Overdosing on cake part two

Hi all,

Much to report to my little corner of bloggyland at the moment so bear with me while i catch up with you all.

First off, is my report from my second time at the Clandestine Cake Club Newcastle. This meeting's theme? A National Cake (as it was National Cake Week last week, and the cake club meet fell on the Wednesday). I was also very excited to find out that this time, Cake Club would be meeting at the Tyneside Cinema, a place which is very dear to my heart and one of my favourite places in this wonderful city.

So, I thought about my cake that I would make. Well, in actual fact, my friend Nancy and I had many very lengthy conversations, panics, and discussions about the cakes we would make. And I settled on a White Russian cake, mainly because the recipe contained a whole load of alcohol (kahlua and vodka) and there isn't much better in life that a combination of alcohol and cake.

The really interesting about this cake club, was the fact that everyone seemed to have a tale of a cake-based disaster to tell. There were cake cracks, cake disintegrations, cakes dipping in the middle, cakes with saggy frosting, and in my case, slightly burnt cakes and curdled cream due to too much alcohol being added. All these disasters made us all feel a bit better and meant that good conversation flowed freely and made us all feel much better about our cake stresses. My way of dealing with my curdled vodka kahlua cream was to remember that well known old proverb "If your cake goes a bit wrong, put s**t loads of gold dust, cherries, and chocolate on top to hide it".

All that glitters tastes rather nice

Well, this seems to have worked, as there was a journalist and a photographer there that night who were wanting to report on the cake club, and the photographer seemed quite taken with my cake. In fact, he seemed quite taken with the whole idea "What, so you meet up every month, and bring cake and eat cake? Wow!". So, before i knew it, i was whisked off into the alleyway outside the cinema for some photographs with my cake. Despite a minor panic attack about the state of my make-up and hair, and demands for extreme air-brushing, I'm actually not as horrified at the results as I thought i would be. Here it is in situ, in the Sunday Sun:

I know what you're thinking! Hotel Rooms for just £10!!

And you can see the article online here: Secret Cake Making Club Cooking up a Frenzy. I'm so pleased to see it doing so well, and would like to say many congratulations and thanks to Lisa for organising such a great event. Check out her blog The Wonderful World of @loopygirl whenever you get a moment.