Clandestine Cake Club Manchester

I had geard a lot about clandestine cake clubs over the last couple of months, but when friends Jules and Bailey went and featured it on their excellent food blog http://www.goodgobble.blogspot.com/ i knew I had to get involved!

This months Clandestine Cake Clubs theme was Valentines day, I didn't want to make anything too complex for my first one, and also being on a Wednesday night I knew I was going to have to bake after work so decided to make a relatively simple cake.

So I made a chocolate caramel cake!

I kept it all quite simple, so just made a few white chocolate hearts coloured with gel food colours.

The cake itself had quite a different sponge, made with natural yoghurt and ground almonds, it had a chocolate layer, chocolate caramel layer, caramel layer and vanilla layer, all sandwhiched together with caramel and the richest chocolate ganache...

My lovely vintage apron given to me by my sister Kathryn.

By this point it was pretty late and I was not quite in the baking zone anymore so the decoration didn't get my full attention but I think it turned out ok...

I had to steatbelt the cake into the back of my car as it had to get from Chorlton to Altrincham with no-one to hold it.

Now for the actual cake club! This month was slightly different as there was a demonstration from excellent pastry chef Brett Pistorius, where he made a chocolate hazelnut cake with a passionfruit french buttercream. I really really enjoyed the demonstration, so many little tips that you just wouldn't get from a book. There is also something really therapeutic about watching someone else cook.
Also I have never actually made a french buttercream, probably due to laziness, but after having seen it done and tasted the difference I would say I was a convert.

The decorating part was also great, Brett also demonstrated some relatively simple chocolate decoration but it looked stunning, and all came together so quickly.

His amazing cake nearly overshadowed the rest of our cakes, but there were some amazing creations. This was pretty much a dream come true for me, loads of cakes and the opportunity to try every single one of them, dreamboat.

I was quite reserved and had the tiniest bite of each cake, but it is unbelievable how quickly you can feel sick when doing this, I was on a complete sugar high by the end of it and had to drink a lot of water.



The amazing thing about the Clandestine Cake Club is that everyone takes cake home at the end, I had two boxes of tupperware stuffed full of cake, much to the delight of my flatmate and colleagues.

Definitely planning on going next month.

Soph
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