Bloggers Christmas with Citizen M Bankside

Last weekend I was invited to Citizen M Bankside Hotel for a festive cupcake decorating class and a browse round Borough Market with a host of fellow bloggers including Livvy from Tea Toast Fashion, Hannah from Tink Jayne, Claire from Fine and Dandy, and Helen from The Lovecats Inc.

We started the morning off the best way possible, with bacon and eggs at Southwark Tavern. It looks like an old-fashioned boozer, but downstairs there are cosy little alcoves with board games – perfect for sheltering from the winter chill!

We then went for a quick wander around Borough Market, being total blogger cliches by snapping everything, and getting very excited about macaroons. The market is one of my favourites in London, with so much amazing food (despite having only just ate I was seriously considering a second breakfast). If you go, the outside bit near Southwark Cathedral is the best spot to grab a bite – whatever you’re craving, there’ll be a stall selling it!

After we’d photographed just about every stall between us and were starting to get numb tootsies, we headed back to the hotel to learn how to decorate cupcakes with Xanthe aka Cookie Girl. Now if you know me at all (I have a sneaking suspicion half my hits are my relatives checking up on me, so you probably do), you know I’m not really the homemaker type. My food-related skills involve ordering the perfect half and half pizza from Dominos (top tip: garlic butter. yum.), and getting crisp crumbs down the back of every sofa I come into contact with (like fairy dust, but I’m not a fairy, just messy…). Therefore I was pretty keen to pick up a skill that’s actually useful!

Decorating cakes was actually a lot easier than I had anticipated. It helped that Xanthe was taking us through it step by step, of course! I was really proud of how my cupcakes turned out, although unfortunately not proud enough to save them for more than a day before they get wolfed down.

I’m definitely still more an eater than a maker, but at least now I can eat cupcakes smug in the knowledge that I can decorate my own should I be so inclined!

We rounded off the day with cocktails, because Citizen M has a sublime cocktail menu and I’ll never say no to a drink! My tipple of choice was the fancy looking one on the left, the Borough Bellini. Super yum, and bonus points for the gradient effect!

All in all it was a fab way to kick off the festive season, and it’s always fun when us blogger gals get together (especially when cocktails are involved)! Big thank you to Citizen M for having us (p.s. can I move in plz?)!