A Trip to The Cake and Bake Show Edinburgh

Readers, I had a hoot the other weekend, visiting The Cake and Bake Show.  A well established show in London, Cake and Bake hadn’t been over the border to Scotland.  Until now.

Thousands of baking fans flocked to the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh over 3 days to shop, eat and learn about baking from some of the greats in the industry.

I was delighted to be chosen as a blogging partner for The Cake and Bake Show and loved getting involved in the run up to the event with tweets, recipes and ticket competitions.

Press pass... woohoo!

When the big day arrived, I set off early and met my mum who was just as excited as me.   The lovely girls in the press room had a pass ready for my arrival along with a ticket to one of the exclusive classroom sessions which I was hoping to attend.

We started our day meeting none other than the wonderful Gregg Wallace of Masterchef fame.  Mum couldn’t believe it when he struck up a conversation about eating Portuguese Custard Tarts in Lisbon.  Turns out us Brits can’t make a Portuguese Custard Tart properly as our ovens don’t go up to 300c – the temperature that’s needed for the perfect tart!

Meeting Gregg!

After our star spotting start, (trying saying that after a trip to the Champagne bar) we went to see the exhibitors first and pick up some baking bargains.  I was delighted to run into Carol and the gang from Sugar & Crumbs who produce amazing naturally flavoured icing sugars and who’ve been incredibly supportive of the blog since I started.  I said a quick help and picked up some icing sugar from them – the salted caramel is my absolute favourite.  And great to bake with.

Ladies from Sugar and Crumbs

Moving on, Mum bought some bread mixes from Wrights – some may say cheating if it’s a packet mix, but if it encourages non cooks and bakers to get into the kitchen and give it a go, who am I to judge?

We got the bargain of the century at the Great British Bake Off stand – a set of retro scales each for £10.00.  Kitchen at What Claire Baked has recently been painted duck egg blue, so I got a set to match perfectly.

Oooh... bakeware!

To the actual show – we spent so much time getting excited over the exhibitors, we nearly missed the demonstrations.  Mum is huge fan of Flora from this year’s series of GBBO, so I left her happily sitting at the demonstration, whilst I headed off to the classroom session.

Back to the Portuguese Custard Tarts though… even if the oven isn’t hot enough in the UK we’re pushing on anyway.  Turns out these are incredibly easy to make at home AND the kids can get involved in making the custard and the pastry.  Sadly I never had the chance to try one, but I did sit in the front row and get the chance to speak to Aaron Craze who was taking the class – turns out he has family in Dundee… my hometown!  An incredibly enthusiastic chef (ex builder) with great energy: he really fit the bill for a demonstration kitchen.

Aaron Craze

In short, The Cake and Bake Show was an amazing day out and I’m so glad the event organisers have brought it to Scotland.  The classrooms were only a little extra on top of a ticket, so affordable if you had a session you really wanted to go to and learn in a smaller environment.  The mix of exhibitors was great – from ingredients to kitchenware and accessories, there was lots of variety for all budgets.  We could easily have passed a whole day there… and hope to be back at next year’s show!

Disclaimer:  I received a free pass to attend the event,  Any opinions expressed are my own.