Mountain Cakes with Sheffield Underground Cake Club

We met at Carolynns house for a Mountain themed Sheffield Underground Cake Club. This is Daves Toblerone mountain cake. He looked at the recipe and halved the quantities, the cake had melted toblerone and cocoa in it plus melted butter. Decorated with a toblerone glaze and chunks of Toblerone .

My cake was a peaky Bundt sponge cake with local organic rhubarb and organic redcurrants , topped with drizzled, melted chocolate and toasted coconut shavings. Careful greasing of a Bundt tin is recommended.

Carolynn’s cake was the same Toblerone mountain cake as Dave’s, from an Australian website …. she also cut back the ingredients to 3/4. The filling and topping definitely tasted of toblerone ! Scrummy.

Annes cake was an Italian Mountain cake. In Italy, different mountain regions make cakes with local fruits and these are a popular local treat. This one used Golden Delicious apples plus cinnamon and raspberries. The top looked very mountainous and tasted delicious and was still warm.

Below are pictures of the cut cakes .

It then rained a lot so we had to pop the cakes indoors .

Our next event is on Sat 18th September 2-4 . Theme and venue to be announced .

Best wishes

Karen

Karen Perkins Life Coach @fabcoach Do come and bake with us. We are friendly amateur bakers and bake for fun.

Caterpillar & Creepy Crawly Cakes

Sheffield Underground Cake Club channelled their inner caterpillar cake design expertise. Here are our cakes.

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Anne made an insect themed Honey and Parsnip Cake … bees being the link. Very tasty, eggs, oil, grated parsnips, honey & sugar with a cream cheese and honey topping. A BBC Good food recipe.

Carolynn made a Gingerbread Apricot Caterpillar cake. A Sainsburys magazine recipe, amended to include, a ginger swiss roll with crystallised ginger and ginger sponge. The filling was Apricot jam, lots of tasty pieces, plus a coating & filling of lemon buttercream. She made the stripes from 100’s and 1000’s but advised against it as they got everywhere !!

Clare made a Cecil Caterpillar, from a Pinterest recipe. Chocolate ganache with smarties buttons for the spots. Clare recommends using a pringles lid to set the caterpillar face, and add smarties.

Sian made a hot choc and cinnamon spice cake with an initial mix of cocoa, sugar in boiling water, the adding creamed butter, sugar etc. The icing is chocolate buttercream with a piped spiders web & spiders . Yummy.

Karen made Coco the dairy free caterpillar. A chocolate swiss roll made with eggs, castor sugar and cocoa. The filling was raspberry conserve, and should have been Elmlea Plant … but despite the packaging note…it didn’t whip so had to be poured on. The face was fondant icing mixed with raspberry conserve, plus chocolate hazelnut features, and vegan chocolate drizzled on the body.

June meeting 26th June …theme to follow

July meeting 17th July ( before school hols )

Please tell people about our group. All welcome we are friendly & lots of people pop in by themselves . If you want to suggest a venue or offer your place as a venue…please let me know !!

Best wishes

Karen

coachmekp@outlook.com http://www.karenperkinslifecoach.co.uk

Luscious Post Lockdown Park meetup with real people & real cakes

After at least 6 months of Zoom Underground cake club, where we couldnt taste other peoples cake, we finally were able to meet up, less than 6 socially distanced bakers , in Stannington Park to celebrate !! It was a beutiful sunny day. Clare brought a picnic table to display our cakes. We brought flasks with lashings of tea plus we had takeouts from Kafe Stannington Park. I have a lovely iced latte , as it was hot outdoors . Our theme was treats and lusciousness. It was so great to meet up in person after lockdown and try our cakes, all socially distanced. We cut our cakes and everyone helped themselves, with their own cake slices, socially distanced.

Karen made a Kumquat Upside Down cake with Kumquats , which a mini bitter citrus fruits . You stew the fruits in slices with sugar to make a fruit layer to put in the base of the cake tin. Don’t use a springform tin or the syrup can leak through the base as it cooks.

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Sian made a delicious Raspberry Cream Chocolate cake, with fresh raspberries and cream topping with grated chocolate. It was lush.

