Tag Archives: clandestine cake club
A Big & Mighty Gathering at St Helens Clandestine Cake Club
(Click on the pictures for a bit more information about each cake) People think that Rugby League is the only big thing that happens in our town on a Friday night. Well not any more. 21 cakes!! That’s how many works of art we had at the latest Clandestine Cake Club held in St Helens last week. Our theme was Big & Mighty so people could choose either a huge cake, an oversize decoration or just a mighty flavour. Plenty of inspiration there but this lot didn’t need it. The cakes our ladies brought were amazing! (We nearly had a man but the rugby enticed him away) As the numbers of people signing up rolled in, it became clear that this gathering was going to be huge. Lots of rich flavours and wonderful combinations, which resulted in me choosing a simple Victoria Sponge for my cake to balance out the heavy flavours. (and also that my practice White Chocolate Patty cake baked earlier in the week looked dreadful) We had a large number of ladies from our recently formed WI and it was lovely to see them chatting and getting to know each other better. Pat (My Mum’s more »
Clandestine Cake Club: St Helens – A guide to hosting your own and a review
Well, I did it! I hosted my first Clandestine Cake Club on Sunday – and survived. In fact, I did more than survive..I actually enjoyed it. How to go about hosting your own CCC: I’m not sure what came over me the day I thought about hosting my own event. I have been to two other Clandestine Cake Clubs in Manchester and Warrington and wanted to stretch myself. It was really quite easy and not that much work is involved. Lynn (The Boss) is super organised, very supportive and great with ideas (And I’m not just saying that because she will read this!) 1. The Venue – This was my biggest challenge. We have a mere 2 coffee shops around here, both of which would be perfect. However, when I broached the subject of bringing our own cake and hosting an event in an evening, the reaction was slightly lukewarm. I know from experience that owning your own business in food involves very long hours so understand completely. Not to be deterred, I looked around for other solutions and came up with our local church hall. I had V’s 5th birthday party there in June and know it is basic more »
Pink Lady’s 80th Birthday Cake – Cake of the Week
A day later than expected but for very good reason. This weekend was a mammoth one. We had the annual presentation for swimming in which both girls got decorated with medals, our first sleepover (3am in case you were wondering!) and I held my first Clandestine Cake Club last night. There was simply no energy left for blogging and unbelievably it has taken 24 hours for me to able to even look at a cake since. But there was a cake last week, this traditional lady’s 80th birthday cake for a lovely family. I added little diamontes to the sugar pink roses as her son tells me the birthday girl likes some bling. The cake was a fruit cake which made a nice change from sponge and I always think the finish is so much cleaner. Here is a gratuitous picture of the handmade flowers up close too! I’m expecting some entries from yesterday’s Clandestine Cake Club amongst others in this week’s Cake of the Week. I’m still chuckling that I have had a request for my Mum’s lemon drizzle cake recipe – Talk about stealing my thunder!
Reasons to be Cheerful
Well I hope everyone who joined in with last week’s Reasons to be Cheerful is feeling just as chipper this week. I’m joining in with the link-up as I certainly am. I’ve got quite a few Reasons to be Cheerful this week: Reason to be Cheerful 1: A Grand Day Out The 5 of us are having a day at Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire tomorrow and meeting up with 3 of my school friends and their various off-spring and other halves. We have known each other since we were 4 at reception in good old Miss Barbara’s class. (Her name wasn’t really Miss Barbara, it was Miss Hankin but there was already another Miss Hankin and they thought we couldn’t cope with 2 teachers with the same name!) Anyway, off I go again! I’m really looking forward to our day, we are all taking a picnic and the kids haven’t seen each other for quite a while so it should be good. Reason to be Cheerful 2: Millie We are well and truly back in the swing of swimming club now with both M & V members. M took part in a gala tonight and did really well – she more »
Clandestine Cake Club: Warrington
These cake clubs are popping up all over the place which is brilliant. After finding that I enjoyed the Manchester Clandestine Cake Club so much in July, I decided to attend the Warrington club hosted by Helen of @VioletsVintageTeas. 13 of us met up at Heaths26 a lovely cafe/coffee shop in Stockton Heath and generally ate cake and nattered about cake. There were 10 cakes on offer tonight all made with the theme FRUIT and VEG in mind. My offering (see above was a Pineapple and Coconut Cake) but there were some really exotic offerings. I had made a decision beforehand to try out of the ordinary combinations so soon found myself eating a Beetroot & Chocolate Cake (Verdict: Really nice chocolate cake with something a bit different that you can’t quite put your finger on) and a Courgette, Cinnamon and Walnut (Just like a carrot cake – think this is my favourite of the night!) Its amazing that no matter how hungry you are before you get to these things, you get full up really quickly and I soon became overfaced. Nooo, I hear you cry, What about the other 7 cakes? Never fear, you get to bring them more »
Clandestine Cake Club – Manchester
I’ve been doing it again – going meeting strangers from the internet. Don’t ever tell my children! This time, I was mega brave and joined in the first meeting of the Clandestine Cake Club in Manchester. Organised by Gwyneth of Vintage T’s, we all met at 6PM at The Cake Gallery in Bowden armed with our cakes. That makes it sound so simple – in actual fact my day had been horrendous up until that point. Trying to bake a cake, deal with a teething, roasting hot baby and sort the washing after a weekend away does not make for a calm cake-maker. We were given a theme of USA with it being American Independence Day so I decided to make Oreo cake with Vanilla Frosting. The other cakes on offer were New York Cheescake, Lemon and Blueberry Bundt, A Stars and Stripes cakes which was cleverly coloured red, white and blue too, Angel Cake and Mississippi Mud Pie. Multicolour cake by Tea and Thee We were encouraged to photograph the cakes (phew, I once again had forgotten to take a pic beforehand of mine) and then it was time to dig in. Amazing how quickly you get full up more »
