Event Report: Christmas Party

We had our Christmas do last night and as usual enjoyed some lovely bakes.  Again, a nice mixture of sweet & savoury, all with a Christmassy theme.  

Left Column: Chai Spiced Baked Chocolate Cheesecake, Black Forest Cheesecake Brownies, Peanut & Chocolate Cookies 

Middle Column: Rosemary & Sea Salt Shortbread with Baked Camembert, Ginger Reindeer Biscuits

Right Column: Cranberry & White Chocolate Cookies, Guinea Fowl & Ginger Sausage Rolls, 

Baileys Cheesecake, Christmas Pudding Scones

We had 8 bakers this evening (Nadine isn't in the pictures as she came later) but we had 9 bakes as Lilian had dropped hers off earlier in the day but couldn't attend in the evening. 

You can see the full list of who made what in our event preview.

Pamela brought a bottle of Prosecco which we thoroughly enjoyed, with some Elderflower Fizz for the drivers.  I've had so much fun at Baking Club over the last 11 months and can't wait to see how we grow in the new year.  We'll hopefully have one or two practical sessions and be sharing many more recipes on the blog.  Thank you to everyone who's been along to one of our meetings, I've loved meeting you all and trying your delicious bakes!

Enjoy the festivities over Christmas and New Year, I'm going to have a bit of a break but will be back in the new year to organise our next meeting.  Merry Christmas!

Event Preview - Christmas Party

So far we have the following bakers and bakes to look forward to (I STILL haven't decided!) at our Christmas Party next Thursday.  If you'd like to join us (or if you think your name should be on the list already), please let me know asap.

Becky M	Black Forest Cheesecake Brownies
Lynda W-S	Reindeer Gingerbread Biscuits
Pamela M	Chai Spiced Chocolate Cheesecake
Emma J	Guinea Fowl and Ginger Sausage Rolls
Hemina P	Christmas Pudding Scones
Nadine H	Rosemary & Cornish Sea Salt Christmas Shortbread with Camembert
Helen Co	Mince Pies
Katie U	Bailey's Cheesecake
Helen Ca	Chocolate & Peanut Christmas Cookies
Lilian T	White Chocolate & Cranberry Cookies

Event Report: Autumn Vegetables

Well, what a turn out!  We had 14 lovely bakers at November's meeting and some seriously yummy bakes!  It's a bit more difficult to try 14 bakes so you have to be more tactical and take teenie slices before going back for bigger chunks of your favourites!

Since we had so many this time, I've added all the photos to a collage rather than making you scroll through 14 images of cakes and bakes.  For the list of who made each bake, please see our event preview.

L-R Top: Carrot & Orange Spiced Cake, Butternut Squash Scones, Butternut Squash & Ginger Tea Loaf
L-R 2nd row: Beetroot Chocolate Brownies, Courgette & Lime Cake, Kale & Apple Cake
L-R 3rd Row: Sweet Potato, Cinnamon & Honey Cake, Free From Carrot Cake,
Coconut & Carrot Flapjacks, Butternut Squash & Maple Cupcakes
L-R Bottom: Handwa, Spinach & Feta Pies, Parsnip & Lemon Cupcakes with Ginger Icing

It was also a bit of a squeeze getting everyone in to my living room as we were just short of the 15 required for a certain venue in town to accommodate us.  I've had a new idea of where might suit though so watch this space for a new venue if we continue to be popular!

I had a fantastic evening and everyone really seemed to enjoy it.  There were plenty of interesting combinations to try among the bakes and some surprising hits!

It was lovely getting to meet so many new baking enthusiasts, we had such a lively meeting with lots of cake based chat as well as general chit chat.  I can't wait for the next one!

(The next event is our Christmas party on which you can find details here.)

Event Preview: Autumn Vegetables

We have lots of new members attending this month with 13 bakes in total!  Details have just been sent out so please get in touch if you haven't received the address.

