Clandestine Cake Club - Bury St Edmunds - 8th September 2012

Since my post a few days ago where I was thinking about Autumn and beyond I've had to eat my words as the latest Bury St Edmunds Clandestine Cake Club meet was held during one of the warmest and sunniest weeks of the whole summer!

The morning of the 8th of September saw myself and eleven other cake enthusiasts meet at the ever-welcoming apex in the centre of Bury St Edmunds. I've probably said it before but the apex is a fantastic venue - bright, airy and spacious with lovely helpful staff. The upstairs cafe/bar area is a lovely place to visit for a sit down and a coffee if you're out and about in Bury.

As the summer holidays are over now the theme for this month was "B is for Back to School" and everyone was invited to bring a cake beginning with the letter B. As always we were treated to a wonderful selection of cakes...

First we have Shauna's Hummingbird Banana Cake. Aswell as banana one of the ingredients in this cake is pineapple which no doubt helped to make it so moist and light.

Helen brought this lovely looking and lovely tasting Banoffee Cake which had a swirl of caramel running through it.

Lynda brought Bara Brith which was delicious spread with a generous amount of butter!

This cake is Rene's Butterscotch cake. I loved the flavour of this one.

Lisa brought not one, but two cakes. One banana, one chocolate and banana, both delicious!

Philippa brought a Battenburg Cake. For some reason I never thought of making a Battenburg, even though it's one of the most well known cakes beginning with B! I loved how sweet and sticky this was.

This one is a Beetroot and Chocolate cake covered in cream cheese icing brought by Ann and her daughter. This cake had a wonderful chocolatey flavour with a hint of the beetroot in the background and the icing provided a lovely contrast to the rich cake.

This is Nathalie's Banana Walnut cake with Vanilla icing. I loved the nutty flavour of this one and the extra sweetness from the icing.

Finally, my contribution was a Boston Cream Pie. This recipe comes from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess book and is a simple, but effective, combination of vanilla sponge, creme patissiere and chocolate ganache. As you might be able to tell from the picture the creme patissiere wasn't as firm as it should have been and a lot of it oozed out of the sides of the cake. I guess I'll need to cook it for longer next time. I was still fairly happy with how this turned out though as it did taste pretty good.

A big thanks to everyone who came and shared their wonderful cakes and to the apex for letting us use some of their space.

If you are interested in finding a Cake Club local to you then have a look at the Clandestine Cake Club website here. There are now more that 100 clubs around the country and even overseas so there's a good chance you'll find one close by.