The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

The small, round ‘cake pops’ – resembling tiny cupcakes – intrigued us the most, so we purchased a chocolate one and a red velvet (5LE each). Not usually fans of red velvet, we were surprised to find that it was delicious, soft and sweet; devoured in a millisecond, whilst the chocolate one was equally as yummy, covered in a thick and messy layer of sticky milk chocolate icing.

Of course, we had to try the actual cupcakes so we ordered two of our childhood favourite brands; a Kinder and a Twix caramel cupcake – both of which were disappointing. It may have been because we arrived a bit late in the day, but we don’t think the sponge should have been stale. The Twix cupcake had a very mean amount of caramel filling, which happened to be too sugary anyway. The toppings were the best bit being of sweet, fluffy mousse, while the Kinder one sported some chocolate chunks. However, neither really tasted of what they were supposed to.  

We also spied a counter flaunting small, rectangular cake bars, decorated to imitate the wrappers of famous chocolate bars. Some were fairly accurate copies whilst others were messy and even incorporated the wrong colours. We chose the most carefully decorated; a bulky Kitkat cake (22LE). The saying ‘good frames won’t save bad paintings’ sprung to mind when we tasted this one – we couldn’t even finish it. Instead of crunching like a Kitkat, the filling was soggy and the icing was far too sweet, even for our sweet tooth.

Before we left, we checked out the festive cupcake toppings, small Santas and snowmen ready to be placed on top of a new batch – admittedly they were cute – however, if they were made of the same icing as the Kitkat cake, they’re also likely to be sickeningly sugary.