Clare made a Coconut Dream cake , with dried coconut slices from Lembas. Coconut sugar, milk, eggs and coconut cream. Another delicious cake .

We had a fab time and chatted away for over 2 hours in the fresh air. Its amazing to be able to meet up in person again, try the cakes and take some home. Our next meetup in person is Sat 22nd May. The theme is Caterpillar or creepy crawly cakes, without copyright infringements. Location to follow 3-5 , zoom if the weather is vile.

Here are our cakes and the evidence .

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Any questions or if you would like to join us follow our FB page

Best wishes Karen Perkins

Life Coaching Sheffield & Business Coaching Sheffield by Karen Perkins (karenperkinslifecoach.co.uk)

Mysterious colour cakes with Sheffield Underground Cake Club.

Our instruction today was to “Introduce your cake by holding it up and everyone can guess what the secret ingredient was that gave it, its colour ” We had another Zoom event as Covid #lockdown2 was in force this week. 

I made a crystallised ginger, banana and chocolate cake . I like to use up ingredients so ripe bananas meant no waste, ginger from the store cupboard and the rest of my cocoa and some cacao to get the choccy look. I was pleased with the bake, slightly squishy at the base and tasting like chocolatey Parkin. I will make it again ! 

Anne made Rose and elderflower sponge with a delicious filling of Teignmouth Priory Rose and Elderflower curd in the center plus Rose butter cream on top and layered in the filling. Ann used little icing hearts scattered around the top, that looked like sugar petals. 

Green was the mysterious colour that took at least 4 guesses to uncover. … Vcky had made an Avocado mug cake , mashed avocado plus the usual ingredients … With avocado being an Egg substitute . We then discussed the merits of Spinach for green colouring too.

Carolynn made a compote topped cake. We had to guess the compote .. After 6 guesses because we couldn’t sample it on zoom, someone plumped for plum and it was revealed as a Plum compote and butter cream topped sponge, with roast  chopped plums in the bake. 
We discussed tips for freezing slices of cake for later if we couldn’t scoff a whole one. Tip freeze one slice at a time, or freeze separate cupcakes and bag up when the butter cream has frozen.  And yes , you can freeze butter cream!

Bernie zoomed in with her Swiss roll … With amazing stripes of different colours in the roll. She recommended Morrisons gel food colouring … Lemon and raspberry were the 2 stripes and she said the best way to keep the the integrity of the lines was to use 2 types of cake batter. 
Make stripes with no butter batter, divide it and colour, pipe lines on a baking tray and put in fridge, gently smooth the next batter over with a palate knife . Butter and icing sugar with egg white for coloured ones. 
Clare made lemon icing and lemon butter cream. Bright coloured cake inside Sunshine cake …. Her mystery ingredient was orange food colouring to cheer us up.

We had a lovely chat to take our minds off the perils of Covid and home working. This group has been so supportive through these wierd times. Some inspirations include 
-Bernie said a chequerboard cake was easy. 
-Sian gave us tips for using up flour slightly past date #phew. 
-We learned LIdl coconut flour  … Is naturally gluten free 
-Use up old flour …. Unless it has mites. Tee hee 

-Someone recommended Couch to get fit app… 
– A local on line Adrienne Yoga 
– Breathing for relaxing.  Sian talked about Circular breathing & Square Breathing
We need to be reminded that “Our basic needs are not being met aka Maslow … So it’s ok to not to feel like you should “.  Time to Refocus and be kind to yourself …. All good reasons for sharing and zooming cake !

Our next cakey event is Sat 19th Dec Flavours of India, Festival spices or a freestyle medley 3-5 zoom to follow !! Join us, we have a fab time … Can’t wait to meet up & eat up in real life soon !! Contact me, Karen Perkins for details of how to join .. or LIKE our FB page .Follow me on Twitter and Insta @fabcoach

 

Tier 3 Walks in Sheffield : 3 Surprise View and Burbage circular with @fabcoach

The whole 6.5 mile walk is in the Sheffield boundary, including the Surprise view carpark, on the Hathersage Road. Walk left along the main road from the cark park to Toads Mouth Bridge, a safer route would be to cross the road & walk up Padley Gorge by the stream, but this is in Derbyshire . After the bridge take the slightly hidden path just to the right of the main Burbage valley track , gates & mobility parking spaces. The path we took rises quickly to a gate & then up to the right hand edge of Burbage Valley.

