Event - The inaugural event for the Clandestine Cake Club. December 2010
Theme - Cake Cornucopia.
Location - Chic office near Leeds City Station
Picture this - A Cold Day in December 2010.
You spend hours planning, shopping, and baking a cake to take to the first gathering of the Clandestine Cake Club. You are excited at the thought of meeting new people you have already interacted with on Social media and making new friends.
Someone has offered to give you a lift, so getting there is no problem.
Before you place your beautiful creation, a Chocolate Orange Cake, in a cake tin and refrigerate it to keep it fresh, you share a few pictures of it on social media. It looked amazing.
The time arrives, and your lift awaits outside.
Spalt
You quickly gather up your things, take your cake out of the fridge, and head for the door. Fumbling with your keys, you lose hold of your precious cake and drop it on the floor!!!
Half of the cake lands on the floor, while the other half splatters down the wall. Regardless of the 5 second, 10 second or whatever rule you may want to apply when dropping a cake, this one was unsalvageable.
The dog, on the other hand, thinks otherwise and smiles, believing all its birthdays have come at once, as it tries to lick the chocolate buttercream.
You sink to the floor and cry.
Luckily, you have the strength to laugh as you tidy up the mess. You are convinced to come along anyway, to meet all those lovely people you have met online and taste everyone else’s cake.
There’s a Parrot Perched on the Door!
No, not a real one.
I felt for Rachel, the person who dropped her cake. I was the one giving her a lift, and I could see how upset she was standing in the doorway. I was so glad she came.
This first CCC event set a precedent for all future events in that only those who booked a place would know the exact location.
For this inaugural event, Nicola, who kindly allowed us to use her wonderful office with its comfy sofas, tables, and chairs, placed an inflatable parrot balloon on the door handle to the entrance, enabling any lost attendees to find their way down the secret alley.
If memory serves me well, there were about nine of us, including Rachel, and we all had a great time. One member, Chris K, a very keen photographer, took some lovely pictures, which sadly I no longer have.
I made a Coffee and Walnut Cake,
Becs made a Battenburg cake
Sarah made a Pink Champagne Cake.
Gary made a Whisky Cake
Georgiana made an Earl Grey Cake
Claire made an Apple Cake with cinnamon creme fraiche.
Mike made a clementine and chocolate cake
With so many cakes, we had plenty to eat, all washed down with lots of tea and other refreshments. There was still plenty of cake left over, which meant we could all take a few slices of each other’s cakes home, another benefit of CCC.
Our next event wasn’t until the following year. This is one of the earliest ones of 2011 ‘So Who Ate The Most Slices of Cake’
All Was Not Lost
![Chocolate cake with orange zest decoration on a decorative plate. Chocolate cake with orange zest decoration on a decorative plate.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F774b4f7a-e0e9-462c-83bc-24860c15f13c_4032x3024.jpeg)
While Rachel’s cake never made it to our inaugural CCC event, it was such a lovely, easy recipe that I persuaded her to share it with me so that I could include it in the first Clandestine Cake Club Cook Book, which was published in 2013.
The original recipe is on page 173. Titled ‘Chocolate Orange Disaster Cake,’ it consists of two layers of chocolate sponge filled and topped with a chocolate, butter, and icing spread. The cake is decorated with candied orange zest soaked in Grand Marnier.
Learn more about the history of the Clandestine Cake Club and why no Cupcakes, Muffins, Brownies, Pies or Tarts are allowed.
What Would You Do?
Have you ever dropped your cake/baking on the way to an event or special occasion?
What did you do?
Please share your story in a comment below.
As always, thanks for reading.
Happy Baking
Just stumbled across this and gosh I’m so inspired. Except I’d love to host a curry Club. Where you come and gorge on beautiful Indian curries or cook your way through am Indian cookbook. I reckon that would be quite fun. Keen to know your key learning from running this club. How did you get things going?
Loved reading this post Lynn. I miss the Clandestine Cake Club! I was a member in Manchester for several years and the meetings were brilliant. I’d love to see the CCC resurrected. Any chance of this? If it could happen without involving you in organising it?
Thanks for a good read and for the fun times