Afternoon Tease

Shoreditch Clandestine Cake Club - Meeting 5: "Whodunnit?"

Do I pass for Miss Scarlett?

Far more people than expected descended on an unsuspecting, dimly lit pub last Monday night. I had chosen the location for its red velvety walls, dark turquoise furnishings and plenty of wood as I thought it would be a good place for a Cluedo-inspired Cake Club. The theme was pretty much any 'super-sleuth' you could think of but considering Cluedo was first made in 1949 and that's pretty much my favourite era, I chose the glamorous Miss Scarlett for my own costume inspiration:

Others went with Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Mrs Peacock:

Madeline as Poirot and Caroline as Marple

The lovely Polly as Mrs Peacock, complete with Peacock feather

The cakes were absolutely fantastic and I was so impressed with the different interpretations of the theme. I had opted for a fairly simple 'Miss Marble' cake as I had a lot of other things to do for the evening...namely my hair..! However, the array of cakes was totally amazing and I wish I could've taken pics of them all. Here's just a few:

'Miss Marble' and 'upside-down Professor Plum' cakes

'Tom Banana-by Midsomer' cake, Belgian Chocolate Moustache cake and 'Columbo coffee cake'

Pistachioed Moustachioed Belgian Choc cake, 'Colonel Custard and Miss Scarlett cake' and 'Mrs Peacock cake'

Martha's sponge cake with jelly gun!

My initial plan had been for us to split into teams of two and play Cluedo - I brought two boxes of it with me and tons of pencils and prizes. But the pub was so dim, we couldn't see a thing and there were really far too many of us. Thankfully I had a back-up plan of my 'fill in the blanks of the famous detective's name' game. It even included a picture round :) It was obviously quite difficult as can be seen by these ladies trying desperately to work out if Colombo even had a first name (Incidentally Debbie, Bergerac's first name was not 'Cyrano de') haha

After 2 tiebreakers (it really was nail-biting stuff) the winner received a brand new CSI box-set. (By 'new' I mean, it was in plastic packaging...it was actually Season 1 but it's not bad for free!) I also had an array of little prizes in evidence bags. You can just see the mini Cluedo playing cards and magnetic bookmark with a noose on it. There was also a Miss Scarlett compact mirror:

The rest of the evening was spent discussing our favourite detectives and enjoying cake, although I'm pretty certain that in the darkness everyone was suddenly expecting to trip over my bleeding corpse and have to find out Whodunnit. I might save that for my birthday party....
At the end of the night, Zoe ran off with my rather fetching Crime Scene tape and I forgot my tupperware so I took cake home in evidence bags:

Thanks so much everyone for coming and eating cake in the dark and expecting to be clubbed over the head with a candlestick at any moment. And thanks so much to Lynn Hill for devising the Clandestine Cake Club and giving me a reason to get people together to act nuts and dress-up once a month. Hope to see you all at the next one :) xx
Go to http://clandestinecakeclub.co.uk/ to join the network, then click on my Shoreditch group to join us :) For info on how to do hair and make-up, go to my vintage site at http://www.make-upbake-up.blogspot.co.uk/ xx