PIN Bar

I have ventured down Dock Street a couple of times before, but this is the first time I've come in to PIN. Oh for the carefree pre-kids days! Were I back in those days I could see this being a regular Sunday afternoon destination!

Nestled away behind The Adelphi near Brewery Wharf, PIN is a bijou bar-cum-pub owned by the wonderful Leeds Brewery.

Some stunning prints of photographs of several Leeds landmarks adorn the walls,   along with a blackboard showing a cool beer 'family tree'

A menu inviting you to 'build your own pie' has caught my eye - you mix and match a pie, type of mash, and a beer for £9.95 - the menu recommends matches for you too, which is pretty cool.

Just a drink though for me today - I'm killing time before the last IronCupcake:Leeds after all, so it would be downright foolish to fill up and occupy valuable cake-space in my belly.

Being a Leeds Brewery bar, Leeds Pale would be my natural choice, but as I went to order this by default from the lovely friendly bar man, a scrumpy cider on the pump next door caught my eye, and being a lovely sunny day, I decided to opt for that instead.

What a yummy tipple! The barman confessed to having over indulged in it himself yesterday, and at 6%, combined with its deliciousness, I can see how that would be easily done!

I'll definitely be bringing the lovely Other Half down here for a drink (and maybe a pie!) sometime soon. Ideally we'll have to get a babysitter while we still have these lovely light evenings and have a date night exploration of Brewery Wharf.

The Great Leeds Bake Off

Yesterday saw the first Great Leeds Bake Off , organised by AgeUK at their lovely Arch Cafe as part of the Leeds Loves Food festival.

There were 36 cakes entered into the competition across three categories: International, Vintage/Retro, and 'Leeds Loves Food'.

I baked an American Red Velvet / New York Cheesecake layer cake for the International category, and my friend Ally baked a Raspberry Mojito Cake.

We dropped the cakes off at lunchtime ready to be judged by Lynn Hill, founder of the Clandestine Cake Club, and Vivek Singh Kashiwale of the 1875 Restaurant.

In the meantime, we pottered around Handmade In Yorkshire for a bit with the OHs and the kids, then it was back to the Arch Cafe to have a look at the other entries and hear who had won each category and then dive in to scoff as much cake as possible.

The winner of the Leeds Loves Food category was a Beetroot Chocolate cake with a herb icing, and the winner of the Vintage/Retro category was a very pretty looking Eton Mess cake. Regrettably, I didn't get to try either of those ones :(

The International category was won by a Swedish Saffron cake. Now I did try this one, and I think it was a pretty controversial decision, it certainly wasn't to my taste and the only other person who seemed to like it in our group of seven people was my 3yo son!

So the bake off was great fun and it's definitely tempted me to investigate the Clandestine Cake Club further and maybe go along and bake for a club meet over the summer. Of course I'll blog about it if I do so watch this space!

Red Velvet & Cheesecake Layer Cake

My son's preschool is having it's Summer Fair tomorrow to raise funds, so I decided to bake and donate a cake.

I also thought I'd take the opportunity to try out one of the ideas I've had for my entry in the Great Leeds Bake Off next month, a charity event organised by Age UK as part of the Leeds Loves Food festival.

Inspired by Lisa Gair, a.k.a The Yummy Yank, I decided to try a layer cake including a cheesecake layer. Lisa is one of my favourite Stall holders from my local monthly food market, Kirkstall Deli Market. She makes absolutely delicious American desserts - huge layer cakes, brownies and bars - and I just cannot walk past her stall without treating myself to something from her repertoire.

I considered chocolate cake with a peanut butter cheesecake layer, but rather selfishly decided that I'd save that for another day when I'd get to eat more of it!! So after flicking through my new copy of the marvellous Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook, I decided to go for a red velvet cake with a baked vanilla cheesecake layer.

I used a recipe for the cheesecake layer, and the method for the layer cake from the RecipeGirl website. The recipe was for a 9" cheesecake, but as I had 8" pans, I figured I'd factor the recipe down to 80% but then seeing that it contained two eggs, I decided in the end to make the whole recipe, but then just use 80% of the mix for the cheesecake layer, then used the remaining mix to make a couple of small individual cheesecakes - more on those later! Once the cheesecake layer was baked and cooled, I popped it in the freezer for a few hours.

Then this afternoon after picking the kids up from school, I baked two 8" red velvet cake layers using the recipe from the Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook.

Finally this evening after the kids were in bed, I made a batch of the cream cheese frosting and started the assembly job.

First came cake, and then the frozen cheesecake layer.....

Next the top layer.....

Followed by a crumb coating of the frosting.

The cake then went in the fridge for an hour, then I slapped on a thick layer of the completely delicious frosting....

And finally I put white chocolate shavings over the top.....

It's gone back in the fridge now overnight ready for the Fair in the morning. The cake is pretty tall and I'm slightly scared that the lid of my cake carrier won't fit! Ah  well I'm sure it'll work out ok.

Can't wait to see what it looks like when it's cut into, and of course taste it! Will take some pics tomorrow and report back!

****** Update *****

Just back from the school fair, and the cake sold out! I managed to have a piece  myself and it was scrummy.

When there was just under a quarter of it left, the woman who had the first slice just bought the whole remaining chunk!

My poor Other Half will be gutted I didn't bring any home for him!!