The Cake & Bake Show - London 22 & 23 September 2012

After a weekend of strolling round the ‘Cake and Bake show’ at Earl’s Court, London, I had rather sore feet this Monday morning. And sore arms, for that matter. I hadn't planned on spending any money, and so I hadn't brought anything for carrying heavy items in – and thus the long arms from carrying my goodies.  I'm not complaining though, there were some good deals on offer; both on cookbooks, cake carriers, sugar craft moulds and much much more.

I’d bought tickets for both days, thinking that since I had to go all the way down to London I might as well stay for the full experience. The tickets had sold out well in advance, and the demand had been so high they had increased the opening hours on the Saturday, and with it released more tickets for the evening only. And I do believe those were sold out as well.

On the day of the opening I arrived early, having misjudged the distance from my hotel (it turns out those guides online that tell you how far things are, and how long it takes to get there are rather careful with their timings, and I used a third of the time they suggested). So the only sensible thing I could do was to join the steadily growing queue of people waiting to get inside. By the time the doors opened I could no longer see the end of the queue, but bearing in mind it was 5 persons wide, I think there were quite a lot of people there. Luckily the sun was out, and people were mostly friendly and chatty, looking forward to the show. 

With a sudden surge people were moving forward, and it wasn’t long before I was inside. The ticket checker was a bit baffled by my ticket being valid for two days, but soon I was on my way up the escalator and into the fun. Momentarily confused I took a minute to get my bearings, but then headed towards the nearest stalls. Soon I found someone selling a programme, and I headed towards a quiet corner for a read. It seemed other people had the same idea, and soon there were programme reading people everywhere. Having made sense of the layout I headed for the ‘Edible Beach’ competition area. This was an area where people who had signed up to take part in the competition had brought in and exhibited their cakes. As the name suggested, the theme was beach. And what beaches they were; one more stunning than the other.

After some gazing I moved on to the stalls, which had quickly filled up in the time I had spent by the beaches. Thinking I couldn’t be bothered with the crunching and queuing by the stalls, I moved on to the other end of the hall, where the wedding cake stands and chocolate area was. I have to admit I had expected a bit more than a table with a few cakes on it from the wedding section, but the chocolate section was better. There were people selling chocolate, and there were classrooms advertising talks throughout the days. Moving on I located the other classrooms, and also the large demo area. The classrooms required tickets, but the demo areas were free for all. Having brought a marker pen I made a strategic plan using my programme, and made a move to catch the first talk.

In the afternoon the hall started to thin out, before there was a slight increase in numbers again. Presumably these were the lucky ones who had got tickets for the evening. I was also heading home around that time, when suddenly it was nearly eight o'clock and the show was closing.  

The next morning I knew not to arrive so early, and I joined the queue of people just before opening hours. The weather had changed overnight, and instead of the lovely sunshine that had accompanied us the day before, we were threatened by large black clouds. Thankfully the organisers redirected the queue indoors, so there was only a short sprint in the rain.

The second day took on much the same pattern as the first day, with me walking from one talk to another. There were a lot of very interesting things to see and hear, but I have to admit that I thought some of the guest speakers were a waste of time. Hopefully some of those will be weeded out before the next show. But overall, the presentations and demonstrations were very good.

Eventually it was time for me to catch my train home, and I cast a last glance over the hall before heading towards the doors, where a very nice team was handing out goodie-bags to the leavers. A nice touch, I thought.