I’m becoming a bit of a cake – and cake club – aficionado. I am a long term fan of Manchester Cake Club, who offer networking opportunities and business help as well as cake. I’ve helped at the Heatons Bake Off, met the Village Bakers, who I wrote about recently and the latest to this long list is the Northern Quarter Baking Club.
The Club is the idea of Alexia, a long term baking fan, and Northern Quarter native, who simply wants to bring those who bake for fun together. Given how much pleasure can be had by both baking and eating cake, who can blame her?
There are, as with all great clubs, no restrictions to entry – professional or amateur, learner or practised, it doesn’t matter. You’re welcome.
This meeting had a fruity theme – raspberries and strawberries and both fruits were well represented. A squidgy chocolate and raspberry brownie sat happily next to strawberry cupcakes and gorgeous frosted chocolate cupcakes vied for attention, alongside my Swiss roll and strawberry margarita cupcakes.
Meeting at a secret location every month, it’s a chance to chat about your recipe, learn tips and eat cake. The location means you can even have a pint or a glass of wine with you baked goods. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Oh wait, except everyone gets to take leftover cake home. If that weren’t reason enough there’s a raffle and an award for the best effort, here awarded to Louise for her pretty frosted cupcakes.
I was ecstatic that my swiss roll turned out – this was a Simon Rimmer recipe and using a silicon baking sheet, that takes all the effort out of stopping it sticking for you (and it’s cheap as chips).
The strawberry margarita cupcakes however, were me twisting a lemon drizzle cake or Lily Vanilli‘s margarita drizzle cake (which is amazing by the way) to fit the theme. And can I just say how chuffed I was that they sat with the title of Darth Vader? Yes? Good.
As all the recipes I found for this boozy concept were American, allow me to give you the UK version:
Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 150 g unsalted butter softened
- 150 g golden caster sugar
- 150 g self raising flour Sainsbury's fine sponge flour is brilliant and I cant' recommend it enough
- 3 medium eggs
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 6-10 g Freeze dried strawberry pieces Or 20g chopped dried strawberries. you can omit these if you prefer, but I think they add a little colour
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1 punnet of strawberries
- 100 ml good Tequila
- 50 ml water
- 125 g golden caster sugar or to taste, sometimes the lime might be a bit strong/weak
Instructions
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Put the oven onto Gas Mark 3/170C
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Pop paper cases in your muffin/cupcake tin (this will work just as well as a full cake if you'd rather)
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Cream together the sugar and butter until light a fluffy.
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Add in the eggs one at a time and mix well.
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Sift in the flour, the baking powder and the dried strawberrries and fold until it's *just* incoporated.
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Spoon into the paper cases.
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Pop in the oven for about 10-15 minutes until they have risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
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Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little.
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While waiting for the cakes, put all the ingredients for the syrup into the pan on the hob.
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Warm through, let the sugar dissolve and the strawberries give up their flavour.
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When the strawberries are pale and uninterested, strain the syrup.
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Now for the fun bit.
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Grab a cocktail stick/skewer/tip of a small knife and poke holes into the top of each cupcake.
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Spoon the warm syrup into the cupcakes and let it soak through. You may need to do this a couple of spoons at a time, to make it even.
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Let them cool and scoff happily. You should have a sticky, soft, but light cake that's alcoholic, sweet and yummy.