Clandestine Cake Club, Newcastle upon Tyne: Wednesday 12th October 2011

Baileys Irish Cream Cake, baked by Julia

This month's gathering was slightly earlier than normal, it wasn't because I wanted my cake-fix early, oh no, it was because we wanted to celebrate National Cake Week.

The venue:
Our hosts were The Tyneside Cinema, a well loved, well managed, well swanky independent cinema located slap bang in Newcastle City Centre.

3rd floor Cafe Bar - our venue for the evening!

We were allocated a great little spot in their Cafe Bar on the 3rd floor, our cakes set up on along the back wall  guarded surrounded by our 12 bakers and their guests. 
The venue provide a great selection of drinks, I stuck to coffee, but some bakers enjoyed something a little stronger with their cake.

The venue was also open to cinema goers, and as they called in for pre-film refreshments they drooled at our fabulous array of cakery.

Once we'd had our fill, we invited the staff from The Tyneside Cinema to help themselves too - as a thank you for letting us use the venue, we had so much cake left!



The cakes:
This month we encouraged our bakers to bake for National Cake Week, choosing either a traditional cake from another place (county, country or planet) or select an ingredient from another country.  And our cake bakers didn't let us down - they were all out of this world.

This month seemed to cause us a range of baking-bruises (more than usual) from cracked tops, sinking middles, and gloopy icing.  But that didn't stop us sharing our tales of woe, our fixing solutions, and compared notes on 'what to do in this kind of situation.'

The cake menu:

• Lisa  & guest – Double espresso & Brazil nut cake
• Sarah (& guest) – Chocolate & Chile (or chilli) cake
• Julia – Baileys Irish Cream Cake
• Liz (& guest) Moroccan Orange & Almond Cake
• Catherine - Jamaican Gingerbread cake
• Kate  – Bara Brith
• Val – Canadian Maple Syrup cake & walnut crunch layer cake
• Emily – Malteser cake
• Clare (& Jamie) – Victoria Sponge
• Hannah @– Sushi Cake
• Hayley  – White Russian Cake
• Nancy (& guest) – Chocolate Guinness Cake

If there was ever a cake I'd wanted to try for a long time, it was the Chocolate Guinness cake.  So thank you to Nancy for baking this.  And it was as beautiful,as  rich, as dark and as delicious and ohhhh as I'd imagined.  You only need a small piece, and I guarantee you will be transformed to a special place made of cakey loveliness.  I did experience tingles down my spine when I ate this.

Stop Press!
This gathering also attracted interest from the local press, and Sarah Fielden from The Sunday Sun joined us to find out more about the club.  A couple of our bakers (Kate and Val) who've baked since the first event in July also spoke with Sarah, and there's a fab picture of Hayley and her White Russian cake along with a nice write up in The Sunday Sun on Sunday 16th October
Also available here


Thanks to:

• The Tyneside Cinema: Pilgrim Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6QG.  The perfect venue, great team of staff, and drinks (hot, cold, fizzy, strong)!
• Sarah Fielden & colleagues from The Sunday Sun for their article
• Hayley & her White Russian Cake - for agreeing to be snapped for the article!
• All of our bakers: me, Sarah, Julia, Liz, Catherine, Kate, Val, Emily, Clare, Hannah, Hayley and Nancy (and your guests - we'd all be very fat without them)
• To Lynn Hill for all of her support with Clandestine Cake Club

The next gathering had already been booked, and before we left that evening, we'd agreed upon a theme of Winter (& I added Wonderland, so I could steal borrow the lyrics from a famous Winter Wonderland song) and there are about 9 cakes already booked in.  See the Clandestine Cake Club website for more details and how to book a place.