Pudding pots

For the other half's birthday, we thought we'd do something a bit different, and went to Battle Proms at Burghley Park. This required a delicious picnic including pudding pots. Steve's favourite pudding is probably cheesecake, but that doesn't translate well to picnics - a bit too unstable and potentially messy. But not when it's in a jam jar!

I layered a mix of crushed digestive and amaretti biscuits (not on purpose - I ran out of just digestives), with creme fraiche and double cream (I didn't have any cream cheese - this was a spontaneous picnic, with little time to do any shopping!), plus raspberries and blueberries. I swirled a little lemon curd in the cream, with a little lemon zest on top. They worked really well - Steve was suitably surprised.

Battle Proms was brilliant. We had a Spitfire display, the Blades acrobatic planes trying to crash into each other, Rockabellas, the orchestra, dancing horses, Napoleonic dress-ups, and lots of characters picnicking around us to people watch. Of particular interest were the warring couple in front, one half of whom walked off after an hour and never reappeared....

Get ready for cake club

Tomorrow I will be attending the first meeting of my local Clandestine Cake Club - a new phenomenon gripping the cake-baking nation. Find out more about CCC here.

Sneak peak of my CCC cake...

I don't yet know how many cake makers will be joining me at the secret location to eat, talk about, and show off cakes, but however many people turn up, I'm looking forward to meeting new people and hopefully making some new cake-loving friends.

Requirements of the club include baking a cake that can be cut into 8 - 12 slices, bringing a cake stand or similar recepticle for showing off said cake, and then eating other people's cakes. Now that sounds like my sort of club.

The club has featured on BBC1's 'The One Show' and soon will be featured in 'Women's Own' magazine, and the idea has really captured the imagination of bakers across the country. A fun and informal way to meet like-minded people just to enjoy each others' creations and talk about why we love to bake. For me, baking is a way to relax, learn new techniques, hone skills, and enjoy lovely cakes. I've found baking to be a way to escape from the stresses of everyday life, to help me overcome impending bouts of depression that haunt me some days, and a way to feel fulfilled that as yet a career has yet to do. Seeing the faces of your friends and family as they devour some tasty creation that you made fills the heart with happiness. I can say, "I made that, I did that, I'm good at something". It's also great to test my perfectionist nature, as inevitably things will go wrong in the kitchen, the cookies will only taste good if you dunk them in tea otherwise you risk a trip to the dentist, or the cake sags and is a bit claggy, or perhaps the cheesecake doesn't quite set and slides off the plate. But, who cares? I'm not a professional baker or chef, and everyone still loves the tasty things even if in my eyes they've gone hoo-har.

I will be taking to the meeting a rhubarb & lemon cake, topped with whipped cream and lemon curd. I'm more nervous about this cake than any other I've made, but hopefully it'll taste yummy and I won't get thrown out of the club on its first outing. It smells nice, I know that much. I won't share all the pics or the recipe yet, as it should stay a secret until after the club meeting...

Rasp Berries and Cake of Cheese

This weekend's Make was raspberry cheesecake.... Yum.

It's made with cream cheese, sour cream, bit of flour, eggs, and lots of raspberries. I also did a coulis to go with.

But, I've got to do some research about how to prevent the top of the cheesecake cracking. It doesn't affect the taste (it's lovely) but it doesn't look great.

It doesn't necessarily look the way it's supposed to:

But who cares! The recipe can be found on the Good Food website.