April came around fast!
So this month our meeting was the AGM, where we had to do lots of very important voting and a review of the past year in terms of meetings and finances. We thought it would be fun when arranging this meeting (back in the Autumn) to add in the annual baking competition and as well as starting what will be a regular tradition-we would also have tons of tasty bakes to work our way through during the other business.
We had plenty of entries:
OOOOOhhh my waistline!
What a spread of delicious loveliness! Now I cannot credit each bake with its owner, but I do have a list of the bakes brought-a varied and talented bunch of Ladybirds: Lemon Drizzle cake, coffee & walnut, chocolate, caramel toffee surprise muni cupcakes, ginger & treacle traybake, lemon & elderflower cake, banana cake, clementine sponge, coffee & chocolate mini cakes, choc-orange pecan nut cookies, pecan pie, triple chocolate cake and rhubarb & polenta cake. Bear in mind it was one entry per person and not everybody entered-it was a well attended AGM! Well done to all of our entries, you really made a superb effort. We certainly enjoyed sampling all of the entries:
Would you look at that cake queue!
Well-you can’t judge unless you try them ALL right?
In terms of the meeting proper, we had a review of 2014 from outgoing secretary Gill, an overview of last years finances with outgoing treasurer Emily and a update on Membership from Lucy. We also had to take the vote on the NFWI resolution for this year. Our president Alana also thanked the committee members who were stepping down after a year of hard work. We then thanked Alana for being a super duper president and looking after us so well for the last year.
We took volunteers for the committee-welcome to the team Luisa! Then came the business of voting for a new president-Alana will be staying on the committee with us going forward. After the process was completed we welcomed our new President and current chief twitterer Sophie!
President past and present!
Our new committee for 2015/16 (L-R Helen, Lucy, Elaina, Sophie, Luisa and Alana)
Then came the announcing of the Ladybirds star baker for 2015…we had Katie’s choc-caramel toffee surprise cupcakes in third. Rebekah’s Pecan pie and then Stephanie’s rhubarb and polenta cake in joint second place. Head on over to our Recipes page to find the links to these delicious bakes.
The winner was the lemon and elderflower cake….made by our brand new president Sophie! As a special treat we also have the recipe for the winning cake right here:
6oz pure sunflower spread or margarine/butter 6oz caster sugar 3 eggs 1 tsp elderflower cordial 6oz self raising flour Zest of 1 lemon
Cream the butter and the sugar. Add finely chopped zest. Add eggs and elderflower cordial. Sift in flour and mix. Put into two lined sandwich tins and bake at 180C, for 20mins or until tester comes out clean.
Lemon Curd 4 egg yolks Juice and zest of 4 lemons Half a cup of caster sugar 6tbsp butter
Place yolks, lemon zest, juice and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat and whisk continuously until thickened, about 5 minutes. Then remove from heat and add butter one spoon full at a time, stirring until each piece has melted. Leave to set in fridge.
Elderflower cream 1/2 pint double cream 1 tsp elderflower cordial or to taste
Whisk together until firm enough to hold shape, but don’t overbeat.
When the cakes are cool, cover one layer in lemon curd, then spread the elderflower cream on and add the other layer of cake on top. Enjoy! (And if you want to go for the authentic Ladybirds Bake Off 2015 experience then put it in a tin and shake it about in a bicycle pannier for 10 mins)!
better than a gold medal!
I asked them to wave-but there was cake….the cake won.
As always there are lots of dates for the diary and exciting things coming up…with all the news of our shenanigans right here (eventually) We are about to launch our new monthly games night next week, we have a car maintenance evening very soon and there are lots of exciting things coming up next month. We are holding another re-gifting raffle at the next meeting so please breing along anything you would like to donate that another Ladybird could love. We will also be learning how to defend ourselves at the next meeting with a self defence workshop-best not to wear stillettos ladies 😉
See you soon…I’m off to bake a cake!
Comments