On Friday 15th February Lynn Hill the founder of The Clandestine Cake Club,  a few members from the Leeds club as well as some of the Yorkshire based group organisers all got together and met up at the beautiful Arch Cafe in the centre of Leeds.  The Arch Cafe is situated next to the St. John’s Centre and is near to the Headrow.

The Arch Cafe serves delicious homemade cakes, some of which are recipes featured in the Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook and also serves Yorkshire Tea, amongst other things.  When I arrived it was clear to see that the Arch Cafe was a popular meeting place and all the tables were occupied!  The staff were whizzing in and out of the kitchen serving mouthwatering paninis, what a shame I had already had a jacket potato beforehand! I did enjoy a couple of cups of their coffee though and will be back to sample more of what they have to offer next time I am in Leeds!

The reason being for our meeting was to celebrate the publication of the new Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook and BBC Look North came to film us chatting over cake.  They also wanted to chat to Lynn Hill about how the phenomenon which is the Clandestine Cake Club came about.

As I was fairly local to Leeds and my own Clandestine Cake Club, the Knaresborough and Ripon group is getting off the ground, it was lovely to come along and meet some of my cake club friends and the faces behind some of the recipes in the book!

The cakes all looked fantastic.  I made an orange drizzle cake and iced it with sugarpaste and pink hearts.  It looked nice on the table but I did not like the taste of the sugarpaste.  I was very disappointed in it.  Some of the cakes were less fancy than others but they tasted fabulous.  As we all know at CCC it is not a cake decorating, village show competition,  we simply get together because we like cake.

Soon after we had put the cakes on the table, an area at the back of the cafe was cordoned off so we weren’t disturbed.  Then the lovely presenter Amanda Harper arrived with a friendly and kind cameraman called Daniel (though we heard the name Jo Jo mentioned as well so we do hope we have his name right).  Both Amanda and Daniel were great and put us at our ease.  Daniel filmed the whole cakes and the table, then got us to sit down and chat as we usually do at our gatherings.

Then we had to start eating the cakes which we really enjoyed doing. From chocolate cheesecakes to fruit loaves, to champagne strawberry gateaux and stem ginger cakes we were in our element. Lynn had to be interviewed and she explained how the CCC came about.  Afterwards Duanne and I were interviewed, although I made a complete fool of myself talking about my cake. I felt like a game show hostess describing my cake and I cringed when I watched myself back on TV later that day! I was shaking afterwards and couldn’t hold my coffee cup!

If you would like to find out more about the Clandestine Cake Club then please feel free to visit the website www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk.  There are now about 170 clubs all over the country and even a few overseas. If there isn’t one up and running in your area, why not contact Lynn Hill to see about starting one up yourself?  I am organiser for the Knaresborough and Ripon CCC and we have regular events roughly once a month, usually on a Saturday afternoon.  Our next one is on March 2nd and we are baking cakes to a Springtime theme.  We meet in “Clandestine” locations in the Knaresborough and Ripon area at present although I am organising some events to include the Harrogate area as well.

Sadly, my phone camera decided to freeze on me so if you want to see any pictures of our Look North experience, my fellow group organisers Sharon from the Pudsey group on her blog humbugshouse.wordpress.com  and Sue from the SpenValley group, please  visit eviesgran.wordpress.com  have also blogged about our experience being on Look North!