To celebrate St Valentine , we practiced the art of #selfcare by treating ourselves & others to delicious cakes baked on a theme of Passion. Every cake was different … and we were hosted in Vintage style by Dave, who set out his dining room with vintage cake stands ready for our cakes. At our meetings everyone bakes to a theme, and we take it in turns to introduce ourselves, and our cakes including why we chose them, ingredients, baking tips, disasters & triumphs … then we all tried each others cakes, with lashings of tea, supplied by Dave . Here are our cakes !!
Raheel baked a Carrot Halwa cake, with petal décor suggested by his kids ! It had pistachios, carrots, sultanas, cashews & almonds plus ground cardamom, cinnamon powder. It was sunflower oil based too.
Dave , our host, used vintage recipes from the 1985 Family Circle recipe book, he first learned to cook from, age 18. He explained that Passion Cake was usually made around Easter … hence the Passion, it originally was a mixed spice cake with chopped walnuts & no fruit, made with oil. He made 2 versions , one with less bicarbe which didn’t sink as much !! #yummy
Hilarys naked Passion cake was a #Delicious Mag recipe & her first go at decorating a naked cake. Delicious with all spice, cinnamon, walnuts & a lemon cheesecake icing with toasted coconut recipe. She fessed up to having left the coconut out of the cake mix but remembered & stirred it in just before baking !! Tasted great & no effect on the cake !
Dani’s Red Velvet cake with cream cheese icing, she bravely used the red food gel, but was worried about such a large amount … the cake looked & tasted lovely with Indigos help !!
Tims Chocolate & Whisky cake with chocolate ganache , chocolate chips supplied extra choccyness.
Karen W’s Chocolate & Stout cake inspired by her cooking a beef & ale stew !!
Karen W’s Passion fruit meringue cake with fresh cream & passion fruit sauce . Make a normal 442 sponge, then make a meringue & bake on top of the sponge at the same time !! Passion fruit puree is £1.40 a packet in Shhhhh Waitrose equivalent to 3 fruit , ready pressed & fresh … in the fresh fruit salad chilled section .
Carolyns Vanilla sponge with passion fruit syrup, mixed into & drizzled over the buttercream frosting.
Bernies, Annie Bells Victoria Passion Cake , with walnuts from Sainsburys cookbook. It had carrot , banana, with cream cheese & butter frosting.
Vicky’s red velvet cake had mashed Beetroot colouring to make the red sponge. We all discussed the need to sieve icing sugar when making frosting, to avoid lumps as this had annoyed several bakers…but NOT affected yumminess.
Passion cakes ..front one is Clares, and rear is Annes …both are from BBC Good food and include bananas, pineapple, coconut, passion fruit, and carrots !! ( Apologies for camera malfunction which missed the whole photo of Annes & Karen P’s cakes … I was so excited by the volume of cakes ) . They said it was like a tropical carrot cake ! Cream Cheese filling & topping optional, one chose a passion fruit glaze & syrup , the other sieved passion fruit filling & cream cheese .
Karen P’s strawberry & cranberry heart cake with dairy free chocolate ganache. It was made with glucose instead of sugar & was dairy free, using sunflower Pure in the cake , vegan chocolate & soy cream to make the ganache. The filling was mashed strawberry & glucose syrup , plus sliced strawberries. The red sponge was veggie red gel food colouring.
Pictures of the cakes mid tasting .. follow … so you can see the interior deliciousness
We all want to congratulate Dani & Tim on the safe arrival of baby Indigo our youngest new member !!
If you would like to attend our monthly Underground Cake Club ..please email me coachmekp@gmail.com or like our Facebook Page @Undergroundcakeclub
Next meeting European Cakes Sat 23rd March 2.30 til 4.30
Happy Baking
Karen Perkins @fabcoach on Twitter & Insta
