Sunday 23 August 2015

The Cake and Bake Show

Hi All,

Ok so if you're from the UK then you will know and hopefully be a big fan of The Great British Bake Off aka THE GREATEST SHOW ON THE PLANET!! Well I was lucky enough to be able to spend a day with two ex-contestants of the show, Glenn Cosby and Christine Wallace. As well as Richard Hunt from the Devon Scone Company (genuinely the nicest man ever!!) The scones and jam he showed me how to make were literally amazing... I'm salivating at the thought whilst typing away here!


So a few months ago I was able to spend a day with a travelling food show called The Cake and Bake Show, in which I was able to learn from these three bakers about the baking world, baking under pressure and baking in front of a crowd. I also learnt, during down time/prep time, the different tools and equipment that will help me in future baking life, OMG it was a lot of stuff and I honestly do think I used around 3/4 of all the things I was told about!

Working with Richard all day until around 1:00pm was great because it was just him and I working together creating scones and jam. I learnt a lot from him in this short time but it was definitely worthwhile! He was the one who showed me the proper way to make jam and how to let it cool a lot before putting it in jars because otherwise it will not set and be the jam texture you would expect. Honestly I think I would have never known this and rushed to put it in jars whilst still hot, thrown it in the fridge and hoped for the best! I also learnt the proper way to put jam and cream on a scone, by pilling it on! 

After a well deserved coffee break from the rushing around trying to prepare scones with clotted cream and jam on to serve to the audience, I was able to watch Glenn and Christine do two separate shows, baking very different things. Glenn made salted caramel and italian meringue buttercream cake and scones with lemon curd (insanely good, I've since tried the italian meringue buttercream and wholey moley it was amazing!!) Then Christine made an Eton mess and something else but it was so long ago I honestly can't remember. Anyway whatever it was, I do remember it being delicious!

Lunch came round and we all ate pizza, drank coffee and prepared for the final show where, as we were running out of time, we staged our own miniature bake off!! It was brilliant and I was able to be out front helping Glenn make another salted caramel, italian meringue buttercream cake whilst Christine made more Eton mess and Richard made drop scones with salted caramel (more like stealing Glenn's left over salted caramel...)

Anyway through helping Glenn I was able to learn and do a lot for myself as Glenn basically just instructed me to do things rather than teaching me, which honestly I preferred to have his guidance whilst I did it myself rather than watching someone else do it and then I have to try and re-create it. I learnt how to heat the sugar up to the correct temperature and how to add it to the whisked egg whites to create the italian meringue. It really wasn't as hard as people make it out to be (I was very impressed with myself). 

Well once our bake off drew to a close, we found that it was a draw and that no one could win as all the food was just too good!! After the show I was able to get Glenn and Christine's books and also to get them signed! I was also lucky enough to be given the remainder of the cake Glenn and I had created, after the audience had enjoyed some of it!




Right so that's that. I thoroughly enjoyed spending this day with these lovely and brilliant people! I really learnt a lot from them and had tonnes of fun whilst doing it! Thank you to The Cake and Bake Show!!
Hope you guys enjoyed reading, don't forget to let me know what you think and see you in my next post!

Thanks for reading,
Caitlin xxx

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