Cornwall and clotted cream cake

The theme for the March meeting of Birmingham's Clandestine Cake Club was 'cakes inspired by literature'. My initial choice was going to be an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland themed cake, however this idea was taken by another member so I had to rethink my choice. As always happens, work and life took over and the cake became another thing on the ever increasing to do list. Then, before we knew it, we were on holiday in beautiful Cornwall and cake club was the following week.

Cornwall is one of my favourite places. From holidaying there as a child, for what seemed like endless weeks at a time in Bude, to my first ever holiday with friends in Newquay at 17, it's been somewhere I've loved. A lot of people have pointed out that in the time it takes to get to Cornwall we might as well have flown to Spain, Greece, Egypt, Tenerife... But I wouldn't get that same holiday feeling. Here are a few pictures from our trip...

We were lucky enough to also have the use of an AGA in the cottage we were staying in. This was quite exciting, but also a little daunting. However, after some advice from the owner and a read through some AGA cook books, Bob had a go. As long as you follow some simple rules, it's pretty fail safe really. The AGA has two hot plates, one for simmering and one for boiling. The longer the lids on the hot plates are open, the cooler the oven temperature becomes. So, anything that takes more than ten minutes on the top should be cooked in the oven. As the AGA is on a constant heat that can't be changed like a conventional oven, where about you cook your food becomes important. There are two ovens - the roasting oven, and the simmering oven. The higher the rack in the oven, the hotter it is! Simples.

So, onto the cake. Having spent the week in Cornwall I was feeling more inspired by the landscapes, the local myths and legends and the food and drink than by literature, and decided to make a Cornwall inspired cake. In the end I settled on 'Five go to Smugglers Cove' by Enid Blyton as my literary inspiration!

Here is the finished article:

Recipe for the cake:
2 medium eggs
225g caster sugar
1/2 vanilla pod
225g Cornish clotted cream
pinch of salt
200g SR flour

For the biscuit crumb (Cornish fairings):

To make the cake:
Heat oven to 180 Celsius. Place eggs, sugar and vanilla seeds into bowl then mix until very thick and the whisk leaves a trail of ribbons when lifted out. Stir cream until smooth then add to the mixture with the salt, stirring carefully. Sift in flour and combine with a metal spoon. Spread evenly in your tin (deep round cake tin works best) and bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown and firm.

To make the biscuits:
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1/2 tsp mixed spice
40g caster sugar
50g unsalted butter, diced
3 tbsp golden syrup, warmed

Heat oven to 190 Celsius. Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add butter and rub in until it looks like crumbs. Stir in the golden syrup until a stiff dough is formed. make 18 marble sized balls, set on the baking tray and bake for 8 minutes until golden brown. Don't overbake as these biscuits are meant to be quite chewy. Blitz in a food processor once cool and scatter over the cake. You can also use blue edible glitter if you want to make a beach effect topping.

And voilà! There you have a Cornish smugglers cake.

Birdy x