A Cake-a-Thon for UAE Food Bloggers

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Last weekend was a busy one for Fooderati Arabia (aka FiA) – the UAE food bloggers group.

On Friday, we celebrated FiA’s one-year birthday with a sugar-high afternoon full of cakes, cakes, and more cakes. Yes, a Cake-a-thon!

Then on Saturday, we attended a Food Bloggers Breakfast at Tavola where we were given presentations on knife selection, usage and care; the art of Japanese food plating (Moritsuke); and food styling by Fiona Archibold. I’ll be blogging more about this Tavola event in a future post.

FiA officially turned one in July, but with many people out of town for the summer, we were only able to celebrate as a group this past Friday.

Most birthdays only have one birthday cake. But since this is a food bloggers birthday celebration, we had 15+ cakes!

Please click on the photos to be transported to the website of the blogger who created the cake.

Earlier this year, in this post, I’ve written about how FiA brought me out of my blogging slump, connected me with a wonderful and talented group of like-minded bloggers, and how I’ve made many new foodie friends and delved into the depths of new as well as familiar cuisines.

I am constantly looking forward to our many get-togethers: whether picnics, potlucks, restaurant openings, food safaris, or impromptu lunches and dinners.

For my contribution to the Cake-a-thon, I was going to make the only cake I knew how, a French Chocolate Cake from my Come Dine With Me competition but at the last moment I was time-crunched and asked my husband Scotch to make one instead.

Scotch is a far better baker than I am (must be the British blood) and most of the baking tools we have in the house (baking scales, tins with removable bottoms) were all his doing. In fact, I think he bought me my Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer because he secretly wanted to use it for his baking needs.

For the Cake-a-thon, he made what he christened a Chocolate Concrete Cake – a fudgy cake with chocolate ganache frosting and covered in chocolate shavings. It was based on a recipe from BBC Good Food.

He spent all morning baking and prepping this cake and it turned out amazingly moist, rich, and very fudgy! We should have brought some vanilla ice cream to enjoy with it.

The FiA Cake-a-thon was held at TeaJuncTion in Oud Metha, just behind the Mövenpick hotel. It was my first time at TeaJunction and when I entered the cafe, I couldn’t believe how huge the place felt with its massively tall ceilings. We commandeered the terrace area on the upper level.

Scotch and I ordered some fruity iced teas and a Cutting Chai and they were very good. I would have ordered more if I weren’t already loaded up on sugar from sampling so many cakes!

My son, Wee Scotch, had a great time playing with the other children, charming the adults, and eating a whole lot of muffins, cupcakes, and more cake.

He was pretty well behaved until the end when all the sugar probably made him a bit hyper. At one point, he ran off and quickly disappeared from my line of sight. When I caught up with him..and before I could stop him…he had plunged his little fist into a cake and was licking it off his fingers!

Here is a slideshow of him and his cake-licking shenanigans:

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be doing this, but…”

Wee Scotch thinking: “Mama’s gonna be mad at me but I couldn’t help it”

“But I’ll stick my whole hand in (again) anyway!”

“I bet I’m in trouble now…”

“I’m licking this cake off my fingers before Mama stops me.”

“Hey Mama! Watch this!”

Dulce de Leche cupcake in one hand and being fed chocolate by Dad? A toddler’s dream!

Wee Scotch thinking: “Mmm, that Dulce de Leche cupcake was goooooood but what should I stick my finger in next?”

He understood me but of course he didn’t listen. Instead, he defiantly shoved a large piece of Abigail’s Ube cake into his mouth and then deliberately smeared it all over his face! I tried to look stern and angry but inside I was laughing because he looked so cute!

We had a great time and I was so glad that Scotch could meet some of my food blogger friends for the first time.

*   *   *   *   *

More Cake Creations From the FiA Cake-a-Thon:

• Ube macapuno cake (purple yam cake with sweet cocnut strings and whip cream cheese frosting) – My Nappytales
• Walnut cake with 7-minute frosting – Eat Write Think
• Croque en bouche with ginger custard filling – Radotuille
• “Mars bar boston cream pie” – I Live in a Frying Pan and Sheban
• Semolina and yoghurt cake with rosewater syrup – Irini Savva
• Coffee cream cake – Foodie Corner
• Black forest cake – Stovetop Dancing
• Strawberry Snow White cake – Love and Other Spices
• Cake from Paul’s French Bakery – Scribblelicious
• Mini-cakes from Pascal Tepper Bakery – FooDee (also links to video of the cake-a-thon event)

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