Rhubarb, Apple and Ginger Bundt Cake

There's no cause like a good cause, and this week my work pals and I embarked on a fundraising mission for one of our own. A friend of ours is very poorly, so we set about a team pursuit to make her smile.

One thing we are really good at is a bake sale. Between us we bake a damn fine spread! I know that anything a bit fruity or spicy goes down a treat, so I decided to transform some beautiful rhubarb, apple and ginger compote I bought a couple of weeks ago into something yummy. This makes a beautifully spiced cake with a soft, moist crumb and a decent sugar crust.

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 350g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 250ml low fat plain yogurt 
• 175g rhubarb, apple and ginger compote - any variety of compote will do, or any flavour for that matter!
• 1 tsp icing sugar for decorating

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 C
2. Grease and flour a regular sized bundt tin using cake release spray - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch.
3. Tip: this mix is a little lumpy if you use chunky compote like I did. This may mean your finished cake has little rough edges - this is ok... run with it!
4. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
5. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Stir in the extract and zest.
7. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and spice.
8. Pour the yogurt into a jug and mix in the compote.
9. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yogurt mix. Repeat this until everything is combined. 
10. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
11. Pour into your prepared tin.
12. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. It should be shrinking from the sides of the tin slightly.
13. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin.
14. When fully cooled, dredge with icing sugar.

I can confirm that this is best enjoyed mid morning with a cup of tea, a slice of banana loaf and a piece of Aussie Crunch. And yes, I did eat all of this within a 15 minute window. It was for a good cause after all...

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and basic recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than rewriting the recipe on your own page.

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Whitworths Great Office Bake Off

I was recently approached by Whitworths Sugar to see if I fancied hosting a Great Office Bake Off. Hmm... cake... friends... Yes! I've teamed up with my buddy, colleague and fellow blogger Dawn from Mummy's Little Peeps to host a fantastic day of cakey goodness.

Although this is going to be tremendous fun, we predominantly decided to do this to support a cause very dear to our hearts. The kind folk at Whitworth's have offered to donate £200 to the charity we are working so hard to support in our workplace. Earlier this year, a dear friend of ours lost her baby boy Charlie and nearly her own life too. The care she received from the Royal Bolton Hospital meant that she's here with us today.

Tragedy has a strange way of pulling folk together, and we found our friends and colleagues to be no exception. On 20th October our brave and selfless pal Gemma will be hurling herself off a crane to raise funds for Charlie's legacy.

We've already had a fantastic bake sale at work to raise much needed cash for the unit, so decided to do something a little different this time round, and involve a few more baking soldiers, so decided to get the Bolton Clandestine Cake Club involved too. Since we are already meeting this month, we thought it would be fun to invite colleagues along to join in some sugary shenanigans. We even have a couple of ex-colleages coming along for the ride.

If you would like to join our cakey gathering, please visit the Clandestine Cake Club Bolton site. Or, if you fancy doing your own bake off, visit the #GOBO Facebook app, download the toolkit, have a butcher's at the Whitworths For Baking website, or tweet them @WhitworthsSugar. Please use the hashtag #GOBO so we can see them all!

Please visit our Charlie's Angels Giving Page to read Debbie's story in her own words, or to make a donation.

Here are some of the wonderful pictures from our Charlie's Angels bake sale we held a few weeks ago. I made a Cherry Bundt Cake using Whitworth's golden caster sugar and icing sugar.

Update

On 20th October our pal Gemma did her bungee jump sponsored by experiencedays.co.uk, so our current fundraising total is well over our £2500 target!

Horwich Christmas Fair

On Saturday my friend Dawn and I held our second fair to raise money for tiny or poorly babies in the care of the Royal Bolton Neo Natal Unit.

Back in March this year, a tiny man called Sam came into the world. Dawn surprised me with a text the day after my birthday, saying he was here. He wasn't due for another five weeks. After a stay in the neo natal unit, he was home with his family and fit as a butcher's dog. A really small one. When she asked for my help to raise a bit of cash for the unit, I said yes without a moment's hesitation.

Granted, the Summer Fete nearly killed us. However, I found myself agreeing to do a Christmas one whilst still high from the euphoria of success. This time I was armed with a spreadsheet, and several lists!

We had such a great day. Crafters, knitters, bakers, puzzle makers, first time traders and some wonderful local folk came together at Horwich RMI to make an unforgettable day. We raised over £1000 for the unit (money is still coming in...), survived the icy chills of the Aspinall Suite and ate lots of cake.

We would both like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came or contributed, and to our friends who helped us; especially Jenny, Kev and Lucie, Clare and her girls, Corinne, Michelle and our long suffering families! Our husbands resisted divorcing us and our nerves remain intact.

