What?: I’d filed this one under ‘things to do when Babu is older and not a nightmare’ then got impatient and decided it would be absolutely fine as long as we went armed with an extra adult for moral/piping-bag support. We went to the Battersea branch on a whim during half term and were lucky to nab a table, with all the others all seemingly reserved by parties of tweenie girls or mums and their six year olds. There definitely weren’t any other two year olds there, but I took that as a good sign since Babu has a tendency to completely lose interest in any given activity when other toddlers are present.
The recommended biscuit-to-decorator ratio is three per person at £15 each, but since we were accompanied by a two year old with the attention span of a fruit fly we decided that six between three was enough biscuits – and enough to pay for what would probably be a fairly brief visit. We ordered some drinks and were brought a cake stand laden with vanilla and chocolate flavoured biscuits, a bowl full of piping bags stuffed with icing in every colour of the rainbow, and a box of miniature smarties and sugar stars to decorate.
Bab Dad took everything extremely seriously and began painstakingly icing anatomically correct innards onto a gingerbread man before creating a frighteningly realistic portrait of our cat Margot on a kitty-shaped vanilla shortbread. Meanwhile Babu got enthusiastically stuck into haphazardly emptying the contents of the piping bags and decorations box over her biscuits whilst repeatedly asking “mummy shall we eat them?”.
We managed to finish the whole sextet within about 45 minutes, before she lost interest altogether and chomped the lot. Our finished creations were then taken away to be baked dry and bagged, with our best two designs put in individual presentation boxes (obviously we chose Bab Dad’s creative masterpieces for this special treatment). All in all a wonderfully relaxing – if not massively cheap – activity that absolutely had the potential to go utterly tits up, but didn’t, and the finished product was yummy.
Where and When?: Biscuiteers has two icing cafes in London: one at 194 Kensington Park Road in Notting Hill (Notting Hill Gate 8 mins) and one at 13 Northcote Road in Battersea (Clapham Junction 7 mins).
Best Bits: This was so therapeutic and the biscuits were absolutely delicious. The staff were lovely and everything was so beautifully presented.
Worst Bits: None, we loved every minute of this.
Facilities: Toilets, step-free access, drinks available to buy.
Cost: £15 for three biscuits. We paid £30 and decorated six biscuits between three of us.
Would We Come Back?: Yes!
Bab ices biscuits at Biscuiteers Boutique & Icing Cafe, Battersea.
bablands.com 