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This is the view down from our rocky edge path, towards Higger Tor . Keep walking up and climbing round the edge of the valley. Massive rocks and cliffs , all in beautiful gingery brown , the rain enhanced the colours.

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We spotted a rain squall coming over from Hathersage, so we sheltered under this massive gritstone near the path & set off when the rain had subsided. On, up and around the edge , the path is very clear.

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Our path follows the curve of the edge and passes these blocky cliffs just before we reach the head of the valley, and the Burbage Car Park. There is often an ice cream van there in summer. Follow the path across the stream at the base of the road, and take one of the paths, lower or upper that curves back along the lip of the opposite valley side …facing towards the incredibly rocky & photogenic Higger Tor.

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Walk along & climb up the Tor, it is steep but with great views over Hathersage one way, and the Burbage Valley the other. To get to the next part of the walk, take the right hand path on top of the Tor to the far right hand corner where you will find a small but gentle path curving down the side … you will see a rectangular Sheep Fold along the path … take the track to the right of this , that curves around … you will see Owler Tor rocks & the rocks of Surprise view. En route you may pass some cows & look over to Hathersage.

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Follow the path to the right of the rocks and you will come to Surprise View … the Victorians loved it. The high cliffs of Millstone Edge are loved by climbers, but gated off to protect kids & walkers. Great views down to Hathersage .

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Follow the path from Surprise view back down to the car park. There is an obvious well maintained mobility path that leads from the car park up to the view point.

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The best map is the Landranger Dark Peak map . There are lots of variations of this walk, in reverse or using the valley path. Hope you enjoyed this walk. You will need proper boots or wellies for this walk & decent rain gear as its exposed but with fabulous views. It’s another undiscovered bit of Sheffield !! Follow me for Walk 4 in the series

Best wishes Karen
www.karenperkinslifecoach.co.uk Follow me on Insta & Twitter @fabcoach Book a free taster session now .

3 Tier cakes with Sheffield Underground Cake Club on Zoom

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Because Sheffield went into Tier 3 we moved our October Cake Club onto Zoom .

Annes cakes are Gooseberry and Elderflower cupcakes …normal sponge with elderflower cordial, full of goose berry jam & with butter cream with Elderflower cordial. They looked fab on zoom …we were all licking our lips !!
Carolynn made some sponge with Orange juice mixed in plus orange juice in the icing. The baking time was 20 mins because they were cooked in ramekins… 1 egg between 4 ramekins.

My cakes were coffee and walnut buns , made with decaff coffee. I took them on my first tier 3 walk near Redmires reservoir.

Vicky made an Apple and plum cake . We talked about how to help the fruit not sink ? Cook the cake partially, add fruit as you go along . Or add extra flour to the mix like you might with a cherry madeira recipe. It has extra flour in it . Ann has ordered a Halloween cake treat box . We talked about treat boxes and where to buy the best & supporting local shops .
We talked about Walking books … Anne told us about a walk with history book that included Higger Tor which is in Sheffield.
We talked about what we’d love to do after lockdown. Anne fancies running a coffee truck & wants to be their first employee !! Sheffield Underground Coffee Van is born.
Afternoon tea in a Cafe by the boating lake in Southwold …recommended by Anne.

For the next meeting 21st November the theme is Colours. Pick an ingredient that gives your cake colour … then ask us to guess the colour & the ingredient.
Everyone welcome at our future meetings … we will be on Zoom till its safe & dry enough to meet up in real life again !!

Join our Facebook group & page https://www.facebook.com/Undergroundcakeclub

Any questions please do contact me
Karen Perkins @fabcoach

https://www.karenperkinslifecoach.co.uk/contact-sheffield-coach.php

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Join Sheffield Underground Cake Club … more details from @fabcoach

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Cakes from our Childhood Memories

Sheffield Underground Cake Club met socially distanced on Saturday in a sunny , windy garden in Walkley with fabulous views ( Thanks to Clare for hosting & everyone for keeping their distance & to our very careful covid free guidelines. ) Our previous meetings over lockdown were all by Zoom, so you could see the other cakes , but only eat your own. We made up for it this time chomping our way through slices of all the cakes. All collected safely from a distanced table, pre cut ! It was heaven to be able to try all the cake in real life again.

