The Cake & Bake Show
At The Cake & Bake Show in London it was possible to admire the confectioners' mastership, buy professional tools and taste a puppy in a towel, Princess Diana, a mummy with blinking eyes or a bleeding cake
When I entered the ExCeL hall, I estimated my visit for about an hour - two, but eventually, I stayed to the end. And instead of a new dress I bought a rose mould, another one to create a multi-colour cake, and dough rollers with different patterns.
That’s because the people showing off in the stalls were the pastry chefs who run successful businesses, win awards, have patents for their own innovations or wrote a book. Of course, they came to sell something, but they were willingly giving a demonstration of all sorts of tricks from their profession. Edible paper lace, which can also be used to create butterflies (it really was edible; they allowed me to bite off). Cake stencils - even with the Louis Vuitton logo, if you want a cake to match your purse. Glass rollers with flakes, shells and dinosaurs; marshmallow candy moulds…
Although many have doubts about British culinary art, their baking is worth noting. I have two books by Mary Berry, food writer and television star, and I love them! Mary didn't come to the show, but other celebrities and non-celebrities came to bake here. For example popular blogger Sarah Sibley, cake designer Karen Davies, as well as Georgie Godbold, winner of many awards and author of books on sugar decorations.
They also organized courses of biscuit painting with edible watercolours and cake decorating for children and adults. You wouldn't believe how simple things are if you have the right tools and know how to use them. In about three minutes, a lady from Sugar and Crumbs created in front of us an amazing cake, which looked like a tightly bound bouquet of small and larger roses…
The selection was incredible, they offered muffin cups, baking trays, sprinkles, dyes, candles, measuring cups, mixers, books, flour, edible pearls even with a gun, so you can quickly stick sugar beads on a cake. Bending racks for impressive multi-storey sweets, female breast and leg moulds and decorating pockets for two or three colours, thanks to which the icing on your cake can be for instance orange with a golden margin...
And as Halloween was approaching, miniature sugar skulls and bones sprinkles, baking moulds in a shape of coffin, grave stone and eyeballs could not be missing. The sugar knives were hilarious - imagine a brown cupcake with a rich white cap of whipped cream.... and a knife stuck into it, from under which red marmalade is bleeding!
The British also like fudge. In one stand they offered it in a very original way - 'hung' from the framework of a roof, like tiles. For a few pennies, the witch (alias the owner) living in the fudge cottage broke for you a few pieces into a paper bag; of any flavour you wished - lemon, orange, with cookies...
The exhibition included a competition for the most beautiful cake on the theme of "The Best of Britain". Everyone imagined it differently, someone like a monument to past generations, other as an autumn forest. In the shape of a cake, there was Harry Potter, a true English breakfast (toast, bacon, sausage, black pudding, eggs, beans, all elaborated in details), bitten sandwich, roasted chicken (indistinguishable from a real one!), Big Ben and Winston Churchill. It is better to see the pictures…
In addition to the competition, a group of award-winning "sweet artists" from all over the world called The Sugar Chronicles presented some more stunning pieces: three adorable puppies in a bath towel, a macabre zombie and a bleeding heart cake.
Well, I wasn’t the only one to leave with the hands full of bags...
I spent Sunday on my favourite Portobello street market, known for its colourful houses and shops where you can find original, adorable and crazy clothes and accessories. And finally I managed to have lunch at The Churchill Arms, a beautiful pub and restaurant a short walk away from Portobello Road…
3 Days
