After a month or two of baking lots of Delia's cakes for our blog, Julie suggested we offer them up to the public by holding a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Most people have heard of them - they're a fantastic idea. You hold an event whenever and wherever you like, bake a cake or two and invite people to come and eat them and donate money for Macmillan. There aren't many people who don't know someone who has suffered from cancer, and Macmillan do so much great work for sufferers and their families so it really is a good cause. We (Chitty's Cakes) donated lots of cupcakes of our own - Red Velvet (always popular) and our flavour of the month for October, Toffee Apple Crumble - as well as a few cakes with the iconic Macmillan dusting on top. We set up a Delia table with some information about the blog, and all the Delia bakes we had done for the day.
Having been such a success the first time around, Julie recreated the Chocolate Beer Cake which went down a storm. I tried out the Rich Fruit Scones and served them with homemade strawberry and Pimm's jam and fresh cream. The star of the day was The Ultimate Carrot Cake from page 186 of Delia's Cakes which Julie also donated. It's one we've had our eye on from the start as the picture makes it look so appetising. Not a fan of walnuts, she replaced them with pecans. It was moist, spicy and delicious. The sponges themselves were soaked with a syrup glaze (sugar with orange and lemon juice) after baking with made everything extra moist, and the icing was really tasty. Two tubs of mascarpone made it very cheesy tasting up against just one tablespoon of golden caster sugar, so Julie added some icing sugar (I think knowing my sweet tooth I'd have done the same!). Lots of people at the coffee morning had a slice and it got fantastic reviews.
One other bake worth mentioning from the day was the Peanut Butter Biscuits from page 161 of Delia which I made the night before. They were so easy to make - just a case of mixing everything together, shaping them into walnut sized balls, dipping them in Demerara sugar and popping them in the oven. They were crisp, sweet and really peanutty. Not only that, but as there were a few leftovers from the coffee morning I carried on snacking on them for a week, and they stayed really crunchy and delicious so a great biscuit to make and keep in a tin for a week (if they last that long!).
A massive thank you to everyone who came along to our Coffee Morning - we had a lot of support from our neighbours at the Custard Factory and really enjoyed meeting some of our neighbours. We raised almost £200 which we were really pleased with, and the fundraising continues as I will be running the Great Birmingham Run (a half marathon) in a couple of weeks time and am raising more money for Macmillan. If you would like to sponsor me, head to www.justgiving.com/rebecca-chitty. And if you like the sound of a Macmillan Coffee Morning, it's not too late to hold you own - just head to the Macmillan website for ideas. We would highly recommend it!
