Every year when The Great British Bake off comes onTV there is great excitement in our house - well just me really and now that this years series has finished I am feeling a little deflated.
I love to see the challenges that the judges dream up and how the contestants cope with it, and I have even been known to have a go at the technical challenges myself in the past, such as these Jaffa Cakes from an earlier series:
and these Viennese Whirls:
I even had a cookery book given to me for my birthday one year so I could make all the bakes that were in the show 😊
and the first bake I made from it was this Greek lemon-yogurt loaf cake (and really scrummy it was too!):
With my love of baking and artistic cake creations, there is one comment I can guarantee I will hear at least once during the weeks the show is on TV and that is "your cakes are amazing, you should be on Bake Off".
I am flattered and humbled that my friends and customers think my work is worthy of TV stardom and, to be fair, I have fleetingly thought about entering in the past. Maybe in the earlier days I might have done so if I was pushed hard enough but the show these days seems to have turned into more than just a friendly competition between amateur bakers. Some of the challenges seem to stretch the concept of baking to it's limits (who remembers the bakers having to make pitta breads over a campfire outside the tent?), and the time constraints that are placed on the bakers means they are working under extreme pressure ALL the time. It's no wonder that there's often tears and tantrums inside the tent when stress levels get so high. This leaves me wondering if the show is now more about setting the bakers up to fail than it is to show their talent. I agree that if you want to work in the baking industry you have to work to deadlines; after all, there is no point in completing a birthday cake several hours or days after the birthday party, but those deadlines should be sensible. And how often do we see contestants wafting their bakes with a baking tray in an effort to get them cool enough to add the filling or decoration. Mad, mad mad!
So, in conclusion, I won't be putting myself forward any time soon. I'd much rather be doing what I do best and that's making show stopping cakes for all my lovely customers, working to sensible deadlines and keeping stress levels under control. As you will have seen from the show, it's when people are under extreme time pressure that things can and do go wrong and I want all your cakes to be perfect 😊
So if you are looking for a show stopping cake that you won't find on the show why not contact me for a no obligation quote? There are several ways you can do this:
Use the contact page on the website
email juliascake.eatit@gmail.com or
private message the Facebook page
Sharing the cake love!
Julia