As hobbies go, baking is simply fabulous. An outlet for my creativity, a way to channel my frustrations with the world, a sense of achievement when a baking project is completed and a feeling of warmth and joy when someone enjoys eating it.
The first time I went to a Clandestine Cake Club event, nearly a year ago, it was with a little apprehension. It was the first time I was sharing my growing interest with other like-minded people, and worried that my cake wouldn't be up to scratch. I even took along one of my oldest, dearest friends for support, just in case these new cakey people were scary.
Of course I needn't have worried. People who love cake are rarely mean, and I, along with my enthusiasm for good cake, was embraced into a group of friendly, genial and very talented people. Quite simply, Clandestine Cake Club is where we 'bake, eat and talk about cake.' Nowadays, I'm old hat- following Twitter and the website closely to get my place as soon as possible (no mean feat- as CCC's popularity has grown, places go super-fast!), and attempting to plan my cake down to the smallest detail. Whereas once I was apprehensive of new baking-people, now I'm delighted to meet anyone I can have cakey-chat with. Best of all are all the food-loving friends I've made over the past year.
Usually I go to one CCC event per month, but in the month of February there have been two so far. One I knew about weeks in advance, the other, rather impromptu and with a very exciting twist.
Harrogate, 11th February- Vanilla Raspberry Roses Marble Cake:
Having recently experimented with swirled colour buttercream and the flavour combination of rose, vanilla and raspberry in a cupcake, I wanted to try it as a large cake for CCC. My original idea was to do a pink rose in the centre and then mixed pink and cream swirls around it. However my idea was scuppered by one thing. Circles don't tessellate. I ended up with large gaps between the flowers, that I filled with smaller rosettes.. I also didn't make enough icing, so it was harder to pipe neat roses (I find it far easier to pipe icing with a large, full bag). I ended up feeling a little disappointed that the cake didn't look very tidy.
However, when I looked at it again, on the table of cakes, I changed my mind- it's actually quite pretty. It wasn't super-neat, but flowers in real life aren't all exactly the same, are they?
Ingredients:
Cake
200g softened unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
4 large eggs
250g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tiny pinch salt
2-3 tbsp rose water
pink food colouring gel
200g fresh/frozen British/Scottish raspberries
Icing (the quantity I should have made)
250g softened unsalted butter
550g icing sugar
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
2tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk
pink food colouring gel
Method:
Preheat oven to 175-180 degrees C. Grease and line a 8 inch cake tin.
For the cake, cream together butter and sugar, whisk in eggs, then add the self raising flour, baking powder and salt slowly. I do this in a food processor.
Add the rose water and incorporate into the cake batter. It smells so beautiful, but it's not an overwhelming taste, more a hint of perfume.
Split the cake batter into two roughly and dye one half pink with the food colouring. Then add blobs of each into the cake tin until all the batter has been used up, and swirl them together a bit in the tin. Add the raspberries. Don't mix them in, just scatter them on top. They will sink into the batter. If you're using fresh raspberries, consider coating them in a little flour first otherwise they may sink to the bottom. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes. Check on the cake and be prepared that it may still need 10 minutes or so (but don't open the oven door every 30 seconds or it will sink!).
While the cake is baking, make the icing. Mix together the soft butter, icing sugar, vanilla extract, vanilla pod seeds and milk. Add more milk if it's really stiff- you need to be able to spread and pipe the icing easily. Split the icing into 2/3 and 1/3. Dye the smaller quantity pink.
When the cake is done, let it cool on a rack until it is completely cold. Trim the cake so that it is level if necessary. Then take some of the white icing and thinly coat the top and sides.
Once the thin crumb layer is done, go over the cake again with a thicker layer of white icing.
Next fit a piping bag with a closed star tip (like the one below although this isn't the one I used). Part-fill the bag with pink icing and then squeeze all of the icing through the bag back into the bowl so that the inside of the bag is lined with pink. Place the bag into a tall glass and open the bag over the edges of the glass to hold it open. Then carefully fill the bag with the white icing. Try to expel as much air from the bag as possible.
To pipe the roses, place the tip of the bag where you want the centre of the first rose. Add some pressure and then as the icing comes out swirl outwards from the centre point. A much better demonstration of what I mean is given here. I started in the middle with an all pink rose, and piped more roses around it. When I saw the gaps between the flowers that were too small to fit another rose, I piped short rosettes to fill in the gaps.
The cake went down really well, with lots of compliments on the decoration. As predicted the cake wasn't particularly strong in rose flavour, but there was a hint of the perfume along with the sweet vanilla and tart raspberry.
I sadly forgot my camera during the event itself so the following pictures are courtesy of my dear friend Sally who came with me.
Marion's chocolate cake with fondant icing.
Anna's blueberry cake.
