Blog Tour: The Secret Cooking Club by Laurel Remington

Today on the blog I am mixing books and baking with the wonderful The Secret Cooking Club where I share my thoughts on the book and my attempt at making a Rainbow Cake for the first time!

The Secret Cooking Club tells the story of twelve year old Scarlett who is the star or victim as Scarlett feels, of her Mum's popular blog. Everyone at school knows the blog is about her and Scarlett is eager to stay as much out of the spotlight as possible and that means not joining in any activities. One night as she is just about to go to sleep she hears a noise in the house next door and goes to investigate. Here she finds the most stunning kitchen left empty by their elderly neighbour who is currently in hospital. This is when Scarlett decides to bake and her life begins to transform for the better and how The Secret Cooking Club begins. There are just some stories that you can instantly get into and The Secret Cooking Club is one of them. It was just one of those really enjoyable reads and I loved the focus of Scarlett's Mum being a blogger as this seems to be becoming the norm as more and more of us have blogs. I definitely think this is a great book for kids of all ages and also great to read along with them is they are that little bit younger. The Secret Cooking Club was such a great idea in the story and it was great to see Scarlett coming out of her shell and making new friends and learning how to cook. It made me want to start baking again and I think it will also encourage readers to do the same. I also admired the respect for the elderly this book promotes and it was definitely one that pulled at the heartstrings too. A book that will pull you in, make you laugh and make you want to start up your own SecretCooking Club.

My Rainbow Cake Attempt!
I am so excited that The Great British Bakeoff is just around the corner so in the spirit of that and this book, I attempted my first go at baking a rainbow cake. Lets just say I think you need to be a slightly better baker than me if you are going to try this as I think it took me twice the time to do and missed a step, so the cake went a big wonky! But it was a first attempt and at least it still tasted good.

The bit where I went massively wrong was the buttercream, I should have chilled it for longer and made more of it! If it hadn't been for that the cake should not have gone wonky. Maybe I will have better luck next time.