I often think very fondly of the old Cake Club days. It started as a Loire Valley branch of the now defunct Clandestine Cake Club. When that folded the members opted for a more varied style and it evolved into a kind of lunch club. I handed the reins to someone who arranged just one meeting, the pandemic ultimately seeing the club off. There has been no sign of it being resurrected, even though several of the former members tell me how much they miss it. Hey ho.
In reality there are plenty of other events where large groups meet and eat - although the sight of a dozen or more fabulous cakes laid out on someone's dining table and a group of lovely bakers gleefully anticipating a slice or three while they sipped their glass of the Loire's finest fizz is beyond compare! For a confessed cakeaholic that is!
This cake was one that I made for a cake club meeting and it comes from a great blog written by Dominic Franks. I have made more cakes from his blog than from any other source (unless you count my collection of Mary Berry cook books as a single source!).
I was going through a chocolate cake phase at the time. That was followed by an apple cake phase. In any case, it was a lovely cake and you can read all about it here.
It looks like Claise ConneXion has been killed off too, by a combination of Brexit and Covid. No anglophones at all turned up to the last two events I've organised. I think Claise ConneXion has largely been replaced in people's lives by Phoenix en Claise, which is more or less fine by me.
ReplyDeleteWe will be joining Phoenix en Claise when we return to France. It's a shame about Claise Connexion, we attended some nice meetings and the food was good. It served a very good purpose at the time, uniting people who found the Brexit chaos very unsettling.
DeleteWe would have attended Claise connection but in recent years we haven't been in France when the meetings were scheduled. We enjoy Phoenix en Clasie walks and activities. Shame about cake club though, monthly was perhaps too much but two or three times a year was about right.
ReplyDeleteMost years there were only four or five meetings because of course I was only chez nous over the summer months so it seemed like more!
DeletePeople didn't have to attend every meeting, or eat all of the cakes.....but plenty of them did!
I was sad when people said there were too many cakes! How can there ever be too many cakes? Isn't that rather like saying there is too much tennis if you join a tennis club and expect there to be scrabble or rounders as well?!
Would people complain there was too much food at a buffet and feel obliged to eat the lot?!
Those members that wanted it to change to become a lunch club got what they wanted then it died. QED !!
A Cake club! What a brilliant idea!
ReplyDeleteIt was a lovely club and very successful for several years, but see my reply to Gaynor above!
DeleteIt started out as a few cake enthusiasts meeting in an afternoon for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Others saw it as a means of connecting with other people in the area and felt obliged to make a cake in order to attend. They voted for a change. The true cakeaholics still miss it!
Of course there's nothing wrong with joining any club in order to make friends - but in this case changing it into something else didn't work!