Dithering

Where shall I start today?
I have ideas for posts about cake (of course), about rag rugs, social media, family... I could go on. But the chance of actually getting around to all of them as individual posts is pretty remote so I bring you a jumble of my past week instead. Shall we start with cake?

I dithered and dallied with the technical bake from the Bake Off semi final... could I really be bothered with all those ingredients, all those different steps, all that time? But in the end I caved in and made Les Miserables. They were a complete faff from start to end. So many pans, so much mess and I still can't make a proper Swiss buttercream, I didn't temper my chocolate and I certainly wasn't going to cut raspberries in half. Why would you? I guess they looked okayish, although more like sandwiches than cake, but I thought they were overly sweet and sickly and most of them ended up being binned... the ones that Stewart didn't manage to eat that is.

 

Last night I went to watch the final of the Bake Off with other members of the Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club at a rather nice establishment called the Grain and Hop Store. We had to bring along our signature bake so I brought along a gluten free chocolate and almond cake. It wasn't this particular one as it was too dark to photograph the one I made, but it was pretty much like this minus the strawberries. All the cake that was brought along was delicious... not a Miserable in sight! I may have had several portions of cake for my dinner! I managed not to hear the Bake Off winner in advance, as leaked by Prue Leith on Twitter yesterday, but pretty much guessed it would be Sophie. Now I'm dithering about whether to apply for next year?

 

I have also been busy trying to get one of my Textile Art newsletters out. Having dithered for ages about whether to send one, I had one all ready to go last Friday and then my laptop died. I had wanted to promote my rag rug wreath course that I'll be teaching at Missenden in a couple of weeks. But the newsletter didn't go and the course was cancelled... that was until I posted a photo of a second wreath in a different colourway on social media and got several enquiries about the course... it seems that blue and silver was a popular choice!  And so it is now back on again because the lovely people at Missenden School of Creative Arts have decided to take a gamble and run the course even if we don't get enough people. Fingers crossed that we do to make the gamble pay off!

 

I always dither when I send out newsletters mostly because without fail within an hour or so of sending it I get at least half a dozen people unsubscribe. It is swings and roundabouts because I pick up at least as many new subscribers over the weeks between sending them out but it still fills me with doubts... have I said something wrong, am I boring, do people just hate my work? In my heart I know it is nonsense because I can't please everyone all of the time but it doesn't stop me wanting to! Anyway my laptop was fixed and the newsletter went out, I have had seven people unsubsrcibe (only one of whom I actual know... that bugs me!) but I've also had interest in a course, two orders of my DVD (which is on sale at only £5 + pp) and an absolutely lovely email from a lady called Barbara who reads this blog... Hello Barbara! So it was definitely worth sending it and should you want to receive the occasional newsletter from me too, you can subscribe via the button on the sidebar... as long as you promise not to unsubscribe straight away!

Pina Colada

It's Cake Slice Bakers time again already, when I join in with other bloggers on the 20th of each month to bake from World Class Cakes by Roger Pizey. This month our choices were a rather lovely sounding banana loaf (tempting), an extravagant multi layered coffee chocolate cake (maybe just a bit too much work involved), a mandarin, polenta and macademia cake (also tempting) and a Greek coconut cake, that for various reasons I decided to make.

My eldest son's girlfriend is Greek and a keen baker/cook and has shared some lovely Greek recipes with me so I thought it would be fun to try this... although I was then disappointed to read this traditional cake is usually made with semolina but not so in this recipe! Also, consistant with my past experience of this book, the oven temperature and timings seemed way off the mark, which I think could really throw an inexperienced baker. Which is a shame as there are some fabulous looking cakes... but I digress.

The amount of mixture specified in the recipe was vast. There were vat loads of batter so I actually made it in two 23 cm (9") cake tins rather than just the one and I added the coconut toffee topping to just one of them as I had plans for this cake!

