Sugar and Crumbs sell an amazing range of naturally flavoured icing sugars and cocoa powders with intense bursts of flavour from using 100% natural fruit.

My first thoughts on the ready flavoured sugars was how fantastic, no messing around trying to flavour the icing yourself, it’s all done for you.  I did wonder how they’d taste so couldn’t wait to try them out.

I was sent a Chocolate Orange cocoa powder and icing sugars in Tropical, Lemon Drizzle and Velvet Vanilla.  The packets were a delightful hot pink colourful with resealable tops which I think are a great idea, really convenient and easy to use.

Eager to try out the different flavours I decided to make some mini cupcakes in both plain and using the chocolate orange cocoa powder so that I could add the different flavoured icing sugars to the top and try various combinations.

Sugar and Crumbs kindly sent me a basic sponge recipe to use the cocoa powder with and an instruction sheet as to how to use their icing sugars.  They have cleverly made their icing sugars with really intense flavours allowing you to adjust them by diluting with plain icing sugar to reach a level that suits you.  Also each packet will last longer if you don’t use them to their full intensity.

The flavoured products from Sugar and Crumbs are so simple to use, simply exchange them for your plain ingredients and you have flavoured cakes with no effort at all.  So what did we think of the taste?  The Chocolate Orange cocoa powder was very intense but a true, fresh orangey flavour burst came through the chocolate.  This is definitely one that can be used at a lower strength which I would next time.

The Velvet Vanilla icing sugar was sweet and full of vanilla flavour as I would expect it to taste.  My children enjoyed this one and it was their favourite of the flavours we tried.  My first choice would go to the Lemon Drizzle with it’s rich lemon flavours, which tasted fresh and citrusy.  Knowing my husband enjoys tropical flavours I gave him a cake covered in Tropical flavoured icing – he didn’t know what he was about to taste and thought I had just made plain cakes.  I didn’t expect such a strong reaction from him, but after his first bite he said “Oh wow, that is lush!!” and then proceeded to ask me when I was going to make some more.  I think that in itself speaks volumes about the rich intensity and deliciousness of these ingredients and the flavours that they bring to baking.

We’ve enjoyed baking with flavoured products from the Sugar and Crumbs range and would definitely recommend them to anyone looking to bring some flavour to their cakes.  Sugar and Crumbs have a wide variety of flavours available and one that has caught my eye is Chocolate Lime while my husband has his eye on the Turkish flavoured icing.  Why don’t you take a look and see what flavours you would enjoy?

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the products in order to write the reviews.