Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club - First Birthday

This week Newcastle’s Clandestine Cake Club celebrated its first birthday at the Settle Down Café, the very same café where a year ago eight of us gathered to share four cakes. This time there were 16 cakes and at least 30 people.

I’d be lying if I said I managed to eat all of these cakes but special mention must go to the hazelnut torte, the honey cake, the sticky toffee pudding cake and the summer trifle cake. And Rose, if you think I’ve forgotten you promised me the raspberry macaroon cake recipe, you are very wrong.

This month’s theme was a cake fit for a birthday or a cake that you’d made for Clandestine Cake Club in its first year.  I made a lemon meringue cake in February that I liked; I decided to make a few changes to the recipe to turn it into a chocolate and lime meringue cake. It’s mine now, Nigella, MINE! The recipe is below. It looks like a pain in the chuff to make but it’s really not that hard.

Huge thanks to Lisa for all her hard work making the Newcastle cake club such a success. There are now several cake clubs in the north east in Gosforth & Jesmond, Bedlington & Morpeth, Whitley Bay & Tynemouth and, if you don’t get a nosebleed heading south of the Tyne, Durham & Dales. There are 140 cake clubs across the UK and abroad. Check the website for cake events coming soon near you.

Here’s the recipe for chocolate lime meringue cake:

For the cake:

125g soft unsalted butter

4 eggs, separated

300g plus 1 teaspoon caster sugar

90g self raising flour

10g cocoa powder

25g cornflour

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Zest of 1 lime

4 teaspoons lime juice

2 teaspoons milk

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

For the innards:

150ml double or whipping cream

150g good quality lime curd

Buying a jar of the stuff is by far the easiest option but if like me you couldn’t find any in the shops, you can make your own. You’ll need:

• 2 eggs
• 120g golden caster sugar
• 25g unsalted butter
• juice and zest of 2 limes
• Mix the eggs, sugar, butter and lime juice over a low heat for 12-15 mins, whisking frequently. Once the mixture is thick enough to hold a trail from the whisk or to enjoy an episode of Geordie Shore, sieve it and stir in the zest. Allow to cool.

160g dark chocolate ganache

• 90g dark chocolate broken into little pieces
• 70g double or whipping cream
• Bring the cream to boiling point and then add the chocolate pieces. Allow them to sit there for a couple of minutes then mix it with a spatula into a smooth glossy ganache and allow to cool.

Method

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200°C. Line and butter two 8 inch sandwich tins.
• Mix the egg yolks, 100g of the sugar, the butter, flour, cocoa powder, cornflour, bicarb, and lime zest. Add the lime juice and milk and mix again.
• Divide the mixture between the two tins.
• Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until peaks form and then whisk in 200g of sugar. Divide the whisked whites between the two sponge-filled tins, spreading the meringue straight on top of the cake mix.
• Smooth one flat, and with the back of a spoon peak the other and sprinkle 1 teaspoon sugar over the peaks. Bake for 25 minutes.
• With a cake-tester, pierce the cake that has the flat meringue topping to check it's cooked all through. Put the cakes onto a wire rack and let cool completely in the tins.
• Remove the flat-topped cake from its tin and place it meringue side down on a plate.
• Spread the sponge surface of the first cake with the lime curd, then the dark chocolate ganache. Whisk the cream and once it’s thick, spread that on top of the ganache. Lastly, place the second cake on top with its peaked meringue uppermost.
• If you want to go all fancy, zigzag a trail of chocolate ganache over the top of the meringue and sprinkle some finely peeled lime zest on the top.

Clandestine Cake Club - March

At February’s Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club, Sky TV filmed a moving appeal for men to come forward and eat cake. The response was overwhelming and an unprecedented 6 (SIX) men turned up to March’s event.

The cake ladies were ready and waiting: we had a candle-lit room and loads of alcohol hidden inside the cakes. This month's theme was "Cakes with Beverages" and some cakes contained an entire bottle of booze – special mention must go to Lauren’s amazing Jamaican black rum cake.