As it happens last week I attended another Clandestine Cake Club meeting in Cambridge and the theme for the evening was beverages. For some reason when I saw this coconut cake I immediately thought about Pina Colada. I've always thought coconut and pineapple make a lovely combination of flavours in a cake... although absolutely vile in a cocktail!

So I took my two relatively plain coconut cakes, soaked them in a rum syrup (rather than the specified lemon syrup), then sandwiched them together with a layer of pineapple conserve (made very easily from a tin of pineapple in juice) and some coconut buttercream. I finished the whole lot off with some piped buttercream and dried pineapple flowers.

I don't think I have ever made such an enormous cake!

It did look so pretty when I photographed it at home...

But after driving it into Cambridge and then walking with it from the car park, I took the lid off the box to reveal a bit of a disaster... the entire top had slid off and the pineapple and buttercream had oozed everywhere. The photo below is after I had attempted a rescue. I guess I should be grateful that at least the whole lot hadn't slid onto the floor like last month!

Fortunately everyone seemed to agree that it tasted really good even if it looked a mess. And I managed to bring what remained into my class the following day where it was also well received.

I think it might have said something about our Clandestine Cake Club that the majority of offerings for our beverage theme were alcoholic. There was a delicious limoncello cake and a strawberry Pimms sponge sandwich.

A chocolate Guinness cake and a peach, blueberry and amaretto sponge (yummy!) also made an appearance, along side a coffee chocolate cake and a tea loaf

Despite appearances I can definitely recommend the coconut cake and this is my version of the recipe:

Greek Coconut Cake (adapted from World Class Cakes)

You will need two 9" (23cm) cake tins, greased and lined. Preheat the oven to 170 deg C (150 fan)

 

Ingredients:

• 9 large eggs, beaten
• 455g caster sugar
• 315g self raising flour, sifted
• 225g butter
• 300g dessicated coconut

Syrup:

• 50g caster sugar
• juice of a lemon
• 100ml white rum 

Toffee topping

• 150 ml double cream
• 80g soft brown sugar
• 100g shredded coconut

Method:

•  Cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy
• With a hand mixer, add the beaten eggs a little at a time, with a spoonful of flour with each addition, to prevent curdling
• Fold in the remaining flour and the coconut until well mixed.
• Divide between the two tins and bake for approximately 1 hour (the book says to bake one cake at 150 deg (130 fan) for an hour and a half to two hours)
• While the cake is baking make the syrup by combining the caster sugar, the juice of a lemon and the white rum in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer to dissolve the sugar
• When the cakes come out of the oven, brush the tops with the drizzle until it is all used up.
• Cool in the tin for 15 minutes and then make the coconut topping.
• For one cake combine the double cream and soft brown sugar in a small pan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the shredded coconut and then pour the mixture over one of the cakes. Turn up the oven temperature to 190 deg C (170 fan) and return the cake to the oven for ten minutes or so until the top has browned.
• Allow to cool for ten minutes and then turn out of the tin. The cake is perfectly delicious as it is (and you can freeze one for later) or you can go the whole hog like me and sandwich together with the fillings of your choice, where you will have a cake that is impossible to cut, tastes amazing and is big enough to feed about thirty people!

You can see what the others have baked this month here:

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

An Extra Slice

Now you will already know I'm a huge fan of The Great British Bake Off, but I also enjoy the spin off programme An Extra Slice on Friday evenings with Jo Brand.

So you can imagine my delight when I was offered the chance of tickets to be in the audience via the clandestine cake club... not just any old tickets either but right up the front, sat around the tables, where the audience is invited to bring a cake. I immediately decided I would bring a Pumpkin cake being as it is almost Halloween (as did two other people too!) but then I found out there was a Royal theme so I converted my Pumpkin into Cinderella's coach. On Wednesday me, my friend Anne and my rather large cake in its box went into London on the train and underground to the ITV studios on the South Bank

Anne and I were shown into a holding area which was the last chance to take a photo before being ushered into the studio. Once there all bags, coats and phones etc had to be handed in so there are no photos of the actual filming or the set, which looked fabulous. 

