The Great Bakewell Bake Off

A blog post about baking you you say? 


Well here you are.

It was my Birthday on Friday, and as it fell on a Friday, I considered that a valid reason to stretch out the celebrations for the entire weekend. It was lunch AND dinner out on Friday, dragging offspring along the Monsal Trail on a bike on Saturday, so a trip to the local Baking festival on Sunday was a given really.

I've not attended a baking festival before, I'd not even seen a live cooking show before, with no knowledge of what to expect, we arrive in the show grounds in Bakewell. A very apt. name for the location of a Baking festival.

We get through the gate with a very precursory check of the ticket on my phone to be greeted with stalls selling food, coffee, vintage crockery, clothing and of course an 'invaluable' kit for peeling garlic.

We greet Maisie's friend and her family and head to the theatre cooking show. Stacie Stewart of Master Chef fame was first up.  A clean living eating fanatic who now only eats raw broccoli and anything with antitoxins in it. She's lost 4 stone you know. Anyway, she wrote a book about proper baking 4 year's ago so will be demonstrating from that book rather than the book about being a good vegan that hasn't been published yet. She was fairly engaging with the audience, told some amusing stories about her Nan teaching her cooking and her mum saying she prefers going to Gregs.

Then time to walk round the food stalls. We try various cheeses (caramelised onion was a winner) ginger bread, parkin, rape seed oils (If I'm honest that tasted like the smell of massage oil), jam, and maybe a bit more cheese. We scoff a nice pork baguette whilst sat an a hay bail and avoided the wasps. We survey the games available. Quite tempted to have a go at splat the rat but Maisie moved me away.

We catch the end of Edd Kimber (@theboywhobakes) and wait for the next theatre performance Ms Marmite (@msmarmitelover). We liked the look of Edd, he made what looked like a lovely battenberg cake, a favourite, and has an obvious passion for sugar and baking. At question time, I resisted the urge to ask "what was it like being so close to Sue Perkins and do you have her phone number?" 

We scoot up to the front of the tent for Ms Marmite. Famous for developing the home restaurant concept in the UK. Inviting your mates round for dinner and charging them.  She was great. A real person with a desire to feed people. In fact, she made a valiant attempt to provide the entire audience with a lemon curd injected donut. With the help from her daughter, she chatted and chatted, and fashioned loads of donuts. Rather than the 30 minutes from the other bakers, we had the whole hour full of cooking theatre. To our delight, Maisie got a donut...mmm donuts. Ms Marmite would be welcome to come round to our house for tea is ever in the area, I'd only charge her a tenner!

However, not everyone in the tent was impressed. Ms Stewart was waiting stage left to come on next. Ooh, a bit of drama. Her face was a picture. She was not happy about the timing. Sadly for us, Ms Marmite finally finished her donuts and blondie cake, and was shuffled of the stage. A rapid tidy up was executed and Ms I'm a proper healthy vegan was back on stage. I think I would have liked her better if she hadn't mentioned being able to deliver her cooking presentation within the time (in a passive aggressive way). I also think I would have liked her better if she had baked the food she was passionate about, not the food she doesn't eat anymore. I'm a firm believer in being who you are. 

Well, after all that drama, a quick look at some cakes was needed, a taste of some Japanese tea and back for more Edd. A healthy debate about the pronunciation of scone. Obviously you pronounce it scone. And if to put the cream or the jam on first. The jam obviously. Edd disagreed. Boo.

The finale was a chocolate creator based in Castleton. Good to have a local, and refreshing to see someone not selling their latest book. Good stuff.

Time to come home and shout 'bake' 

Archie (or for short - Archibaldi Garibaldi Biscuit Boy)

It was raining

The dogs needed walking

We set off at a pace, not wanting to be out for too long.

Archie went off to explore in the long grass, me and Mollie stride off ahead.

He was taking his time to catch up, I call, no sign. I look back and what looks like some comedy puppet dog is stumbling along sitting, then kind of hopping around a bit. 

On closer inspection, he has got tangled up with giant burrs from the burdock. They were stuck like Velcro all over his body, mainly his legs and tummy. One had kind of velcrowed his front leg to his chest, hence his strange hobbling gait. I started pulling the burrs off, he squealed with each one poor little wimpy thing he is. At the last one, he leapt free almost clicking his heals together and skipping off! He came back to me, gave a little bark, I stroked his head and he was off again. Sooo cute!

Interesting fact...the inventor of Velcro developed it after noticing the burrs attaching to his dog. Archie is following the tradition of dogs wherever burdock grows apparently.

Rhode trip

So we were sat on a plane full of "Sweaty Pommies" as Leanne described it, destination Pefkos, on the Greek isle of Rhodes. 

Objectives: To lie around, read books, catch some rays. swim, eat olives, eat feta, eat stuffed vine leaves, eat kleftikos, you get the idea. (Oh yes and maybe drink the odd beer)

Equipment packed: swimming goggles, snorkel, three pairs of shorts, several t-shirts, togs, sunscreen and Uno.

Risks: Being detained by the metal detector at the air port.

Well. That happened.

Actually it always happens, to me anyway. Typical scenario. Put possessions in tray, hope trousers don't fall down due to lack of belt, try to get bracelet off. Fail to get bracelet off. Security person says just go through that will be fine.

*ALARM*ALARM*ALARM*

Madam if you can just step to one side. Well, this time it was the most intimate body pat down ever. I felt bad I didn't know the woman's first name. So intimate even, that she could tell I was wearing a sports bra for goodness sake!

Anyway...moving on.

Airport uneventful, flight the same, the longest slowest bus journey designed to give us the impression Rhodes is bigger than it actually is. 

Greeted by Paul the Greek from Michigan, reassured us he was actually Greek and a lovely holiday was had by all.