The Big London Bake review: Great British Bake Off-like venue

And, before I say any more, I recommend noting down my name because you’ll probably see me on the next series of Great British Bake Off.

Our competitive selves had to remind each other on the way there that this was in fact a competition against the other nine pairs in the tent, and not each other.

And, I hasten to add, that this was the first of many of these reminders throughout.

When we got there we were directed through the gorgeous Castle Pub, and met with a huge tent equipped with ten working stations, ingredients, food colouring, decorations and flavouring galore.

All the ingredients were laid out for each pair on each designated work top, along with a stylish Kenwood mixer and all the other baking apparatus needed to make a cake of dreams which followed that day’s ombre theme.

We were given a quick low-down, and before we knew it, it was time to start creating, baking and decorating our very own ombre style cake.

The example ombre cake

One hour and 20 minutes might sound like a long time to make a cake – but trust me, it wasn’t.

The timer was set and we, along with the other pairs, were left to follow two long A4 sheets-worth of instructions to create nothing less than a masterpiece.

We decided to go with a full pink Valentine’s theme, and both imagined a beautifully delicate cake as a result.

But, when we accidentally put the full amount of food colouring into the WHOLE cake mix, we knew it was probably only downhill from there with our chance of winning.

Instead of an aesthetic ombre delight, our extremely bright, fully-fuchsia cake went in the oven.

We did try better with the buttercream and I think our ombre intentions can be seen more in that department, but with time running out, we were forced to throw all our decorations onto the top of the cake with not much thought involved in the process.

I’d say our cake was best described as a half-ombre, fuchsia, Barbie-looking mess.

But, it did taste good… And that’s all that counts, right?

The hour and 20 minute timer finished in what felt like an instance and we, alongside the other bakers, brought our cakes to the front of the tent ready for judging.

We were complimented on our chaotic decoration, and the professional baker judge was impressed with our light and fluffy cake texture.

But, it turns out, pink doesn't make the judges wink.

We were up against some seriously impressive cakes, who had all incorporated the ombre theme in a clever, unique, and more literal fashion than we did.

Much to our surprise, we didn’t win, but we did have a jolly good time and came away with our very own cake to eat at home.

A day out perfect for couples, families, parties, hen weekends, the LOT – I can’t recommend heading to The London Big Bake enough to find out how much of a master baker (or not in my case) you really are!

The tent has even opened extra tickets for two evening session bakes on February 14 for Valentine's Day.

The moral of the story is, bake it till you make it, and that you definitely WON’T be seeing us on the Bake Off any time soon…

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