At this point we were told that unfortunately there wouldn't be time to see any audience bakes with it being the final show... there was a brief moment of disappointment when I realised that Mary Berry would probably never taste my cake but it was very brief indeed because the whole experience was amazing. First of all we were shown the final of the Bake Off and sworn to secrecy over the winner. We then met all the other contestants who mingled among us. We spoke to Kate, Michael, Tom and Rav (who said he wanted to try  my cake!) Val was just as dippy... and lovely as she appeared on the show. Louise and Lee were there too, although Benjamina and Selasi couldn't be there. There was a warm up man who got us all laughing and then the filming commenced. They filmed continuously for an hour and a half  - Jo Brand chatting with Mary Berry, Sarah Millican and Hal Cruttenden before meeting the runners up Andrew and Jane and finally the winner Candice.

The whole experience was just wonderful from meeting lots of lovely people to seeing the whole process of filming a TV show. We returned home... with the cake... absolutely exhausted but having had a fabulous time. And if you tune into BBC2 tonight (i.e Friday in England) at 8.30 pm you might even get a glimpse of me and my cake!*

As for the cake... which was a spiced pumpkin cake with pecan nuts and freshly grated pumpkin and a buttercream frosting, with a hidden trick or treat centre filled with jelly snakes... I took it along to a charity quiz last night where it was shared out for donations to the charity so it didn't get wasted. I don't think we could have eaten all that ourselves!

Look out for me on the telly!

I had "See a tv show recording in the studio" on my sixty x sixty list but I never dreamed it would be this one!

* A little update... if you watched the show you would have seen a lot of the back of my head but a friend managed to capture the screen shot above, which does at least show me (in the red cardigan)  and my cake!

Clandestine Cake Club

I've known about the Clandestine Cake Club for quite some time and have thought about joining but never quite summoned up the courage. It was started about six years ago by Lynn Hill in her home in Leeds but has grown in popularity and there are now groups all over the UK and even further afield. The idea is simple...  members meet in a secret location and all bring cake, eat cake and talk about cake. As I'm aiming to do sixty new things by the time I'm sixty I decided to bite the bullet and join my local group in Cambridge. As Cambridge has a new organiser the theme of Monday night's meeting was "All Things New"

I've been wanting to try an elegant Chiffon layer cake like this one by Jin Yee Chung in The Cambridgeshire Cook Book for quite a while so it seemed an ideal opportunity to give it a try. The unusual green colour comes from an Eastern flavouring called Pandan... an extract derived from Pandan leaves

I was slightly alarmed at just how bright green my  cake mixture turned out...

Less elegant... more neon! The cake is three layers of very light sponge layered with a Pandan and coconut flavoured custard.

With some trepidation I took my cake into Cambridge on Monday evening to Novi, our secret location. Despite giving off an air of confidence I find new situations like this a bit nerve wracking but I need not have worried. Every one was really friendly and when I got inside I even found there was someone I knew which was lovely (Hello Terry!)

The table was laden with the most amazing looking cakes and I was a bit concerned that not only did my cake look rather unusual but might taste a bit different too... Pandan tastes a bit nutty like coconut but has a flavour that resembles basmati rice! Being "new" to me I didn't really know what it was going to be like!

But I was relieved that others really seemed to like it...

The first cake I tried was this wonderful chocolate daquoise, that was so good I didn't want to eat anything else... but I did! I tried four or five of the cakes before I reached my limit. We laughed and talked... mostly about cake... and the two hours whizzed by. About thirty women of all different ages joined by a love of cake!

And what's more... we got to take the leftovers home!

I'm already looking forward to the next meeting!

And that's another sixty by sixty crossed off my list... only fifty five left to go!

I'd like to tell you there will be something other than cake in the next couple of posts but with another bake off challenge coming up and a Cake Slice Bakers deadline next week, there's going to be more cake I'm afraid... although I'm also back teaching embroidery this week too. It's one of those weeks!