Review of the Cake and Bake show and Cake International ticket giveaway

Manny's beautifully decorated cupcake

Snappy title - huh?

A couple of weeks have now passed since the first Cake and Bake show in London's Earl's Court. Before the event social media was awash with excitement about it, after the event a little less so with more moaning about crowds, lack of loos etc. 

We went along on the Saturday afternoon, already bored with the amount of Tweets proclaiming 'I'm in the press office' from bloggers keen to let us know they were, well in the press office. Yawn. I lost a few Twitter followers for pointing out that covering an event by constantly tweeting 'I'm in the press office' was a little boring. Oh dear. 

Also being tweeted were horrendous pics of queues and lots of issues about crowds.  Yes, the venue was too small and very shoddy looking (I believe it's going to be demolished soon?) and yes there were too many people trying to look at too few stalls BUT the main problem wasn't any fault of the organisers but the fault of the people attending - lack of manners mainly. The organisers didn't make the lady next to us during Mich Turners excellent demo talk loudly and hit several people with her giant fake Cath Kidston bag while insisting loudly 'take my pic with this baking woman'. They didn't make people push in on queues, or nearly knock others of their feet while they were paying/looking at stalls. I'm a big girl and I was nearly knocked off my feet by some rude woman while I was paying for some purchases as she just HAD to get to the front of the stall. Seriously what happened to having some manners? The same thing happened at Cake International - rudeness appears to be an epidemic amongst those who like baking. They should eat some cake and chill out a bit. I was also appalled to read on Twitter on Sunday that people were stealing unattended goodies bags which were being sold to raise money for charity. For the love of god -what kind of people are these? Possibly the kind who looked horrified at tattooed people being at the Cake and Bake show - who knows. 

My main gripe re the organisers were a complete lack of anywhere to actually eat cakes or bakes. Surely this kind of event was calling out for an afternoon tea area or similar. The cupcakes/cakes on offer were not the enticing - some looked like small children had decorated them so we gave them a miss. Manny did however eat a couple of brownies and loved them and I took a pandan cupcake home which was lovely. 

The other main problem in my opinion was the cake decorating area. We went there so Manny could decorate a cupcake. I was APPALLED at the state of the cupcakes they were selling for £2 to decorate - more so when I found out a professional baker had made them. Seriously Cake and Bake next year get in touch - I could churn out better looking vanilla cupcakes in my sleep. Manny at least had fun decorating - and he's in his 40s so it wasn't an issue telling him the cake wasn't fit for human consumption, but good luck trying to tell kids they couldn't eat the cake that felt like it was weeks old as the mothers next to us had to do. 

I did manage to brave the pushing crowds to buy a few good things including a lovely Kozial cake stand that I've been after for ages for the bargain price of £15 from a company called Baker and Maker. I also got some lovely straws from them.  Other purchases included some chocolate moulds, chocolate transfer sheets and some other little bits to play around with. The scrum around areas like Peggy Porschen's stall was too much to bear so if I want anything I'll just go to her store and enjoy a civilised cup of tea and cake at the same time. 

If you fancy attending a similar event, hopefully without hoards of elbowing women I have two tickets to Cake International in Birmingham from the 9-11 November to give away. The tickets can be used for any of the days. To enter please leave a comment below saying what you would like to see at the Cake and Bake show, or Cake International. Giveaway closes on the 15th October and is for show tickets only - does not include travel.