Lisa's banana fudge cake and Karoline's chocolate orange cake.
Gary's coffee cake with Bailey's cream cheese frosting. See his awesome blog here.
A gorgeous chocolate cake but I never got the name of the baker!
The venue was Judy's loft apartment in Harrogate and it was absolutely gorgeous, with a kitchen that made me green with envy! Thank you to Lynn for organising it and Judy for hosting!
Leeds, 15th February- Gateau aux Poires Belle Helene
On Monday, when I was still recovering from Saturday's event and the evening at The Manor, I got a Twitter DM from Lynn, founder of The Clandestine Cake Club, and now my very good friend, asking if I was free on Wednesday the 15th for a super-clandestine CCC event. Why another event? Well, the Clandestine Cake Club has been attracting a bit of press interest recently, and on this occasion had hit the radar of the lovely people at BBC1's The One Show. They wanted to do a segment on our club!
Unfortunately the time clashed with a patient appointment that I could not cancel so I resigned myself to not going. Lynn then texted me on Tuesday to say that it would be all right if I came late, so suddenly I was on for another event! That didn't leave me the greatest amount of time to make a showstopper cake, so I needed something fail-safe yet spectacular, and a bit creative.
I eventually hit upon the idea of making one of my favourite desserts as a cake and my thoughts immediately turned that classic, Poires Belle Helene. These are pears poached in vanilla served with a silky chocolate sauce and Chantilly cream or ice-cream. Sometimes it is made with saffron in the pear poaching liquid, and I thought that incorporating saffron into the cake would give the pears and the sponge a hint of gold- an extra-special touch for this extra-special event. I decided to make a vanilla sponge with a hint of the saffron, iced with a chocolate ganache, and filled and topped with poached pears. After a late finish at work I dashed to the supermarket to get supplies and started the cake at 8pm. I finally crawled into bed at 1.30am, but it was totally worth it!
Ingredients:
Pears:
Seven quite firm pears
250g caster sugar
Juice and zest of one lemon
2 vanilla pods
2 large pinches saffron
Cake:
200g softened unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
4 large eggs
250g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tiny pinch salt
2 large pinches saffron, mixed with 1tbs boiling-hot water
1tbsp vanilla exract
Chocolate ganache:
400g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
425ml double cream
30g caster sugar
Method:
For the pears I used Delia Smith's method of poaching pears (why mess with perfection?) See here. The only thing I did different was to add saffron to the poaching liquid. Once they are cooked, leave to cool.
For the cake. Preheat the oven to 175-180 degrees C and grease & line a 8 inch cake tin. Cream together butter and sugar, whisk in eggs, then add the self raising flour, baking powder and salt slowly like for the vanilla raspberry roses cake. Then add the vanilla, saffron liquid and a little milk until the mixture is of soft dropping consistency.
Fill the tin and bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Remove from the oven when cooked and leave to cool.
For the chocolate ganache, place the chocolate, broken into small, even pieces, in a large heatproof mixing bowl. Heat the cream to just before boiling and pour over the chocolate. Whisk together until the chocolate is melted into the cream and it forms a glossy smooth sauce. Try not to over-work it or the chocolate will split. Leave it to cool a little.
When the pears are cold, split them lengthwise, keeping the stalks on one half of each pear. Slice the pear halves without the stalk into evenly sized slices and pat them dry. They need to be as dry as possible. Split the cake into two even halves and spread each cut side with chocolate ganache. On the bottom half of the cake, fill with the slices of pear in an even layer. Sandwich the cake together.
Coat the top and sides of the cake with ganache and leave in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to harden slightly. Then repeat so there is a good solid coating of chocolatey goodness on the cake.
Take the pear halves with the stalk remaining, and carefully, using a paring knife, slice from the top of the pear to the bottom, taking care not to separate the slice from the rest of the pear. You want a fan of slices anchored at the top of the pear. Then pat them dry and arrange them on top of the cake, evenly spaced, so that the slices fan out a little and the stalks meet in the centre.
Lastly, put the remaining ganache into a piping bag fitted with a writing tip and drizzle chocolate ganache over the pears in an artful way. Chill for a few hours before serving to solidfy the icing.
Here's the finished product. I have to say, I was quite pleased with it!
Some pictures of the other cakes and fellow bakers.
The Gateau aux Poires Belle Helene cut open!
The crew from The One Show and the presenter Matt Allwright, were absolutely lovely, and so friendly. Even through I arrived late, I was welcomed warmly, and my cake got lots of praise, which was fantastic considering some of the other cakes on show.
Lynn has written up the experience for the Clandestine Cake Club website- see here.
Me with Matt Allwright- a really great guy!
The cameraman filming the last piece of my cake!
The episode featuring our little event will be aired on BBC1 on Friday 24th February at 7pm.
The Clandestine Cake Club
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