Clandestine Cake Club: Wed 22nd August, 1st yr celebration at Settledown Cafe

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday Clandestine Cake Club Newcastle, happy birthday to us.


We held our 1yr celebration in The Settledown Cafe and had over 30 cake bakers/friends celebrate the occasion.

Why The Settledown cafe? It was the venue for my first ever CCC, I remember it well...4 bakers (me, Kate, & Val (plus some other woman who never came back), 4 bakers friends, 4 cakes. We sat around the communal table in the cafe and had a full size slice of each cake. I remember the fullness, the happy sticky cakey feeling inside. The sugar rush.  That was the start, and look at us now.

There should be a settledown cafe in every town, a cosy cafe with mismatched furniture, it's own retro living room snug and great staff who know their tea and coffee and nothing was too much trouble.  We ate off full sized dinner plates but we didn't mind - we were there to celebrate with cake, and we well and truly did that.

Our theme was 'cakes worth celebrating' which seemed to spell super-size cakes, there were cake presents (wrapped up with an icing-bow), a 6-tier rainbow and a black forest gateau (the size of the black forest), meringue cakes, glittery cakes, a chocolate hedgehog cake - who didn't have one of those for their birthday as a kid? a trifle inspired cake, a bee-day cake (b-day, birthday? made with honey, as in honey-bee, geddit?), cakes with candles, cakes with hundreds & thousands, a torte as well as the cakes that CCC is known for: magical flavour combinations like kiwi, white chocolate & lemon, chocolate & lime, lavender and orange, upside down cake of blueberry and elderflower to name but a few.



We had 18 cakes in all, which meant there was plenty left to go in our party bags and enjoy over the weekend. I made special cake labels to colour in too, which went down very well too - everyone kept inside the lines ;) everyone took time to colour in their label according to their cake.

Our designated cake pap Hanna - did a great job in snapping the occasion (in return for cake), and they're online in my flickr account

We had 5 new cake club bakers: Judy, Maddie, Kitty, Bryan and Claire (new organiser of the Jesmond & Gosforth Group)

Thanks to Settledown for hosting us again - we hope we weren't too much trouble for you.
Thanks to all of our bakers and their friends for coming along too.

Another successful cakey event :)