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Clandestine Cake Club

June 12, 2011 4 Comments Filed Under: Food, Recipes, Uncategorized

MsMarmite eating cake
Group shot!
 Woman’s Hour interviewing clandestine cake makers
 Red Velvet cake with chocolate fudge topping
My Rainbow Cake, looks quite normal on the outside. 
 Inside: the amazing 8 layer multi-level technicolour dream cake!
Mine, all mine!
 I’ll have some of that, and that and that!
 Maria Grist’s pretty chocolate pavlova layers
 Lynn Hill serenely showing off cakes…
 It’s quite intense, this cake cutting lark
 Summer berry and elderflower sponge
 Chocolate rose cake
 Polka dots, sunshine, tea and cake: what more could you want from a British summer?
 Cake papping.

I hate Bounty bars but this was one of my favourite cakes: “Sooo buttery” I managed to splutter between mouthfuls to the baker. “It’s made with Flora margarine” she whispered.
 Cake club, the new book club? 
The theme was cake porn: loved this last minute cake addition, complete with pearls and ribbon…like a garter made with batter!

In terms of trends for women, Nigella Lawson brilliantly tapped into the post-modern-feminist desire to spend time, baking, in the kitchen, with the year 2000 publication of ‘How to be a domestic goddess’. The iconic cover, adorned by a small and singular cake, glossed with lo-rise white icing and topped with a sugar-craft rose, spoke to all of us, me included, who learnt to bake at nursery school and yearned to reproduce that comforting shared moment with our children. Baking, like knitting, is a touchstone of ‘good’ motherhood. Even though I can’t knit, I felt that I couldn’t be a good mother unless I tackled needles and wool while pregnant. (I eventually managed a holey plain knit ‘waistcoat’ three sizes too big for my baby girl).
My baking talents were long dormant but resuscitated for the decade ahead of the obligatory annual birthday cake for my daughter. For every mother, even if you spend 12 hours a day at work, we all want to be Ma Walton at heart, and the odd Sunday, donning an apron and baking a cake, soothes and calms that nagging feeling of not being ‘good enough‘. Designer Cath Kidston has also understood this nostalgic urge with her range of retro goods.
I wasn’t a very good cake maker; to the point that my daughter was pleading with me, yearly, her birthday looming, when I’d roll up my sleeves and have another go, to buy a shop-bought cake. The purchase of an Aga in 2008 changed all that. It wasn’t me, it was my oven! It’s difficult to produce a good cake in an electric fan assisted oven.
Since then, my baking skills have gone from strength to strength: I hosted the first Underground tea in April 2009, since then several secret tea rooms have sprung up around the country. There are many reasons for this popularity: the enduring and simple appeal of cake, the baking boom, and a tea is often seen as a safer option for a supper club for a lone female hostess.
My colleague, Lynn Hill, who runs The Secret Tea Room in Leeds, has started a satellite project, The Clandestine Cake Club. For a mere fiver, people can bring along a home-baked cake and a non baking guest, to a cake club at different locations. Clandestine cake clubs have been held in Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh. Edinburgh has declared for itself the special quality of ‘the city where cake has no calories’, a kind of Brigadoon for fatties. This time, the CCC (first rule about cake club: don’t talk about Cake Club) came to the calorie laden part of North West London known as The Underground Restaurant.
There are rules: NO cupcakes. The traditional large cake is favoured. Tea and coffee is supplied. At the end, any cake left over can be taken away.The record amount eaten so far is 11 slices by a man called Rob.
Last Saturday Woman’s Hour came to record the event and 18 women and 1 man turned up to my house. Some cakes, delicate confections, were a little battered by the journey. One brave woman even cycled over. Another had an enormous bucket, or perhaps it was a plastic cat basket, big enough anyway to carry a small animal, to take cake home. People came from as far as Surrey and Essex. A handful had their own secret tea rooms (to be found at Find a supper club, become a fan).
“There is no competition”declared Lynn sternly “all cakes are welcome”. But of course there was; we were all beadily eyeing each other’s creations.
I’d laid out places at tables and chairs but nobody could leave the magnetic draw of the big cake table. Most of the afternoon was spent stood around it.
Inspired by Lynn, I’m going to organise a cake wreck club, planned for September 18th. Keep an eye here for details! Prepare your worst and most vulgar cakes!

