Guest Post: Essential Ingredient (A Venue's Point of View)

Another week and another guest post. This week we have a special guest post, something different which we hope you will appreciate. We asked the lovely ladies at Essential Ingredient to write for us, describing their experience of hosting a cakeup. 

Yep, that's right - you may have been expecting to read the recipe for one of the delicious cocktail creations we had at our March Cakeup but we decided to surprise you! After all, the venues where we host our cakeups play such an essential part in Canberra Cake Club so we thought it would be nice to let them have a word!  So, whilst you are reading cast your minds back to February and all those secret ingredients and for those of you who couldn't make it- admire all the deliciousness here! 

It was such a treat for us to host the Canberra Cake Clubs February Cakeup!

When Giulia asked if we would be interested to host the decision was very easy. We would meet lots of people who love food, cooking and eating as much as we do and taste lots of beautiful cakes…Bliss. If someone asked if they could bring 15 cakes to your home and share them, you would say “Yes Please” and offer them champagne which is exactly what we did!

We know many of the Cake Club’s members as our customers or because we follow their blogs. This was a great opportunity to put faces to names and learn more about people’s particular food passions.

The idea for secret ingredient came as natural extension of our store. We regularly find our customers willing to share tips and secrets on how they make their favourite dish.  For the Cake Up, we decided to up the stakes of the ‘secret ingredient’ theme to include a guessing game.  

The range of secret ingredients was fascinating. There were a number of chocolate cakes, does that mean that it is easier to hide things in chocolate or that inventive people have some natural affinity with chocolate? We were certainly struck by the beautiful styling and presentation of all the cakes. However the best part of the game, was in fact not knowing the secret ingredient, and having to go back for a second slice of cake! 

We would love to meet any keen bakers who want to come in to our store. We are more than happy to help with ingredients or hardware. If there is something in particular you need that we don’t have we will source it for you if we can.

The only condition we had to make for Cake Up was that by the time the guests left all the cake had to be gone, eaten or packed up and taken home. Otherwise we might still have been here at midnight feasting and talking.