Clandestine Cake Club Cook Book

I may be biased as I have a recipe in this cook book, but I think that this an absolutely beautiful book and set to be one of this years best sellers, I am so glad that the publishers haven't gone in for over egging the pictures and lots of fancy decoration, as this is a book of honest to goodness homestyle cakes. 

                                                         

All Clandestine cake clubbers are avid home bakers and the recipes in the book reflect that, relatively easy recipes with creative thoughtful twists, you just know they are going to be a success and so far all the one's I have baked have been. The book has a practical wipe clean cover which is essential in my kitchen and is helpfully divided into the following sections

• Classic Cakes
• Victorian Cakes
• Fruity Cakes
• Global Cakes
• Zesty Cakes
• Chocolatey cakes
• Celebration Cakes
• Creative Cakes

There are hints and tips on icing and frostings and what to do if you have a cake wreck, all regular cake clubbers have experienced these, myself included when I dropped a cake on the way to a meeting ! the book also has the history of the cake club movement and tells you about Lynn Hill the founder.

Clandestine Cake clubs are now a world wide phenomenum, so I suggest you get out a buy yourself a copy pronto !

My recipe is featured on page 68/69 and is a Magic Bean Cake which I originally baked for a theme of "Full of Beans", in celebration of the launch of the cookbook I baked this recipe for cake club again plus a Lemon, lime and yoghurt cake as contributed by Kate Dickens on page 131.

CCC No 4 - Bean cake - yes really !!

The theme of the latest Clandestine Cake club is "Full of Beans" in tribute to the name of the venue that the club held its meeting at "Bean Drinking". Now I am not one for the obvious so I quickly discounted the cocoa bean, coffee bean and vanilla bean as the basis of my cake, some deep researching on the internet turned up a couple of interesting possibilities. The recipe called for pinto beans which I didn't have so I substituted a can of haricot beans instead, you could use cannellini as well.

Ingredients 

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter - softened or margarine
• 1 egg - free range 
• 1 can of drained and rinsed haricot beans - mashed ( I used my food processor)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarb
• 1 cup of dried fruit
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 2 cups of diced apple without peel - eating apples

Method

• Preheat your oven to 190 C, grease a round cake tin or bundt pan - 9-10 inch size
• Cream your butter / marg with the sugar, then add your egg and mix, now add the mashed beans and vanilla.
• Sift the flour, spices and bicarb in a bowl and then mix the apples and dried fruit, mix well to coat the fruit. 
• Add to the wet mixture and pour into your prepared tin.
• Bake for approx 45 mins - 1 hour, until cooked. 
• Allow to cool and then ice if desired.

Gluten Free chocolate cake

I do like to experiment and my deliberations on recipes for the next clandestine cake club meeting have taken me in the direction of this unusual recipe which contains no flour. So hence its gluten free, the cake doesn't rise much and is homely looking but can be spruced up by a liberal sprinkling of icing sugar or cocoa powder. It is also ideal to serve with ice cream, cream, creme fraiche or yoghurt. This is a high protein cake and has no added fats, so all in all its pretty healthy too.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate
• 1 can of chick peas, drained and rinsed ( garbanzo beans)
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C , grease and base line a 9" inch springform cake tin.
• Melt your chocolate chips either using a bain marie or microwave.
• Pulse your chick peas in a food processor, now add your eggs and combine.
• Add you sugar and baking powder and blend, ensuring you scrape down the sides to mix well.
• Pour into your prepared cake tin
• Bake for approx 40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, cool on wire rack.