There are now so many cakes at each event – tonight’s had 18 - that it's impossible to try them all, so I went for Nelly's Shirley Temple cake (read more here) Emily's lemonade cake, Lisa’s dandelion and burdock cake and the  aforementioned Jamaican black cake, after which things went a bit blurry. I had made a coconut milk cake from Marian Keyes' new cookbook but it vanished into the night and never returned my calls. Luckily when I baked the cake the mixture spilled into the centre of the bundt ring creating a small, separate cake for me to enjoy at home. The technical term for this is "cake win".

Thanks to Blackfriars restaurant for allowing us to hold the event in their beautiful Banquet Hall. It claims to be Britain's oldest dining room as it was a monks’ refectory in the 13^th century and today serves excellent food whether or not you've taken a vow of chastity and silence. Thanks as ever to Lisa for organising the event.  The Clandestine Cake Club now has over 60 clubs in the UK and overseas - if you'd like to make new friends and eat a lot of cake, visit the website to find your local cake club or to learn how to set one up.

Clandestine Cake Club - February

Last night the theme at Newcastle's Clandestine Cake Club was "If you were a cake, what cake would you be?" I was stumped - I can't claim to be spicy or fruity and the last person who described me as nutty got a punch in the cakehole. My sister suggested lemon: "any unexpectedly defective or undesirable thing or person, usually said of bad choices". Not only  what the divorce papers said but also one of my favourite cake flavours.


I've always wanted to make a lemon meringue cake and decided to try this recipe from Nigella Lawson's website. It is fairly simple to make, smells like pancakes when it's baking and is one of the most delicious cakes I've ever made. A perfect combination of lemon, double cream, sponge and meringue.

My guest at cake club was my sister Lucy, who was made to eat her lemony words along with several other slices of cake. The ladies at cake club described themselves variously as  friendly, sparkly, passionate and, less flatteringly, messy, bananas, bad ass, simple and deathly. 

Special mentions must go to the chocolate orange fudge cake with home made candied orange peel; the hazelnut and raspberry meringue cake (mmm more meringue!) and the German friendship sourdough cake (feed the dough for ten days, split in into four and give three quarters to friends to bake). Thanks as ever to Lisa for organising the event and to Chalk and Paper cafe for hosting it - why not visit them in the centre of town for a lovely cup of tea and some free wifi? 

Sky TV visited cake club and filed this report about the burgeoning interest in low-cost socialising through the medium of cake. It's fair to say that the Newcastle events are booked out very quickly, almost as if Geordie women are a massive bunch of greeders, so much so that a second monthly event is about to be added to the calendar - check the events page for details. The Sky article mentions that cake club members "are keen to get some men along to join in". I think we all know what that means don't we? Howay, Geordie lads - we're passionate, fruity, friendly and usually offer a side serving of double cream - what's not to like? 

National Cake Week: Wales

This week is National Cake Week, an opportunity as if we needed one to celebrate cake in all its glory. The Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club has picked its monthly theme as cakes that represent a country. I have chosen to make bara brith from Wales.

There are few foods that I would describe as comfort food, as I find all food comforting. However one exception is the "speckled bread" fruit cake from Wales. When I was 18, I went away to a college that has long-standing connections with Wales. I was wide-eyed with shock but trying desperately not to show it; I was always hungry and was usually cold, as I lived in a house with no heating.


On the floor above me lived Angharad, a girl from North Wales who was so talented and beautiful you could envy her but was so utterly lovely that you couldn't.  Angharad used to receive parcels of bara brith from her grandmother in Wales and invite me to share it with her over a cup of tea. She taught me a little bit of Welsh, starting with what she said was the most important sentence in the Welsh language: "Ti isio panad? Do you want a cuppa?"

Angharad, Ship Street 1991. Note the picture of John Thaw on the wall.

