Last year we went to the Cake and Bake Show because we won a pair of tickets. We enjoyed it so much that we went again this year. We had a great day, but perhaps not as fantastic as in 2013. There was loads of pizzazz, with TV chefs and personalities all over the place, and some wonderful sugarcraft on display, but for our bread-making interests there was perhaps just not quite enough substance.
We went to a bread making “masterclass” given by the very talented Richard Bertinet, who runs the Bertinet Kitchen Cookery School in Bath.
It was very entertaining, and he reminded us of some good practice where we have perhaps fallen into lazy ways with our electric mixers, but he talked only about simple yeasted white bread.
Similarly Eric Lanlard spent his session showing how to make simple shortcrust pastry. Again, some timely reminders, but we’d hoped for something a bit more sophisticated.
John Whaite of Great British Bake Off fame showed us a cheese and Marmite loaf.
The most useful stall for me was Marriage’s Flour. I love their Manitoba flour for breadmaking. We buy it in 16kg sacks, and it forms the basis of much of our bread, including the sourdoughs. I’ve seen Marriage’s plain and self-raising baking flours, but they do a huge range of specialist bread flours too. We came away with a catalogue that we’ll most certainly buy from.
But this year, no appearance by Bakery Bits, from whom we buy a lot of kit, nor indeed very much in the way of bakers’ supplies. Plenty of stalls selling bread, cakes, and pies, though, so we weren’t short of sustenance.
The rest of the pictures are just a selection of things that caught our eye:
Oliver’s or perhaps Olivier’s bakery had some delicious-looking bread. And that’s what good bread sells for!
These were gluten-free uncooked cakes. Looked good, if a bit solid.
How specialist is that? Loved her hat though.
A floral bouquet made out of cupcakes by Yvies Cupcakes
Some lovely sweet treats
There was a Halloween theme to the display cakes
We loved the trolls. We weren’t sure whether all the cakes were Scandinavian, but some at least were!
And last but not least, we have a Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood display piece. Very clever!
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