Friday, 21 October 2016

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:



Thursday, 6 October 2016

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