It was a handy phrase to remember when we lived together the next year - half of Oxford was entranced by Angharad and lovelorn men used to call round in the hope of seeing her. Like a pair of ugly sisters, Gisa and I used to dispense tea and short shrift while they waited. I don't think we ever wasted good cake on them though.


Angharad and I remain firm friends and she remains ludicrously talented. She's a remarkable linguist, academic, award-winning novelist and mother to two lovely children. I was thrilled when Angharad's novel was translated into English and I could read it. Even though it's a translation, its poetic prose is startling and I am proud to have a friend who can write so well. I wholeheartedly recommend the book - you can buy it on Amazon here and learn more about her family's life on a remote Welsh farm, including her grandmother who parcelled up the bara brith.


Bara brith is delicious - the fruit is boiled in butter and sugar and left overnight, then baked with mixed spice. Angharad kindly sent me the recipe:


12oz sultanas / currants
4oz butter
cup of water
cup of sugar
one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Mix these in a saucepan and bring to boil for 5 mins. Put lid on saucepan, and leave to cool overnight. Next day add:

2 eggs beaten
some mixed spice
cup of plain flour
cup of self-raising flour

Put into greased and lined loaf tin and bake for c.90 mins at 180C.



I've decorated it with a little dragon. Dragons are usually green but in Wales you find the lesser known y draig coch (draco rutilus). The cake is ever so slightly singed on top, after the  dragon got a bit carried away waving the flag for Wales, but I am sure it will be delicious. Thanks to Angharad for the recipe - diolch yn fawr, cariad!

Clandestine Cake Club - September

Last night I took my friend Kate to the Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club. I explained the idea: a dozen different cakes to eat at a private venue. No charge, just friendly people, a cup of tea and the chance to take home any leftovers.


Naturally she was reluctant, but once I added that all the cakes would contain at least "One of Your Five a Day", she accepted the invitation faster than she can spot a stray apostrophe. (We once passed a cookie shop displaying a massive biscuit that said SORRY YOUR LEAVING. We winced simultaneously).


There were eleven cakes, eight of which contained fruit.

Clockwise from top left: amaretto cherry bakewell cake; lemon cake with cream; raspberry and white chocolate cake; hummingbird cake; polenta and orange cake; spicy pear cake; apple and cheese cake; toffee apple cake 

Three cakes contained vegetables.

Clockwise from top left: carrot cake; parsnip, ginger and lime cake; a nice teacup; chocolate and beetroot cake

I had seen the recipe for spicy pear cake on the CCC website here and was keen to give it a try. I liked the autumnal taste of pear, cinnamon and nutmeg and I love cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Certainly nobody could claim it wasn't fresh: Cake Club starts at 6pm and the cake had gone in the oven at 5pm. The cake and I arrived slightly late and slightly warm.


Keen as ever to get as many of my five-a-day through the medium of cake, I also tried the parsnip, lime and ginger cake which was moist and zingy, as was the lemon cake with cream. I've always wanted to try a beetroot chocolate cake but have been put off by the grating of the beetroot, but now I've eaten one so dark and rich I will definitely try marrying baking one. I love bakewell tart (in my view, a senior member in the cake royal family) and the amaretto cherry bakewell was spot on. I faffed a bit when the leftovers were being portioned up so I only managed to get my paws on two slices: the polenta and orange cake, which I am eating as I type - I love the slightly gritty texture of the polenta; and a slice of hummingbird cake, which is pineapple and banana cake and is for later.


Kate did not faff when it came to leftovers as she needed to take some home for Marc, claiming that he is practically skin and bones. Perhaps he will now forgive me for using him as the model for a murder victim on Kate's birthday cake.


The venue for the evening was The Knit Studio, which is tucked away in the cloister of the 13th century Blackfriars Priory in the centre of Newcastle.

