We "heart" cake

This year's Valentines Day saw the first of South Lancashire's Clandestine Cake Club of 2013. The meeting was in conjunction with the local W.I. whose members also brought some cakes along. So plenty of cake to eat :) My cake was a chocolate "rum & coke" cake, an adaption of my favourite chef James Martin's chocolate cola cake

The 14th February 2013 was also the release date of the first Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook and some of the members had made recipes from this book.

The Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook - Lynn Hill

Earlier this week I received my copy of the Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook in the post courtesy of Quercus books. After the initial giddyness and excitement of seeing two of my recipes in this book, I started looking through the recipes that were submitted by fellow Clandestine Cake Club members.

I was amazed and delighted by the variation of the recipes in the book. There are so many delicious recipes to choose from that I just did not know where to start. With names like raspberry cakewell, magic bean cake, cayman mango cake, strawberry butterfly bundt and citrus sunbeam layer cake the mind was in cakey overdrive. I decided I'd leave it up to my other half to choose which one I'd bake first and I was given the options of scrumptious sticky toffee cake (surprise, surprise!) or dark chocolate marmelade cake. Seeing I had all the ingredients for the latter, this is the one I made - but I am sure many more of the recipes will follow soon.

This cake is rich and truly scrumptious. A must try for all chocoholics. I can heartily recommend this book to all bakers of all abilities, there is something for everyone. It will be available from all good book stores from the 14th February, but can already be pre-ordered on line. I have not been paid or requested to do a review of this book and the views expressed are mine alone.