Whenever people ask us what we'd like as a thank you gift, we umm and ahh and invariably tell them that we'd like some vegan Hotel Chocolat. We were delighted when the team at Lola's Cupcakes* reached out and asked if we'd like to give them a try the other day. Obviously, it was rude to say no.
We were treated to some of Lola's vegan Cupcakes; they have a whole free-from range available on their site which has a huge mix of vegan and gluten-free options, plus in some cases you can get some options which are both!
We received the vegan strawberry, lemon and raspberry, red velvet and gluten-free fudge ones too! Before we take a look at each of them individually, it's worth us just saying that these cupcakes are all really rich, a great balance of soft and squishy, super sweet and a really indulgent treat so we won't mention that as we take a look at the flavours! The other thing to add is that the vegan icing is lovely rich and creamy and we don't know if it's been so long since we had a dairy cream, but this is as good as we remember the 'real thing' ever tasting!
Lola's Cupcakes Vegan Red Velvet
First up was the red velvet! James was so excited to see these in the box. Usually, when we head out and about locally, they have red velvet in the cafes, but they're never, ever vegan.
Initial excitement out the way, you sometimes find that red velvets are a little dry. No issues on that front here. The generous serving of icing makes that impossible, but the cake itself was cooked perfectly too.
In terms of flavour, you get the subtle chocolate flavour from the red velvet and then you get a whack of sweetness from the icing. These were really good, but brace yourself for sweetness!
Rating: 8/10 It's so nice to have a vegan red velvet option!
Lola's Cupcakes Vegan Strawberry
Next up was the strawberry-flavoured cupcakes. We weren't too fussed about trying this one initially, but we're delighted to say that these were by far and away our favourites!
The best way to sum these up is super light, super sweet and the flavour of the frosting mixes really well with the jam. It's like a subtle strawberry flavour from the frosting before you get a whack of flavour from the jam. It's really, really nice!
Rating: 10/10
We're having these again!
Lola's Cupcakes Vegan Lemon and Raspberry
Coming a close second to the strawberry cupcakes in our ratings is the lemon and raspberry version. It's the same experience, but with some different flavours.
This time the icing has a very gentle hint of lemon (So much so that we had to keep trying it to work out if we had the lemon or passionfruit cupcakes) and then again you get the punchy flavour of the jam come through after. It's great.
Rating: 9/10
A great combo, but just not quite on strawberry's level.
Lola's Cupcakes Vegan Gluten Free Fudge
It's indulgent, rich and luxurious. If you have a really sweet tooth and can handle all the chocolate then you'll love this.
We know we're getting a bit older when we start to struggle with sweet treats like this, but we found sharing a cupcake and having half each was the perfect amount of this flavour, whereas we could happily chomp through a full cupcake in the other flavours!
Don't get us wrong it tastes lovely and we'd have it again, but we'd probably opt for this in the miniature size next time!
Rating 8.5/10
If we were kids we'd give this a 10.
If you're thinking about giving these a try yourself you can get your vegan cupcakes here!*
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