The Knit Studio offers beautiful yarns, patterns, books, knitted goods, quilts and fabrics. There is a large craft table, copious amounts of tea and coffee, and a very knowledgeable and friendly owner. It made me want to relearn knitting and finish that dolly's scarf I started 30 years ago. The studio also runs events and workshops in knitting, sewing, crochet and spinning. Not the hideous kind of spinning where you get hot and sweaty on an exercise bike, but real spinning. 

The "husband sofa" for the safe deposit of men. 

I feel much the same way about him myself, pet *dreamy face*

Thanks to The Knit Studio for being such great cake club hosts and thanks as always to Lisa for organising it so well. Once again this event was fully booked, so if you would like to eat a huge amount of cake in a non-judgemental environment, visit the website for details of the October club. 

Clandestine Cake Club - August

After the success of Newcastle's first Clandestine Cake Club in July, the logical step was to hold a second club in August. At last month's club there were four cakes. This month, word must have got out as there were a whopping 13 cakes. 


The theme was "the cake you've dreamed about". It seems that the ladies of the north east dream mostly about alcohol and chocolate, while some dream about fruit (the freaks).

DRINK! Pina Colada; Gin and Tonic; Zuccotto; Cherry Cola 

CHOCLIT! Sachertorte; Sweet & Salty Chocolate; Gateau Diane; Orange & Almond with Chocolate

FRUIT! Lemon & Lime with Ginger; Strawberries & Cream; Rhubarb, Raspberry & Custard; Sugar Plum Fairy

There was also a lovely carrot cake, which doesn't fit into my neat drink/chocolate/fruit dream classification system. If Ros wants to claim she dreams of carrots, that's fine by me. I often find it's a toss up between Daniel Craig and a root vegetable.

I'd had a busy day making six dozen wedding cupcakes in a warm kitchen on a warm day  and I was pleased at how peckish I was feeling at 6pm. 

I made a beeline for the sweet and salty chocolate cake, then the sugar plum fairy and the strawberries & cream cakes, hoping that the fruit would help me pace myself. Then something awful happened - three slices in and I hit the wall. I had a rest, a chat and a cup of tea and wondered aloud what gateau Diane was: "meringue, cream and chocolate". Meringue! My favourite. I scarcely had time to recite the obligatory meringue joke in my head (Geordie goes for tea with the Queen. She says, "Geordie, would you like a cake or a meringue?" Geordie says, "Nae yah not rang hinny, ah'll hev a cake"). My second wind also carried me on to a slice of the zuccotto, lemon & lime and pina colada cakes. I admitted defeat at seven slices, far short of the 11 slice CCC record set in Leeds.


One of the good things about CCC, apart from all the cake and tea and chatting, is that you get to take home the leftovers, so I took a slice of all the cakes I hadn't managed to try, including my orange and almond cake. It was a new recipe for me from Leith's Baking Bible.

To make it extra almondy, I made use of my new found macaroon skills and baked some green and pink macaroons to decorate the side and top, In my mind's eye, it was going to look beautiful. In reality, it looked shit. For a start the macaroons were, as my sister pointed out, "a bit nipply" thanks to my sloppy piping. More like on full beam. I took the macaroons off, paired them with a mint chocolate and a raspberry chocolate ganache, and gave one to my dad to try. "Nice", he said "I'd like more". Handy, because he had 16 to take home. The ladies at cake club were none the wiser.

CCC was held at the Central Bar at the Gateshead end of the Tyne Bridge. It's a lovely friendly place where all the cool kids hang out, or rather, where Han and I fail to win the Wednesday pub quiz each week. Huge thanks to Dave for hosting the cake club tonight in the  Blue Room, so smart it has its own outdoor roof terrace. I'd certainly recommend the Central to anyone who likes live music, real ale and sausage sandwiches. I'd also recommend the quiz to anyone with an in-depth knowledge of AC/DC. 

Huge thanks also to Lisa for organising the cake club so well. This event was fully booked, so if you want to scoff a load of cake and meet some new people at a secret location in September, you'd better get booking!

