My First Baking Competition

Last weekend we headed off to the Essex Food and Drink Festival for a family day out. It was the cloudiest day we've had in months and yet I managed to get sunburn... no idea how that happened!

Our main reason for going to the event, apart from wanting to stuff our faces, was to see Paul Hollywood who was going to be doing some bread demos. I also decided to enter the baking competition as he was judging. It seems the competition was a great attraction as there were about 60 lemon drizzle cakes entered (the category was pre-determined)! Sadly I didn't win, which is ok considering the competition. But if there was a prize for presentation, I would have deserved to win as my cake was the only one displayed on a fine bone china plate. Just saying.

My lovely plate and cake

These are some of the other entries:

Yes, that would be HALF a cake at the bottom! Who does that?!

Some folk didn't even take them out the boxes they brought them in!

The bread category wasn't very popular

The youth category was scones and this little cake stand was so cute!

The man himself put on a great show, he told loads of funny stories about Bake Off and had many anecdotes about Mary Berry too which amused us all. He demonstrated flat breads as that's about all you can make in terms of bread, in just 45 mins. He's a pretty cool guy, regardless of whatever the tabloids have said about him. He knows his stuff and did a Q&A session at the end which was good. He was particularly impressed with the 12 year old boy who makes all the bread for his family on a weekly basis and the 11 year old boy who makes the 8 strand plaited loaf on a regular basis. The boys both asked very good detailed questions which really amazed everyone. Good for them, I say!

The rest of the day was good too but I have no pictures of that as I was too busy looking and eating my way round the stalls. It's certainly worth the £8 entry ticket! I wonder who they'll have there next year?