The Bloggers' Cut: Garden and Cake Finder


A HUGE thank you to everyone who took part in the Bloggers' Cut for this year's Chelsea Fringe. 22 of you showed us various home gardens, allotments, a holiday cottage, lots of garden discoveries plus a whole host of other goodies involving gardens and cake. From the various activities I've seen, we've had around 150 active participants*, plus many hundreds of individuals who've simply read what we've been up to. Therefore this virtual Fringe event is a massive success, thanks to you :)

The Bloggers' Cut featured visits to three other Chelsea Fringe events: Naomi's Cake Sunday and Sarah Salway's virtual garden tour - both of which inspired this offering; plus a visit to London's Open Squares event where Colleen had the massive responsibility of judging the Victoria sponge competition.

As well as the Fringe events featured, your activities included get togethers with friends, family or fellow allotmenteers (which I'd hoped for), garden makeovers, garden visits and revising for exams. We also had hints for what to do with the eggshells left over from all that baking.

The cakes featured varied from the simplest to the most intricately decorated. They also included seasonal rhubarb in various forms; cheesecakes (including a non-dairy first timer); cream teas; the unusual taste of lavender; ginger - either as the main flavouring or as an accompaniment; gooey strawberries; lemon; and coffee and walnut. This surprised me as I thought more people would go for my favourite, chocolate. Last but not least, Anna B's Herman friendship cake sums up the spirit of what I'd intended when I dreamt up this event.

NAH tucks in!

I've devised a Cake Finder Map - shown at the top of this post - which pinpoints everyone's contributions. From that you can see our event covered a distance of around 400 miles from north to south and over 200 from east to west. Thus we have the widest and most geographically diverse Fringe event for 2013! As well as the individual locations featured on the map, there are an additional 6 to explore courtesy of The Clockwork Dodo, who provided her own visitor's guide to favourite gardens and cake. The map is clickable if you take this link, so you can zoom in and visit any of the blog posts which take your fancy - it's a much friendlier and informative version of the Mr Linky I used to capture everyone's contributions.

And if all that garden and cake visiting leaves you feeling hungry, then there are recipes to hand via some of the posts for you to solve the problem of lack of cake. It's been great to visit everyone, discover some new blogs and add a number of gardens and cakes to my 'To Visit' and 'Must Make' lists. I hope you've enjoyed it too :)

Will I do something for the Fringe next year? I've already had an idea, so watch this space...

* = based on all the bloggers who've posted, plus people who've taken the trouble to leave a comment on at least one blog, tweet about the event or Like it on Facebook.

Related Posts:

Update 13th June: the map now stretches up into Scotland and over 550 miles north to south, thanks to Shirl :)

Comments

  1. Flighty12 June 2013 at 08:59

    It was fun to take part, and good to see so many others doing so as well.
    I enjoyed reading the other posts, and looking at the pictures of all the wonderful cakes made me wish that I could have had a slice of each one.
    Thanks for doing this, and I look forward to seeing what your idea for next year is. Flighty xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. CJ12 June 2013 at 09:34

    It was a really great event, well done you for organising it. And what a clever map gizmo! Looking forward to your next idea.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Margaret12 June 2013 at 09:40

    Enjoyed taking part. The map is great, a really good idea. I'm looking forward to next year's event

    ReplyDelete
  4. VP12 June 2013 at 09:45

    Flighty and Margaret - it was great to have your contributions. A fab allotment moment and a new garden to explore :)

    CJ - Google Maps lets you put your own together! I had a lot of fun having a play with it :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. colleen13 June 2013 at 08:31

    Thank you so much for inviting us all and for recording it all on a map - just brilliant! Really though - cakes and gardens - such a wonderful combo.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP16 June 2013 at 10:47

      Colleen - I've seen quite a bit of envy over your judging the Victoria sponges. We all want to be a judge!

      It reminded me of the first year I entered our allotment soc show. The winning chocolate cake had a hefty chunk missing when it went up for auction afterwards - and a lot of very satisfied looking judges!

      Delete
  6. Shirley13 June 2013 at 10:59

    Congratulation VP!! I am delighted this was a success and disappointed I was unable to help promote your great idea or join in with you all (it was an intense week for our family). I've tried to redeem myself as a blogger with my post today ;-)

    I'm looking forward to reading about more cakes and gardens later. I'm a bit of a cake fan too :-D

    BTW great idea with the Google map. I've had versions of that sitting in draft forever awaiting making public... one day ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP16 June 2013 at 10:48

      Glad you came, Shirl :)

      Google Maps are a lot of fun to do and it seemed just the thing to do for this event.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous13 June 2013 at 12:08

    Thanks for hosting the Bloggers' Cut, and for inviting us all to join in - it's great to see that the event was so well supported. Looking forward to meeting up for cake and garden chat again next year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP16 June 2013 at 10:48

      And thank you - I'm going to have a go at making your cake. Thanks for posting the recipe :)

      Delete
  8. Anonymous13 June 2013 at 15:27

    Congratulations! That's a super result, and achieved in double-quick time, too. It's been great fun following the cake trail.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP16 June 2013 at 10:51

      Thanks Helen - it had to be a simple idea in view of the short time available to get it up and running.

      The idea for next year is a simple one too, so that everyone can join in easily. There's a more complicated option for a follow-up, if I can work out how to do it or find the right person to collaborate with. Watch this space :)

      Delete
  9. Anna13 June 2013 at 22:43

    Thanks for the fun VP - have enjoyed your most innovative idea as well as discovering the most yummy cake you could wish for almost on my doorstep. Will call back over the weekend to catch up with posts that I've missed and indulge in more virtual cake. Wonder what you have got up your sleeve for next year :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP16 June 2013 at 10:52

      It's something that's just as enjoyable I hope, Anna :)

      Delete
  10. VP16 June 2013 at 11:18

    A lovely message from email subscriber Louise :)

    "I love your blog! It's inspiring and fun and makes my day. I baked the rhubarb crumble cake recently and it was sooooo delicious. Thank you."

    ReplyDelete
  11. Karen Hall28 June 2013 at 18:51

    This is SO cool VP
    (Sorry I haven't been at my computer in a while so I am just catching up)
    K
    xxx
    PS where has name/url gone?

    ReplyDelete
  12. VP15 August 2013 at 08:35

    Hi Karen - I love doing these maps :)

    For some reason your comment went into Spam! ;/

    ReplyDelete

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