Clandestine Cake Club loves Dundee

Ooh, it was that time again - another meeting of the Dundee branch of Clandestine Cake Club.  Yippee, a chance to chat, eat cake and talk about cake - for no reason at all other than that we all love cake.  A perfect Sunday night out, no?

The theme this time was simply 'I love cake', chosen because it was near to Valentine's Day and was quite a loose theme in that people could bake a recipe they loved, a recipe they really wanted to try out or even a heart-shaped or decorated cake.  Allowed a lot of room for manoeuvre, right?

I hadn't thought I'd be able to attend as a baker this time, as we were due to move house a few days later, but that all changed.  So I baked.  I couldn't decide between a chocolate and salted caramel cake, a maple and pecan cake or a seriously chocolately cake.  Mr Becca was no help at all, as he didn't particularly fancy the sound of any of them, so I asked a friend.  And she liked them all.  No help whatsoever, ha ha.  In the end I chose maple and pecan as it felt kind of wintery and North American to me, and I love true Canadian Maple Syrup - what a taste!!

I'm really pleased to say that it went down a storm, and there was barely an inch wide slice left at the end for me to take home, woo hoo!  

Here's the full array of deliciousness on offer.  We have a coffee cake, shaped like a cup of coffee, a white chocolate and orange cake with handmade flowers on top, a chocolate chip and vanilla bundt cake, a monster-sized strawberry cheesecake cake, a chocolate guiness cake, a cherry bakewell cake, my maple and pecan cake, a black forest swiss roll, a red velvet and vanilla heart-enclosed cake, an apple streusel cake and a greek yoghurt cake.  Hungry yet?

 A closer view of the left hand end of the table.

 The middle section of the table.

The heart inside the red velvet bavarian creme vanilla cake.  The baker here had never tried this technique before, and was really pleased with how well it turned out.  Yey Louise!

 The cakes from the other end of the table.

A selection of our guests, happily munching away on slivers of each cake.  You have to take slivers you see, otherwise you simply can't manage to try each cake.  And that would be a shame for you, and would seem downright disrespectful to the bakers, wouldn't it?  If you think you'd like to join in on a meeting as a baker, please do get in touch on cccdundee@gmail.com  And be sure to let them know where you heard about the group please.

Recipe for Maple Spiced Cake with Caramel Frosting

The metric equivalents are probably within 10g/10ml of correct...
1/2 cup (120g) butter                                            
1 1/2 cups (320g) light brown soft sugar              
2 egg yolks, well beaten                                        
2 cups (300g) plain flour                                        
2 tsp baking powder                                              
1 tsp ground cinnamon                                         
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/3 cup (90ml) evaporated milk
1/3 cup strong coffee (I used 60ml pure maple syrup)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg whites, beaten stiff
Cream butter, add sugar and egg yolks and beat again.  Mix flour, baking powder and spices in a separate bowl.  Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, and beat until smooth.  Add the vanilla and maple syrup, mix and then fold in the egg whites.  Pour into the greased ring tin (this would work in a normal cake tin I'm sure, probably a 20cm diameter one would give a nicer height) then bake at 190c for 25-30 minutes.  (I found that the cake was jelly-like at this point, so gave it an extra 5 minutes and the skewer came out clean).
Allow the cake to cool (probably about 2 hours or so) then prepare the frosting/icing...

1 cup (270ml) evaporated milk                            
1 1/4 cups (300g) white sugar                              
3/4 cup (150g) light soft brown sugar
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Blend the milk and sugars in a large saucepan on a medium heat, add butter.  Bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes until the sauce thickens, so that a dribble dropped into a glass of cold water forms a soft ball (soft ball stage).  Cool for around 20 minutes, then add the vanilla and beat for a few minutes until the sauce thickens enough to spread onto the cake.  It thickens slightly more on standing, so spread it as soon as it's done.

Nostalgic birthday cake, maple spice with caramel icing

It's my lovely husband's birthday tomorrow and he's requested a particular cake that his mother used to bake, nearly 30 years ago.  All he could remember was that it had fudge icing and was in a ring tin.  So, problem number one, locate a ring tin.  A quick text message (ah, the wonders of modern technology) to a half-dozen friends was successful.  Next step, call his Mum and see if she knew what he meant, and more importantly, could locate the recipe.  His dad answered the phone and knew exactly the one I meant (spooky) and his Mum knew it too, and sent the recipe along a day later. 

Twenty-odd years ago, they lived in Melbourne too, so this was another Australian recipe, full of cups and teaspoons and so forth.  While baking, I converted the cups of flour, butter etc to British metric measurements in case I wanted to make the recipe again.  The recipe required liquid coffee, but he didn't want that so asked for maple syrup instead. 

I'm gonna assume that the recipe slightly didn't work (it hasn't been tasted yet) because it's old and I used a different ingredient.  After the required bake time, it resembled jelly, seriously, so I gave it 5 more mins. Here's what came out...

Or does this look more appetising??

As if that wasn't bad enough, the caramel frosting was equally difficult to get right.  Far too few instructions in the method meant using Google to figure out what on earth I should do.  I mean, does this look like it will ever be solid enough to paste over a cake?

But finally it was, hooray.

And we have the final result, ta da.  I have to assume you lot think it looks good because I've had positive feedback on Facebook and requests for the recipe too, thanks for your support!