We will be enjoying the following bakes:

Becky M	Parsnip & Ginger Cupcakes
Lilian T	Courgette & Orange Cake
Holly M	Pumpkin & Maple Muffins
Helen C	Kale & Apple Cake
Laura D	Sweet Potato Cake
Suzanne D-W	Pumpkin Scones
Sharon W	Beetroot Chocolate Brownies
Emma J	Carrot Cake
Lynda W-S	Mini Spinach & Feta Pies
Katie U	Vegetable & Goats' Cheese Tart
Helen C	Butternut Squash & Ginger Teabread
Rose H	Parsnip & Spiced Orange Cake
Hemina P	Savoury Gujarati Cake

They all sound so interesting, I can't wait to try them, quite a few different things I've never tasted before!

See you all on Sunday, please bring a knife (if required) and plate to display your bake.  Tea & Coffee and water will be provided, feel free to bring along something else to drink if you wish.

Event: Christmas Party!

Our Christmas party will be held on Thursday 15th December from 7:30 - 9:30pm.

To join in the festivities and sample some Christmas themed goodies, please let me know your choice of bake to reserve your place asap!  The usual suspects are likely to get snapped up fast so if you have something specific in mind, drop me an email as we try to avoid duplicates.

Remember, you don't need to be an expert baker to take part, just enjoy baking and eating said bakes!  There's no judging and it's all very informal, a bit of fun with fellow baking fans and a great way to meet new people.  Our Christmas event would be a great one to start with if you've been unsure about coming along!

I've just updated our "about" section on the Facebook page to include the following summary:

"We are a fun baking (eating) club who like to share yummy bakes and get to know new people in the local area. 

Affiliated with Uckfield WI, we have members of all ages and baking abilities. We meet every 6 weeks or so (often on a Sunday evening) and have a different theme for every meeting.

You don't have to be in the WI, nor a master baker to join! We aren't strict and there's no judging, just come along and enjoy all sorts of different bakes.

If you'd like to join us, please head to our website for more information on how it works and what you need to do."

As it's our Christmas party, I shall treat us all to some mulled wine (or un-mulled if that's not to your taste) and the usual tea and coffee will be available of course!

Of course, I always make a few suggestions and despite some of these being obvious choices, they are Christmas classics:

Mince Pies
Christmas Cake
Stollen or even a Stollen Wreath!
Sausage Rolls
Chai Spiced Chocolate Baked Cheesecake
Strudel
Gingerbread Men/Cake/Brownies...
Christmas Tree Cupcakes

And some more examples of Christmas bake ideas from my old Glasgow Baking Club.

Event Report: Fruit & Flowers

We had another fab meeting last week with the Fruit and/or flowers theme.  We had 6 bakers again with one newcomer.

I ran out of time to make the elderflower mascarpone layer cake so I went for a Waitrose magazine recipe, Peach, cherry & almond cake with elderflower syrup:

Sharon made this lovely spiced currant & orange blossom loaf cake:

Lynda made an unusual but delicious gooseberry fool tart with a cakey pastry:

Laura made a decadent dark chocolate cake with raspberries:

Lyndsey made these lovely moist Lemony lemon blondies:

And Pamela made this scrummy light Elderflower & raspberry cake:

Event: Autumn Vegetables

Our next event will be on Sunday 20th November at 19:30 - 21:30.  The theme is Autumn Vegetables.

Image Source

Think root vegetables like carrots, beets and parsnip or pumpkins and squashes (although technically fruits) or even greens like broccoli.  Remember, your bake doesn't have to be sweet nor a cake, anything baked is allowed.

As always, to come along and take part, just email Becky with your choice of bake (first to email gets first choice if there are any duplicates).  Details of the venue will be emailed to participating bakers a few days before the event.

A few ideas:

Image Source

Of course, there's the obvious carrot cake (please no walnuts as I love carrot cake!) or perhaps a parsnip version with ginger.  (I've made this Pear & Parsnip cake before and loved it!)

Image Source - Pear & Parsnip Cake

Or there's beetroot cake, with or without chocolate.

 And courgette cake is another vegetable based cake:

Image Source - Courgette & Orange cake with cream cheese icing

Or there's traditional American pumpkin pie:

Image Source - Pumpkin Pie

And a few savoury options:

Parsnip & Leek Tarte

Courgette, Pine nut & Ricotta tart

Beetroot, red onion & goat's cheese tart

Beetroot & Goat's Cheese Pie

Recipe: Feta & Herb Savoury Muffins

For our GBBO themed meeting, I made a recipe by Nadiya, last year's winner, which just happened to feature in July's edition of WI Life.  They are supposed to be Feta & Dill Muffins but I hate dill with a passion so substituted a few different herbs (detailed below) and made some other minor adjustments too like adding Parmesan to the top, although I plan to change them again next time - there are so many things you could add to them.  They are also super easy to make!