 Cake being taken home
Do you think that’s big enough love?
The aftermath!
In my next post: I will give the recipe for my rainbow cake.

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Comments

  1. Lynn

    June 12, 2011 at 7:07 am

    It was an excellent day all round.Thank you for allowing Clandestine Cake Club into your home. The slices of cake I took back to Leeds travelled well on the train.

    Reply
  2. Kate@katescakesandbakes

    June 12, 2011 at 7:25 am

    What a great, inspired event! Loved reading all about it!

    Reply
  3. Jessica Ann

    June 12, 2011 at 8:59 am

    This made me hungry.

    Reply
  4. The Curious Cat

    June 13, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    Loving the cake…I might have to go out and find some now my sweet tooth is singing! xxx

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Got the sewing machine out last night and hemmed t Got the sewing machine out last night and hemmed the top of these toile de jouie curtains in my summer house shed. The days are lengthening a little which brightens up my mood. Self care= trying to get up and washed. Trying to leave the house once a day. Keeping my hands busy. Finding small ways to be creative. #coronaloner #sewingmachine #curtains #shedsofinstagram #sheshed #springiscoming #supperclub #stayingsane #selfcare #lockdown3
Pasta aglio olio. I’m turning into a vampire. I Pasta aglio olio. I’m turning into a vampire. I get up later and later every day. I’m living in a twilight world- dim skies, getting nothing done. Next week it’s my birthday and every year I’m at my lowest ebb just before my birthday. Lockdown on your own is tough. My motivation, my mojo has disappeared. #lockdown3 #coronaloner #pastadinner #nofilter #january2021 #januarychallenge #selfemployedwomen #single #aquarius #0degrees
On the heath on Sunday. Must. Walk. More. #coronal On the heath on Sunday. Must. Walk. More. #coronaloner
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Galette des Rois, made yesterday in 12th night. Mi Galette des Rois, made yesterday in 12th night. Minus Crown and king as I cannot find either. This one is made with Tonka bean. Plus homemade puff pastry (well worth the effort). According to ike delorenzo at The Atlantic:  The tonka bean, a flat, wrinkled legume from South America with an outsize flavor that the US government has declared illegal. Nonetheless, it proliferates on elite American menus. The tiniest shavings erupt in a Broceliande of transporting, mystical aromas.
The taste of the tonka bean is linked strongly to its scent. "Scents," I should say, as the tonka bean has many at once. I register the aromas of vanilla, cherry, almond, and something spicy—a bit like cinnamon. When served cold—say, in tonka bean ice cream—the taste is like a vanilla caramel with dark honey. When warm, perhaps shaved over scallops, it moves toward spiced vanilla. Additionally, the aroma of the tonka bean shavings (it's almost always shaved) is so affecting that it seems like an actual taste in the way that opium, which has no taste in the traditional sense, "tastes" like its rich, flowery smoke.  Here is the recipe: 

Tonka bean galette des rois

Serves 8
Ingredients
* 140 g caster sugar
* 125 g salted butter, softened
* 100 g ground almonds
* 2 eggs, medium
* 1 tonka bean, grated
* 2 packs ready made butter puff pastry on a roll
* 1 yolk for brushing the pastry
Instructions
* Preheat your oven to 200c.

* Blend the butter with the sugar then add the almonds. Make sure it’s well mixed. Add in the 2 eggs one at a time, then add the tonka bean.

