Cake and Bake 2014 Comes to Manchester

After winning awards in its first year in 2013 (including Event of the Year at the British Media Awards), the Cake and Bake show was back in Manchester this weekend. For a full 3 days Manchester Central was filled with exhibiting foodie companies, baking experts and suppliers of baking equipment, so again it was the only place to be for baking enthusiasts.

There was plenty of amazing cake inspiration from some very talented people out there…

There were also demonstrations from master bakers, chocolatiers, TV chef Rosemary Shrager and the familiar faces of past Great British Bake Off contestants.

I really enjoyed a sugarcraft demonstration from the Cake Boss team – if you’re a fan of the show sadly Buddy himself was not there, but as he’s launched a range of Cake Boss branded cake decorating tools and kits, there was a massive stand at the show to promote them. This range of products does actually look really good, but I refrained from buying anything on the day as I don’t have any projects in mind so would have ended up spending a fortune!

Then there was the show-stopping Welcome to the Jungle feature created by Cakebomb – a walkthrough edible sugarcraft installation inspired by the rainforest featuring 500kg sugar paste, 750kg cake and 30kg chocolate (and apparently containing 3 million calories!!). They were also working on this baby elephant cake at the show (and it’s big enough to cut into 5000 portions!).

So it was a morning of absorbing inspiration and nibbling on various samples of fruity fudge, cheese and chive popcorn, farmhouse jam, hot puddings, sponge cakes, artisan breads and more, and I went home with a sticky toffee pudding (which I’ve still to look forward to), which I think makes for quite a successful Sunday!