Living la Vida Bakery

I'm going to leave you alone with that lovely picture of cupcakes for a while.

Had enough of going 'wow, those do look tasty'? Here's a little bit about how I got to fill my face with all that cakey glory.

A couple of weeks ago, Time Out had a feature on veganism, presumably to coincide Veganuary. Following in the footsteps of the Evening Standard's equally painful article on veganism, Time Out's writer decided to write about how he didn't like veganism, didn't like not eating meat, didn't do Veganuary, and didn't interview any vegans for the piece.

Godawful as the story was, they did think to include a list of the favourite spots of King Cookdaily, the man behind the fabulous vegan restaurant of the same name. One of the places he mentioned was somewhere I'd never heard of: Vida Bakery in Shoreditch.

Being an intrepid vegan, after a particularly long and trying day, I decided to go stock up on cakes to cheer myself up.

And that's exactly what Vida Bakery did, starting with the fact that you can get four cakes for £10, which seems like a gift to all of London's vegans.

There were a goodly number of different cake flavours, all ready for my hungry face. There was that a salted caramel up above, and the dainty pink donut topped vanilla beast below. The bourbon-wearing cake was mocha-flavoured, and I can't remember alas what the fourth of the quad was, but it was every bit as good as its siblings.

What all four cakes had in common, though, was not only that they were delicious as you'd hope, and not too sweet, as King Cookdaily mentioned in the Time Out article, but they were all really inventive, and as pretty to look at as they were to eat. It's so good to see someone making playful version of familiar cake staples, all animal-free.

When I popped in late one afternoon, a new batch of cupcakes had been freshly decorated and the cafe was waiting for the next bunch of hungry vegans to come and fill up. Get yourself down there, this great little place won't stay so quiet for long.