They went down very well at the club, it's nice to have a savoury bake for a change and we all enjoyed them hot as I only just got them in the oven before everyone arrived! (I forgot to preheat as I'd prepped all of the dry and wet ingredients earlier in the day ready to mix!)

Ingredients:

175g Plain flour

50g Wholewheat flour

2 1/2 tsp Baking powder (I only used 2 as I could only find self-raising wholemeal flour)

1 tsp Fine salt

1 Medium egg

275ml Whole milk

100g cottage cheese (I only had fat free)

75g Unsalted butter, melted & cooled

50g Feta cheese, crumbled

2 tbsp Dill or (1 tbsp Chives, chopped, 1 tsp Thyme leaves, 1tbsp Basil, chopped)

1/2 tsp Wholegrain mustard (I added 2 tsp instead but next time I plan to add Dijon as well)

1 tsp Ground black pepper

8 Sun-dried tomatoes, chopped 

25g pumpkin seeds

Parmesan, finely grated (optional)

Method:

Prep 15 mins.  

Cook 20-25 mins.  

Can be frozen.

Preheat the oven to 200oC, fan 180oC, Gas 6.

Mix together the flours, salt and baking powder in a large bowl.

Add the milk, egg, cottage cheese, melted butter, feta cheese, mustard, herbs and black pepper.  (I also added half of the sun-dried tomatoes here.)  Mix it all together and spoon into muffin cases.  (I prefer not to use muffin cases so you get a nice golden edge, it works especially well if the muffins are cheesy!)

Top each muffin with a little chopped sun-dried tomato and sprinkle with the Pumpkin seeds and grated Parmesan.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  (I find this hard to judge when there's melted feta in them as that can leave a streak on the skewer.)

They are delicious when eaten hot & fresh from the oven!

There are so many ways you could adapt this recipe.  I decided that next time I would mix some Parmesan in to the mixture as well as putting it on top.  I would put all of the sun-dried tomatoes in rather than on top.  I'd use more mustard, maybe even some English as well for more of a kick.  Lynda also suggested sliced green olives which would also work well, or even just a few sliced black ones.

Nadiya says they are particularly nice when eaten sliced, with cream cheese and smoked salmon - I tried this for breakfast this morning with a couple of my leftover muffins and it's delicious!  The twins also enjoyed them for breakfast, ideal to have ready for a busy morning or even a picnic lunch.

GBBO Inspired Event: The Report

We had another fab evening with our Great British Bake Off inspired bakes last week.  It was just us regulars this time which was lovely as we all caught up over a cuppa and chatted about our bakes, Christmas, WI and lots of other topics.  And of course sampled each others' scrumptious bakes!

We had another lovely selection of bakes to enjoy.  Laura D made Millionaire Shortbread with a stunning gold topping.

Lynda made a lovely refreshing Pistachio Lemon Drizzle Cake:

Pamela made these nutty spiced Florentines which we all thought would be fab at Christmas:

Helen made Paul Hollywood's beautiful light Victoria Sponge:

And I made Nadiya's savoury muffins from a recipre featured in an issue of WI Life magazine (with a few changes - I'll be publishing the adapted recipe soon!)

All of the bakes went down a treat, it was nice having a savoury option to break up the sweet, I might do the same again next time!

The date polls are still open for our next meeting in Autumn http://doodle.com/poll/diiebethkkw4n5sf and our Christmas Party http://doodle.com/poll/gpc3xqckdq5zx97g but they'll be closing soon so hurry up and tick your dates if you want to come along!

Next Event: GBBO inspired

Our next event will be on Thursday 22nd September at 7:30 - 9:30pm.

The theme will be "Inspired by GBBO".

You could bake a recipe by any current or previous contestant, whether it was on the show or from one of their books.  Ditto for any of Mary Berry's or Paul Hollywood's recipes.  Alternatively you could bake one of the technical challenges or showstoppers!