I made a coffee & walnut cake. It had 2 shots of real espresso coffee in the sponge plus walnuts from The Nut Bar in the Moor Market Sheffield. My mum made 3 types of cakes for Sunday high tea, on a rotation. I loved this one best.

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Anne made a Cappuccino Brioche Bread & Butter Cake. She sliced and buttered brioche, layered it with dark chocolate. She made a custard of 10 eggs, 3.5 oz sugar, 100ml coffee & 600ml cream. She poured this into the springform tin. She gave us a tip… line the tin or check it wont leak when you pour ( and repour lol ) the custard in. Topped with melted chocolate it was delicious. 

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Clare made a Pineapple Upside Down sandwich cake with cherry jam. She said read the recipe as after she’d baked it, she read ” melt the butter ” Yummy !

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Carolynn made a cake from her childhood. Her mum used to make a mint chocolate pudding and served it with #gasp Mint Custard. She made a yummy chocolate cake with peppermint and mint aero on the mint buttercream topping. Clare said that at her primary school the school cooks used to add a colour to the custard each day that matched the headmasters tie !!

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Raheel told us all about his exploits on Masterchef , we are so proud he only just missed out on the 1/4 finals . He has set up cookalongs instead with dtr Isla every Saturday evening . https://www.feedthelion.co.uk/rogan-josh-masterchef-raheel-mirza/ His cake was a coconut cake from his family, with fillings of creamed coconut, coconut milk & cornflower and topped with desiccated coconut cream. #allgone

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Sian made a cake with all ingredients from her house. Like a store cupboard challenge. It was a raspberry & hazlenut dark chocolate sponge ..very dark and chocolaty with the raspberry from the chocolate coming through. A cocoa and white chocolate topping too . More yumminess !

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Join us at our next socially distanced cake club in October. Venue and attendees all subject to the latest Covid regulations in force & the weather. Sat 24th Oct 3-5 Venue to be announced … Zoom link provided in case of rain etc .
Join our FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2122224674725289 ,

Like our FB page https://www.facebook.com/Undergroundcakeclub
or follow me on Twitter @fabcoach

Happy Baking …. please suggest any safe venues and themes, or host us
Best Wishes
Karen

Summer Fruits Glut cakes

We had our first very socially distanced outdoor cake club . With Parkland views we noshed our way through real cake . I believe it was the shortest ever time between saying hello, introducing our cakes and actually eating them. What a change from Zoom cakes where you cannot taste them …but you can see them.

My cake was a Victoria Plum and fresh plus powdered ginger cake with lemon drizzle icing on top. The plums were from Knab Farm shop as was the ginger. Local Victoria plums.

Ann’s cake was an Elderflower and mixed berry cake, you can use mixed berries instead of gooseberries. Use Elderflower cordial to soak the fruit which sinks into the cake & makes it deliciously moist.

Dave’s cake was a gooseberry courgette and elderflower cake. An  award winning recipe made with rice flour so gluten free. Lots of eggs and little flax seed were used to make the sponge layers. There were 2 types of filling plus layers of Gooseberry compote made with veg agar, and coconut Chantilly cream. Plus elderflower butter cream on top. #yummy

Next event to follow …. Sat 19th September …. theme to follow all socially distanced outside. Zooming if its raining or Covid arrangements change .

Ginger Cakes Virtually in Sheffield

Sheffield Underground Cake Club meets every month to bake to a theme in a secret location. For the last 4 months we have met virtually by Zoom to be safe. This weekend we were very excited to be able to meet socially distanced in a large garden. Sadly we had to fall back on Zoom as it was chucking it down. Ah well , we had a fab time but everyone missed being able to taste all the cakes. Hopefully we will finally meet again in real life on Sat 22nd August with a new theme …watch out for updates .

Ginger Cakes was the theme because our host Clare has 2 lovely ginger cats. They joined us on Zoom. Here are our cakes !

