Sugar & Crumbs Icing Sugars and Cocoa Powders

Back in January, when I was preparing to launch my website, I received a lovely email from a company called Sugar & Crumbs, asking about an opportunity to become one of their stockists for their amazing range of icing sugars and cocoa powders. I jumped at the chance! I loved the idea of natural flavoured icing sugars, and the flavours on offer sounded mouthwatering. I just had to become one of their stockists!

When the first order came, I was delighted. The packaging is simple, pink and white, and you can see the white icing inside...more on that later. So, the flavours. We currently stock 2 flavours of cocoa powder; cherry and coconut, and 11 flavours of icing sugar, from White Chocolate, to Strawberry Milkshake (my personal favourite) and Peach Melba!

I have been speaking to many people about these products, and I have had some interesting conversations, hence the reason for this blog post. Yes, of course you can flavour your own icing sugars, but can it be done naturally? And with flavours such as Pear Drop, where on earth would you start? I know, I know, I can hear you all shouting at your screens that it is lazy, and honestly, I would have agreed with you until I tried these flavours. It saves on buying a tonne of different ingredients that you may not use regularly, and it is so easy to work with! And the colour of the icings. All of the icing sugars in the range are white, so you can colour them yourself, or leave them white and give everyone a suprise!! This whole range from Sugar & Crumbs has multiple uses. I made a pineapple trifle a while ago and used the pineapple flavoured icing sugar to flavour the cream. I also used the Key Lime flavour to make key lime macarons. Both of these dishes turned out great! One thing I enjoy informing my customers about is the intense flavour of all of these products. When I use these for a buttercream, I use half Sugar & Crumbs icing sugar and half normal icing sugar. And the flavour is still intense. It also makes your pack of icing last much longer, so you get much more for your money. This is the same with the cocoa powders, use half and half. Thise guys at Sugar & Crumbs do like to give you a huge burst of flavour! So, if you like something unusual, and time is sometimes precious - give this range of icing sugars a try...we promise, you will never look back! From £2.95 per pack, available from www.theshirebakery.com