Carousel Cake

I've been wanting to make a carousel cake ever since I bought a PME rocking horse cutter in January. This week I found several excuses to do so:

• it was my birthday on Tuesday and I could see no reason not to celebrate turning 39 by making myself a cake better suited to a small child.
• Renshaw have just brought out new regal icing colours including ruby red and my favourite duck egg blue and I was keen to try them.
• Wednesday saw the first Clandestine Cake Club in Newcastle with cakes themed as childhood summer memories (for all the summery cakes, see here).
• my alma mater Cakes4Fun are running a competition entitled 'What Summer Means to Me' that I wanted to enter. For me, summer is a travelling fair and here is why. 

New York has Central Park, London has Hyde Park and Newcastle upon Tyne has the Town Moor, home to a couple of hundred cows and little else. At the end of June every year since 1882 the cows clear off to Benidorm on a cheap 10 night deal while the moor hosts one of Europe's largest travelling fairs, the Hoppings. This short video neatly shows the contrast.

As a child the most exciting day in the year for me after Christmas was the day I went to the Hoppings. I remember almost levitating with excitement as we approached the rides. The smell of chip fat and candy floss blended with diesel generators and the throaty thud of pop music still plucks at my heart. I remember the time it was so wet when I was 7 that the mud came over the top of my wellies (I was undeterred - nothing kept me off a waltzer); the time aged 10 that me and my cousin slipped the safety bar inside an American Egg and rattled about inside it like a couple of tictacs; and the time we lost Yvonne inside the helter skelter on my 6th birthday trip and I loudly suggested that she'd been stolen by the gypsies, just as our mothers had warned.

Here's me 35 years ago by the dodgems sporting a little dress and hat that my mum had sewn.

Last year, Caroline and I took her girls Hannah and Becca to the fair and they loved it.

So my summertime theme was a fairground ride. I tried to tone down the out and out kitsch of a carousel horse but kept the mirrors, the gold and the garlands of flowers around the horses' necks. 

The cake could  even go round and round and I made a three second video of my cousin Helen moving the turntable of it springing into life. Watch here and be amazed!

After ten days of Hoppings fun, the rides are dismantled, the travellers move on and the cows come home with as much duty free as they could buy. In much the same way, my cake was dismantled. It didn't have far to travel and there was still some left for breakfast.

Clandestine Cake Club - Newcastle

Yesterday saw the inaugural Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club organised by Lisa Vincent.  The rules of Cake Club are simple: you bake a cake based on a theme, meet somewhere you can get a brew, eat the cakes, then take home any leftovers. You are allowed to talk about Cake Club, and you do not have to have a fight with Brad Pitt (more’s the pity). A few of us had watched with interest and envy as Clandestine Cake Clubs popped up all over the UK including Leeds, Manchester and London. It was time for the Geordies to get baking.

There’s something slightly daunting about turning up to a club where you don’t know anyone and the only thing you might have in common is a love of cake, but the lure of noms won over any shyness. We met at the lovely Settle Down Cafe, who kindly stayed open late for us.

The theme was childhood summers - I made a lemon sponge carousel cake (I’ll explain elsewhere why I made such a ridiculously ornate cake); Lisa made a strawberry layer cake with fruit grown at her own allotment; Carol made a banana rum cake with cinnamon frosting; and Val made a raspberry, almond and white chocolate cake that was neatly described as “like Bakewell tart but even nicer”.

Thankfully there were some non-baking guests to help eat it all. The cakes were truly delicious and as each contained fruit, we reckoned we’d eaten four of our five-a-day.

The next Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club is on Wednesday 24 August and the theme, pickpocketed from South Lancashire CCC, is “fantasy meets reality – the cake you’ve dreamed about”. The venue is secret – it’s not called clandestine for nothing – until you book a place.

And guess what I’ve had for breakfast? Mmm, leftover cake….