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
x

Carousel Birthday Cake

It was one of my very best friends Annies birthday so I knew I had to do something special. This cake was more about the presentation than the actual cake to be honest, not exactly understated.

It took me ages to finish as there were loads of little bits to do gradually, not much of a chore though as I just sat on the sofa and did it whilst I was doing other things- which included getting drunk, being drunk, and being hungover unfortuately, as Annies birthday fell on a Sunday and I had a weekend long booze session by accident.

To make the supports for the canopy I covered straws in icing, I could have used doweling rods but this seemed to be a much more cost effective way to do things.

I made the horses out of fondant icing, and made the canopy out of card and then covered it in icing. I glazed it by painting vodka on it, a little trick to make sure its shiny!

Of course the worlds classiest cake wouldn't be complete without edible glitter.

The cake itself was baked on Saturday afternoon after a few pints in the local (Electric in Chorlton) so I had a little audience cheering me on...

I made a lemon curd cake for the actual cake component, just a basic lemon sponge with a lemon buttercream and lemon curd...

And then it was time to cover it!

I attached the horses to the poles with royal icing (the cement of the baking world as my flatmate declared) and pushed them into the cake, it wasn't as steady as I would have wanted but just about held up the canopy. Note the excess of icing sugar- a lot of bleaching went on once the cake was finished and i'm sure there is still icing stuck to the surfaces.

It just about made it to the venue (The horse and Jockey- which is only across the road from our house) but the canopy was falling off a little bit. But the birthday girl seemed happy with it and that is the main thing!

Although we didn't eat it- as you can see above everyone was a little bit hungover and a lot stuffed full of roast dinner. But don't worry, a few pints soon helped that...

Soph x