As always, to come along and take part, just email Becky with your choice of bake (first to email gets first choice if there are any duplicates).  If we have enough participants this time, we have a venue in Uckfield town centre who can accommodate us.  Details will be emailed to bakers a few days before the event.

Next Event: Fruit & Flowers

Our next theme is Fruit & Flowers, a lovely summery theme which should be an easy but interesting one.  We'll hopefully have lots of mew members as our WI ladies are officially joining us after signing up at the last meeting.

We'll be meeting on Sunday 31st July, 7:30pm at a venue TBC.

Image source via Pinterest

There are plenty of things you could bake for this theme, fruit or flowers or both can be included and as always, sweet or savoury, cake or tart, biscuits or meringues... anything goes as long as it's baked.

A few ideas for inspiration:

Elderflower Lemon Mascarpone Cake (Someone please make this, it looks awesome!  Actually, I think I will!)

Orange Almond Cake with Orange Blossom Buttercream

Berry Lavender Cake

Rose & Basil Dark Chocolate Macarons or Lavender & Dark Chocolate Macarons

Fig Frangipane Tart

Crispy Prosciutto Cups with Goat Cheese & Figs

Again, I've pinned a few more fruity and/or floral ideas on our Pinterest Baking page.

If you'd like to join us, please email Becky with your choice of bake.  As usual, it is first come, first served when it comes to your choice.  If someone else has already chosen it, you'll be asked to choose something else.  Please can I ask that you only email if you are going to come as we had to ask someone to choose an alternative bake last time but the other baker didn't show up on the night.

Recipe - Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake

Here's the recipe for the Guinness Cake I made for our Boozy Bakes event.

Ingredients:

• 250ml Guinness
• 250g unsalted butter
• 75g cocoa
• 400g caster sugar
• 142ml sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
• 275g plain flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 300g Philadelphia cream cheese
• 125ml double or whipping cream

 Method:

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line a 23cm springform tin.
• Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter – in spoons or slices – and heat until the butter’s melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.

• Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.
• When the cake’s cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. Or do this in a processor, putting the unsieved icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
• Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

I made it exactly as stated (I used the food processor technique for the icing, so much quicker, easier AND I didn’t end up covered in icing sugar like usual!), it needed the full hour in my oven and was cooked perfectly.  The edge was slightly crispy which I love but the whole cake was moist – not dry at the edges like some cakes I’ve baked before!  I highly recommend it!

Event Report - Boozy Bakes!

We had another fantastic meeting at the weekend with the theme Boozy Bakes being a popular one.  Sadly, despite Sunday evening being the most popular choice initially, a few interested members couldn't make it as it was the bank holiday weekend and we had a couple of no-shows leaving just 6 of us again but wow, those 6 bakes were amazing!

I remembered to get a group shot of us this time too!

L-R: Helen, Laura, Pamela, Lynda, Gillian and me (Becky)

We had another lovely evening of chat and cake munching with a few cups of tea.  (I did offer booze since it was boozy bakes but we had enough of that in the food anyway!)

And as for the bakes, I can't pick a favourite, although I'm always going to have a soft spot for my old favourite, the Guinness cake I made.  They were all so different this time, it was lovely to try so many new things.

Helen C baked these beautiful Mojito cupcakes which she crystallised the mint leaves for herself!  They had a good hint of lime and just the right kick of rum, delicious!

My, much less attractive, Chocolate Guinness Cake by Nigella.  So easy to make, moist and delicious, I just love this cake, it works every time!  (Recipe to follow.)

Laura D made these scrummy Baileys chocolate cupcakes with Baileys icing.

New member, Lynda W-S made this very tasty rum & raisin bundt cake which was deceptively light.

Pamela M made a Tiramisu cake which was divine, super light and fluffy with just the right amount of liqueur and coffee and a crunchy addition of pistachios!

Another new member, Gillian, made a deliciously stodgy flour-less Chocolate Souffle Cake with Armagnac prunes!  (Prunes not pictured but they were super boozy, yum!)

So as you can see, we were well and truly spoilt and full up by the end of the evening!

Even if you're not a confident baker, please do come along if you fancy joining us.  Bake something easy, we don't judge!  Details to follow soon on the next theme but if you want to come along, join in the poll to choose the date for our next event here.