Stamford cake club saints and sinners

In an historical turn, the Stamford CCC met on Sunday, August 4, for a sermon, service, and slice of cake at St John's Church. This 15th-century church isn't active in the sense of regular services, but rather serves as an historical base for visitors and cake lovers alike. Once everyone arrived in the church and took a pew, standing with my notebook I did feel compelled to give a sermon - but, luckily for the members, I simply encourage some cake eating instead.

It was fascinating to learn about the history of this hidden Stamford gem while we scoffed down 12 cakes, all baked to the theme of 'Saints and sinners'. We had three new members, and three guests, giving a congregation of 15 altogether.

The group was evenly split between saints and sinners (I thought we'd have more sinners!) - six of each:

Saints:
'More tea vicar' Earl Grey cake - Sophie
Angel cake - Kelly F
Low-fat orange and poppyseed cake - Vic
Victoria sponge - Sarah G
Baked berry cheesecake - Katie
Strawberry and white chocolate cake - Anthea

Sinners:
Devil's food cake - Rhoda
Sticky toffee cake - Vicky
Red velvet cake - Katerina
Devil's food cake - Jane
Chocolate orange marble cake - Louise
Chocolate cake - Natalie

Poor Vic had a total caketastrophy - a mechanical failure of her cake tin meant her low-fat orange and poppyseed cake went all over the road 100 yards from the venue.... However, following a detailed risk assessment and in-depth warning sheet, several of us adhered to the motto 'a little bit of dirt won't hurt' and gave the cake a go - and it was delicious. My 10-minute warning from my stomach didn't kick in so we all assumed the 3-second rule on the floor had worked OK.

It was great to see Louise ventured into the realm of baking after coming as a guest a couple of times - long may your lovely cake baking continue! The new tin was worth it!

Despite the rain, everyone had a good natter and enjoyed all the cakes, filling our cake troughs to the brim at the end of the afternoon. Kelly missed out on a couple of cakes in her trough however, as she was chatting too much about the history of the church!

It was great to support the Church Conservation Trust while enjoying our cake and conversation. Giving something back to the community that supports our cake group feels as good as the baked goods in our stomachs.

I'm loving our cake club. I have to admit to being totally nerve-racked during the events, running around like a blue-arsed fly and talking to everyone without actually talking to anyone - I love the organising, and the write-ups afterwards, but I am so nervous and high on adrenalin that I don't enjoy the meetings themselves! I am getting better each month, though, and hopefully one month soon I'll be able to relax...

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....

Clandestine Cake Club picnic in Stamford

On Sunday, June 2, the sun was shining upon Stamford CCC as we indulged in a chilled out picnic on Stamford Meadows. 16 bakers got together with 12 cakes in the sunshine with picnic blankets and chairs a-plenty.

In the background of cake club was a Victorian cricket festival, with cricketers in traditional garb competing from the local pubs, plus several children’s teams enjoying the gentle thwack of leather on willow. Some skillful dodging of flying cricket balls had to be done by the cake club members, but luckily none landed slap-bang in the middle of anyone’s cake. We also we treated to a fly past by a Lancaster (gosh, I know how to pull all the stops out!)

It was a very different club meet for us, which required me to act as main cake slicer, ending up in the middle of the blankets encircled by the other members. It did mean we couldn’t mingle as much, but we all chatted away regardless, and enjoyed some excellent cakes baked to the theme ‘Perfect for a picnic’.

The cakes included:
Apple and apricot – Sophie
Victoria sponge – Steve
Sultana baked cheesecake – Rachel
Blueberry and coconut crumbly cake – Kelly
Ginger cake – Simon
Lime and coconut cake – Kerry
Raspberry Bakewell – Rhoda
Battenburg – Vic
Sultana cake – Vicky
Lemon loaf – Esme
Toffee sponge – Sarah
Lemon cake – Susan

Vic’s Battenburg fared best under the sunshine, as the marzipan melted a little and made the cake even better! Simon was meant to bring a raspberry layer cake, but his mother got involved (we shan’t go into details) and he had to hurriedly make a ginger cake which was still warm when it got to us.

Luckily, no one was chased by a goose.

A talk about CCC at the WI

I was recently invited to give a short talk at the local Women's Institute about the Stamford Clandestine Cake Club. Last night, I stood up in front of 43 members of the Deeping St James WI and shared with them the joys of our cake club.

I gave a little history about the CCC – how Lynn Hill founded the group and how it has now grown exponentially due to her hard work, with nearly 200 clubs across the UK and internationally.

I amused the WI members with tales of teapot cakes, cakes eaten by the dog, and how we share our love of baking once a month in our underground society.

The ladies were fascinated to hear why we love the group so much – the sense of community that sharing a large cakes brings, as opposed to cupcakes or muffins.

I bust a lot of preconceptions about the CCC during my talk. Many women spoke to me afterwards and said they'd heard of the club, but were scared that it was competitive and that their humble cakes wouldn't meet our exacting standards. But I quickly banished their fears and explained that we're all just home bakers ourselves, with no element of judging or competition at all – just a mutual love of cake.

Several ladies flicked through the pages of the CCC book and hopefully I've got a few new members lined up.

I was incredibly nervous about the talk. Even though it was only to last 10 minutes, I had my bottle of Rescue Remedy close to hand... Standing right next to the boiling radiator in the hall (yes, even though it's the end of May, we still needed the heating on) wasn't the best idea – about two minutes in to the talk I had to jump across the hall with a red face as I was burning up! I was already blushing through nerves so I think I went an attractive shade of Red Velvet Cake!

The group were so welcoming and friendly, I am now inspired to join the WI, which I've been considering for a while anyway.

For more information about Clandestine Cake Clubs click here.

For more information about the Women's Institute click here.  

Pinwheel cookie fail

Steve and his brother went away mountain biking for the weekend. I thought it would be a nice idea to make them some cookies to take with them, and thought Mary Berry's pinwheel cookies would be fun to do. They were in the Children's section of her 'Baking Bible' cookery book so I thought I couldn't lose. A chocolate dough, rolled with a vanilla dough - easy stuff.

Mary Berry's easy creations

GOOD LORD these were dreadful!

I'm not going to repeat the recipe, as I wouldn't want to inflict them upon you all. It seemed quite basic and straightforward, so off I set. However, I soon realised that the 'dough' that needed rolling out in fact resembled 'batter' and in no world would ever be rolled anywhere. Even after chilling for 15 minutes the texture was far too loose. No rolling here.

Instead, I dolloped the mixture on to the baking tray, making an attempt to mix the two together in a bit of a swirly fashion. They did not look good.

Perfect. 

Once cooked, they tasted disgusting.

It's not often Steve won't eat something. That means they're really bad.

They went in the bin.

Mary Berry, you have failed me!

A definite candidate for CraftFail.