Clandestine Cake Club



Veggie cakes



The Northampton & District branch of the Clandestine Cake Club met this week at Irchester Bowling Club for an ‘Eat your greens’ themed October event.

Using hidden vegetables in cakes was the order of the day and surprise, surprise our bakers turned up trumps again with their veggielicious sweet offerings.

Nearly forty members and guests attended together with our VIP guest Ben Frazer – a 2011 contestant from the ‘Great British Bake Off’ TV programme and owner of Northampton-based Cupcake Artisan -  who kindly also brought with him a batch of delicious ‘secret ingredient’ cupcakes for us all to try.

During the first half of the meeting we sampled about 20 beautiful and inventive bakes and a fun competition took place to guess the hidden vegetable – all so abundant at this time of year.  I can now tell you that sales must have gone up in our area this past week of marrows, sweet potatoes, carrots, courgettes, butternut squashes, pumpkins, beetroot, parsnips, swede and even sauerkraut (cabbage) – I hope I haven’t forgotten any!

As the evening progressed Ben shared with everyone just how his involvement with GBBO took place last year and the delights and downfalls of the programme. He also answered many of the nagging baking questions our members asked like ‘Why does my fruit sink’, ‘Does he like to use silicone moulds’ and, of course, ‘How to avoid a soggy bottom’!

Our local Clandestine Cake Club continues to steadily grow and - just like our vegetables - this can only be good for you! And so, until next time......’Eat your greens’.

(Further photographs of the event can be seen shortly on the main www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk website)