* If using a block: divide the puff pastry into two and roll out to 5mm thick. 
* Make two circles about 15 cm’s each in diameter. Lay one circle on a silicone mat/parchment paper on a baking tray and fill with the almond cream leaving a 3 cm border around the edge. 
* Paint the border with the egg yolk. Then lay the other circle on top, sealing the edges with a fork. 
* You could then carve designs into the top. Make a little slit in the middle to let steam escape then brush the top with the egg yolk
Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. T Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. This is a vegan version. ***

Ingredients:
- 400 g box of soft tofu not silken
- 5 soaked dried shiitake mushrooms, diced, keep water
- 1 red bell pepper, finely sliced
- 400 g fresh shiitake mushroom, sliced thinly
- 400 ml vegetable stock
- 1 thumb fresh ginger, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 4 tbsps groundnut or vegetable oil
- 3 tbsp fermented bean paste
- 1 or 2 small red chillies, minced or a spoonful of Chinese chilli paste
- 1 tsp heaped sichuan peppercorns, finely ground
- 2 tbsps soy or tamari sauce
- 2 tbsp cornflour in 3 tbsps water, mixed into a slurry
- 4 spring onions, finely sliced
- large pinch fresh coriander leaves

Prepare the tofu by cutting it into one inch cubes and soaking it in hot but not boiling salted water. Drain after 15 minutes.
Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms, covering them in boiling water. Leave until soft, then dice the mushrooms. Retain the mushroom soaking water and add to the vegetable stock water.
Prepare the other ingredients so they are ready to stir-fry: red bell pepper, fresh mushrooms, ginger, garlic.

Using a wok or deep frying pan, add the oil and heat to frying temperature. Add the bell peppers,fry for a couple of minutes, then add fermented bean paste, chilli paste or chillies, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sichuan pepper.
Add the mushroom/vegetable broth and simmer on high for a couple of minutes.
Carefully add the cubes of tofu, taking care not to break them too much.
Add the cornflour slurry, stirring for a couple of minutes.
Serve with rice or noodles, garnishing with spring onions or chives and or coriander leaves.  #veganuary #mapotofu #sichuanfood #tofu  #shitakemushrooms #supperclub #londonchef #msmarmitelover #ham&highcolumn #eatplants #lockdown3 #selfisolation #coronaloner #cooking #recipe #cookingfromscratch
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Another thing the Japanese are brilliant at is san Another thing the Japanese are brilliant at is sandwiches. They use the softest, whitest, fluffiest bread. Their mayonnaise kewpie is gorgeous I don’t know why. Perhaps someone here can explain? Here I’ve used sourdough as it’s what I have; kosho which is a Yuzu citrus and green chilli condiment and the aforesaid kewpie Mayo to make an egg 🥚 sandwich.  I’m not a big egg fan but I suddenly had the urge. Also I’ve noticed when I eat eggs it satiates my hunger for hours. All that protein.  #sandwich #sandwiches #japanesesandwich #kewpiemayo #kosho #eggsandwich #sourdough #supperclub #cookingforone #solo #londonlife #lockdownlondon #recipe #snack #sundaysnack #sando
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Happy new year from my bubble to yours! Keep holdi Happy new year from my bubble to yours! Keep holding on...
#happynewyear #happynewyear2021 #supperclub #hootenanny
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#christmasdinner #vegetarianchristmas #vegetarianchristmasdinner #supperclub #londonchristmas #liqueurs #christmasspread #grazing #cheeseboard #port #pavlova
Christmas has started! Home-cured smoked beetroot Christmas has started!  Home-cured smoked beetroot and aquavit salmon with homemade blinis, creme fraiche, dill, Prosecco.  The fire is lit 🔥, the tree is up, 🎄the presents 🎁 are wrapped, we have a #brexit deal- a Christmas miracle. Peace and harmony. #christmas #christmasinengland #homemade #christmaseve #blinis #smokedsalmon #prosecco🍾 #londonchristmas
Done some doorscaping, the latest trend in Christm Done some doorscaping, the latest trend in Christmas decorating. It might also cheer up passersby. #christmas #christmasdecor #doorscaping #doorsofinstagram #londonchristmas #doorwreath #doordecor #doorsoftheworld #doordecoration #exteriors #london #supperclub #covidchristmas
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