Rather than blabber on much more, I'm going to let the pictures do the talking. Huge thanks to Carl Duffy who took most of these outstanding shots.

Please leave your comments below... x

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Horwich Summer Fete - Baking for Babies

I have neglected my blog over the last couple of weeks, but I assure you there has been a very good reason for it. Unless you have been in hiding under a rock for the past week, you will know that I have been a busy little bee organising Horwich Summer Fete with my friend Dawn. 

Just over three months ago, Dawn had a baby five weeks early. Samuel weighed just 4lbs 14oz and spent the first few weeks of his life in the neo natal unit of the Royal Bolton Hospital. When he came home she asked for my help to do some sort of fundraiser for the unit. Since my expertise lies in baking, I suggested a pop up bakery. We decided on the name Sugar Plum Bakery and set about organising a stall outside Spice Valley in Horwich. 

Now then. Anyone who knows either of us will know we are never satisfied with 'good enough'. We want the world and more! A pop up bakery soon snowballed into a full on village fete. We enlisted the help of our families, friends, members of the Clandestine Cake Club, local businesses, contacts through our blog work and social media homies to make the day into the type of fair we attended as children.

They heard our roar. Our soldiers answered our call to arms. Within a couple of weeks we had literally hundreds of people pledging help in the form of prizes, donations and people wanting to attend the event. People who didn't know us from Adam stepped in to help sell raffle tickets, run stalls and generally get us out of a pickle when required!

So, yesterday morning we descended on Spice Valley in Horwich to set up the fete. We had a minor setback with the tables for the stalls, but within minutes our team of volunteers had mobilised and tables appeared as if by magic! Next came the hoards of cakes. Greenhalgh's sent 200 danish pastries, cake clubbers brought perfectly primped cupcakes and beautiful biscuits and home bakers brought loaves, tray-bakes and layer cakes. We were literally overwhelmed by people's kindness and generosity. There was a point where we really should have been getting a wriggle on, but Dawn and I found ourselves just staring at our crowd of helpers setting up. I'm sure Dawn won't mind me telling you that she shed a little tear. By some minor miracle we were ready when our doors opened at 11.30am.

There it was. In all its glory. A fully fledged fete with crowds of people buying cakes, playing games, faces painted, eating ice cream and bouncing on the giant bouncy castle! Around lunchtime the restaurant put on some wonderful food and a group of children from a local temple serenaded us with some drum music. The Mayor tuned up, as did the Bolton News. It was all ok. It was a huge success! Even the odd rain shower (okay, so one was an utter deluge!) didn't dampen our spirits! Our volunteers never faltered and the people kept on coming. 

We were all utterly exhausted by the end of the day. Dawn and I expected to be, but we had never anticipated that our helpers would stick it out right to the very end. They all worked so incredibly hard! Nothing I can say will truly make them understand how grateful we both are. There is still money coming in, but our initial count shows that so far we have raised about £1000 for the unit. We are thrilled!

We were tired, wet and our feet were like trotters. We cannot wait to do it all again at Christmas! The event has restored my faith in human nature. There are some wonderful people around us. Thank you everyone!

I know I will forget someone, but a massive thank you in particular to our helpers:

• Our long suffering husbands
• Emma, Al and Sam
• Lucie and Kev
• Jenny
• Corinne and Michele
• Sara and Maddy
• Chris and Jenni
• Linda, Gaz and Lisa
• Nic
• Heather and Matt
• Elizabeth and her husband
• Monica and Roxanne Pallett 
• Everyone from Clandestine Cake Club Bolton
• The Bolton News
• Vic and Denise from Living in BL
• Geeta and the staff at Spice Valley Horwich
• Horwich Leisure Centre and Hazelbrook Nursing home for lending us tables at short notice!
• Everyone who donated a prize
• Everyone who had a stall

We've loved reading all your comments and seeing your pictures on Twitter and Facebook, it looks like everyone had a great time. So, here are some pictures from our day of fun!

Best cake stall ever!

Amy from The Sweet Pantry with her goodies!

Heart - A Unique Boutique

The bustling crowd as we opened

Dawn and Sam

A young chap with his face painted

Cupcake decorating stall by A Little Slice of Paradise

Chocolate Tombola

Clay Painting with Clay Play

Whatever the Date

Cat Ashton

Rebecca Ebbitt from Polka Dots and Pearls with Doris the campervan

Sara and Corinne manning the games stall

One of the raffle prizes - fruit basket donated by the Salad Bowl Horwich

Some of the wonderful photos by our friend Janet Broughton...

Bei AKA 'That Facepainter' hard at work... 

Jack in Doris the campervan

The children from the Temple

Lucie, Dawn and I on the cake stall

Please leave your comments, thoughts, feedback and memories below - we would love to read them!