Enthusiastic baking phase of lockdown has died down. That impulse-buy bundt tin's been shoved to the back of the cupboard (*darkest corner of the boiler room). If you, like us, are ready to let somebody else do the heavy lifting, we've rounded up some of London's best bakery delivery services. Order banana bread sped to your door, send brownies to your friend's isolation birthday party, or commission an enormous green dinosaur cake as a lockdown gift from you to you.
We've asterisked ones which offer delivery across London.
Créme London* - Soho
We ordered a lot of delivery desserts during lockdown. A lot. These boxes from Créme are the reigning champions of the cookie delivery trials: massive, chewy-yet-fluffy cookies in beautiful packaging, with same-day delivery. Order a mixed box, so you don't have to choose between the milk chocolate, the double chocolate, and the banana/dark chocolate. An oven-warmed one (or okay, several) of these, a glass of milk and Home Alone, is, in the absence of pubs, might just be the Christmas Eve dream-plan.
Delivery: within 15 miles of Soho for same day delivery, cost varies by delivery postcode. They also offer two-day delivery across the UK for £5.
Green Elephant* - Catford
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Cakes and bakes from this great south London baker include a grainy and glorious chia seed banana bread (nope, we didn't think we'd be into it either), and peanut butter brownies with a level of treacly squidge that makes it feel improbable that, like everything else on the menu, they're plant-based. Ingredients are sourced/grown locally and from community gardens wherever possible. Which is nice.
Delivery: £30 minimum order, cost of delivery £10, order three days in advance.
Uncle John's Bakery - Tottenham
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This Tottenham bakery's been making traditional Ghanaian breads, pies, chin chin (thin, peppery snacking biscuits) and coconutty cakes for about two decades now. The Sweet Bread loaf's their signature — squashy and gently vanilla-ed, brilliant just saltily buttered. The Twister Bread's our favourite, though, still fluffy but a bit more tensile than the Sweet Bread, and perfect with something savoury like a meat stew: the shape lends itself to tearing into big handfuls, and the spongey, briochey texture thirstily soaks up sauce.
Delivery: in an eight mile radius of their Tottenham shop. If you don't fall within that area, check for other stockists here.
Pompi* - Soho
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'Il Regno del Tiramisù', it says in curlicued letters across Pompi's logo: 'King of Tiramisù'. A bit boastful, and 100% accurate.
Undisputed tiramisù royalty in Rome, they've been selling from their several bar-cafe-bakeries in Italy since the 80s — and now you can get hold of the good stuff from their Shaftesbury Avenue shopfront, or couriered directly to your door.
They also do birthday cakes, although we're not convinced there *is* a better birthday cake than just one of their straightforward slabs of tiramisù classico.
Delivery: delivery across London, seven days a week, delivery charges vary depending on postcode (check prices here).
Frankonia The Bread House* - Kingston
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Frankonia used to be wholesale only: pre-lockdown you'd only have had the pleasure of their pastries if you routinely hang about places like the Houses of Lords or Commons, The Ritz, and The Savoy. A swift pivot to retail and delivery means that now you can get their sourdough, dense, chewy rye and pastries sped directly to your door, via one of their pre-selected brunch/weekend packages. Highlights are their apple crumble muffins — thick layer of granulated crunch topping them off — their almond croissants, and pretzels so springy that they've caused us to revisit our entire, previously-indifferent, stance on pretzels.
Delivery: minimum order of £17.50, free for orders of over £30, delivery across London.
Pophams - Haggerston and Islington
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Pophams are pastry geniuses. They make small feats of structural engineering out of sourdough pastry, and lace them with things like bacon and maple, or banana and jam, or — clear winner — punchy, raw cow's milk Swiss cheese, Marmite and spring onion. Order as many of those as your wallet and weekend can stretch to, and a couple of their perfectly chewy, perfectly flaky million-layer pain au chocolats.
Delivery: delivery in a radius of their Haggerston and Islington bakeries. Get £5 off your order by using code DELIVERYDISCOUNT when you spend over £25.
Adams Cakes* - online only
Know somebody who needs a Bowie-in-the-bus-queue cake immediately? Or a diplodocus-on-the-tube, or a cake replica of your favourite pub/museum/football stadium? London baker Adam Cox takes bespoke commissions for all sorts of creative cakes, but recurring themes include London transport — with some fantastically detailed doubledeckers — London landmarks, and dinosaurs. Previous celebrity clients include... Arnold Schwarzenegger. No further questions. Read more about his London-inspired cakes here.
Delivery: across London, but as you'd expect for cakes this elaborate and bespoke, you'll need to start talks about your commission with Cox well in advance.
Rinkoff - Whitechapel
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Most famous for the invention of the Crodough — a croissant-doughnut hybrid — it's actually the savouries we're here for. A perfect Rinkoff's order is as much of their plaited challah as you can reasonably get through while it's still fresh. Challah's almost always the answer: toasted with honey, toasted with peanut butter, torn into chunks to mop up stew, at a BBQ as a substitute for brioche burger rolls, or grilled and stuffed with excessive amounts of salt beef and brown sauce. While you're ordering, you might as well throw in a six-pack of their plain bagels. And okay, some cinnamon rolls. And maybe a few PB+J crodoughs. Just... for the sake of completism.
Delivery: in a radius of their Whitechapel and Bethnal Green shops via Deliveroo. If you want Rinkoff further afield, though, you can order from FarmDrop if you're willing to make it a fairly massive shop (minimum order of £60).
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