mini banoffee pie - that wasn't quite so mini!
and we even found room for some Mary's Milk Bar ice cream later on! because when in Edinburgh it is a must visit!!
We have been so many times over the summer and I still can't stop ordering their hazelnut gelato, it is literally a nutella lover's dream! it tastes like a melted ferrero rocher!
If you can crumble in your own nutella macaron then that takes it to new heights of tastiness too!!
I picked up that mac at the foodies festival I went to with my foodie loving friend Joanne.
They were seriously good!
I was also super excited to see The Marshmallow Lady there! She does awesome gourmet mallows with flavours like key lime pie, oreo and coconut! She was also making these amazing s'more pops that we just had to indulge in!
A gourmet mallow, dipped in chocolate, covered in oreo crumbs and then they blow torched the mallow right before your very eyes! it was all kinds of awesome!!
Joanne had also never been to Mimi's before so of course we headed to the picnic parlour
and were lucky enough to grab some seats (there is minimal seating inside this one) to enjoy our goodies...
I had this amazing nutella and peanut butter blondie! and Joanne couldn't pass up a marshmallow topped cupcake rocky road style!
I also headed to Mimi's after an airport pick up when Nicola came to visit!
and I introduced her mint loving self to their amazing mint aero slice - it's seriously to die for!
and it was this white chocolate, peanut butter blondie for me! I could honestly visit Mimi's every day for a whole year and still find amazing flavours and bakes I haven't tried yet - they have such an amazing variety and that is one of the reason they are my fave!
I had planned to hit up Cuckoo's Bakery on my birthday bakery crawl,
but even I have a limit on how much sweetness I can take in one day (I know some of you don't think that's true...but really it is!) so it was on my list of places to go back and visit.
Ella and I went for a mommy daughter date there one midweek morning...
and shared the most delicious white chocolate & raspberry cupcake - it has won awards in Scotland! and of course we had to get a shake from their menu! Ella picked the peanut butter one, she is peanut butter crazy! and it was a super fun little cake date together!
This summer, we also discovered she's crazy for ice cream too! Here she is 'sharing' but mostly stealing Auntie Mara's milk flavour ice cream, and yeah we're back at Mary's Milk Bar - we can't stay away!
She also decided my hazelnut frozen hot chocolate looked good enough to share!
She was right! it was insanely yummy! They were featured in a buzzfeed article and that pretty much led to them having queues down the street all summer long! We liked Mary's before it was cool!
Let's finish on a time when I went to Lovecrumbs and was much more impressed with their flavours! this coconut and passionfruit cake was amaaazing, it was a coconut sponge filled with a passion fruit curd in the middle and coconut frosting on top!
Seriously delish, and my uni friend Nad went with the Banoffee Pie...
and we forced Ella to pose for pictures which she wasn't too happy about! but then she got some cake and she was happy again!
So, as you can see, although I have only found one good cake shop in the whole of the Borders so far, the abundance of tasty treats in Edinburgh more than makes up for any lack of baked goods in my life!!
At some point soon we will venture there and eat real food, I am aware there are many amazing restaurants we need to try still, but there is never any room for anything savoury once I've planned our sweet filled trips there! haha!