My cake was a ginger & lemon sponge. Made with fresh chopped ginger, powdered ginger & lemon zest in the sponge, filled with homemade rhubarb & ginger jam. Topped with lemon icing & organic redcurrants from my @regather fruit box. Chopped ginger makes for a very moist sponge … chop it fine !!

Vicky made a Lemon and ginger cake with crystallised ginger, ginger pwder and mixed spice Topped with lemon water icing.

Carolynn made a ginger sponge with treacle , ginger powder , stem ginger topped with lemon water icing. That’s icing made with icing sugar & fresh lemon juice.

Sian made a cake with any ingredients she had in the house. A sort of ginger tres leches cake . Ginger powder, crystallised ginger , evaporated milk and vanilla cream topping.

Clare made a Mary Berry Sticky Ginger Cake. As usual with MB cakes it was #ginormous and made for sharing. Warm & stodgy made from butter ,treacle, syrup,milk & eggs & 8oz of flour. By the time the Zoom had started she had already given chunks away to a volunteer delivery person & a neighbour…socially distanced of course.

We talked about baking in lock down & how we were finding it, who’s returning to work when. Its been a brilliant support through lockdown & we cant wait to meet up again.

Join our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Undergroundcakeclub/

Best wishes Karen …

www.karenperkinslifecoach.co.uk

Cheesecakes in Lockdown Sheffield Underground Cake Club

We met online for a lovely Saturday afternoon virtual cake club. 5 bakers plus one baking via whatsapp ( that was Anne !) met up on zoom, baking to the theme of Cheese cakes … dairy or vegan.  Here are the descriptions of our cakes … all eaten at safe social distancing . Our next meeting will be in real life , actually socially distancing in Clares garden on Sat 18th July on a theme of  “A little bit Ginger ”

Anne made a lemon & raspberry baked cheesecake . #atotalsuccess and kept it at home to eat with her family !!

Dave made a tomato, basil, olive & mozarella cake. Made with his own wholemeal home ground flour. It looked delicious. With cream cheese & olive toppings , its from allrecipes.co.uk by Giles. Dave replaced the 2 tomatos with half a can of chopped tomatoes for ease. Everyone thought it looked delicious , look at the smiling faces … we are all missing our live tastings !!

Carolynn made a No Base Baked Lemon cheesecake, half quantities & in a baking dish , served by the spoonful with fruit coulis on the top . Very virtuous , sour cream, cream cheese, lemon & poppy seeds . There were no poppy seeds in the shop so it was just lemon this time !! Sorry no photo today.

I made chocolate baked individual cheescakes , I meant to do Vanilla lemon ones but had no cornflour in the house so added cocoa as a replacement to thicken. Chocolate & Yorkshire cream cheese is delicious. The base was bashed ginger chocolate rounds with butter . I baked the mix of cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, cocoa, whisked egg white for 35 minutes and left to cool in the oven. Then overnight to cool in the fridge . We all agreed cheesecakes were best made the day before . I used a recipe from the 80’s in the Katie Stewart Times Calendar cookbook… i find it good to cook sustainably as it suggests recipes to use seasonal ingredients.

Vicky made a Gloucester Pear & Cheddar cake, with grated cheddar, ground almonds and cooking pears ( hard pears ?). It was from NotQuiteNigella.com and was sweet even though it had cheese in. I missed the photo many apologies.

Clare made a baked Luscious lemon cheesecake , with raspberries from the garden on top. Very unhealthy but great for your mental health & yummy. Clare recommends you bake the night before so the cheesecake is cool & set . Leave it in the oven to cool before popping in the fridge .

Join our next event 18th July 3-5 , bring your own mug, plate, chair … and pop your cake , presliced in a sealed container so we can safely share them distanced from a central table. No pressure to eat anything but your own . Address will come via the Group to to your private messenger !!

We had a fabulous famous baker like out tweets !!

August 22nd at Daves house …theme to be agreed 3-5
Then Oct 17th, Nov 21st, Dec 12th themes & venues TBC and subject to #stayingsafe & how lockdown progresses. We always have zoom to fall back on !!

Please contact me if you want to join us on our FB group 

Best wishes   Karen    www.karenperkinslifecoach.co.uk