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' 

We didn’t go to Sheffield Pride, although I may have taken similar photos if we had

Yes, it’s that time of year...Pride or a carnival, Pride or a carnival...well this year, a Carnival won out  - Bakewell Carnival to be precise. Maisie and I had been to Bakewell earlier in the week, heard the fair music, seen the very end of the raft race and that was it - we were hooked into the carnival festivities and the all the candy floss of the fair, like a duck!

We squash into the little car (easier to park) pick up a friend of Maisie’s and head off in the sweltering heat to find the fun. First we have to find a car park. Dodging shopping trolleys full of novelty items and oompaloompas wandering around in the streets we head for the large, just out of town car park in Bakewell. Huzzah for the little car, we squeeze quite nicely in-between a car and a camper van. Nice. However, in that Great British tradition, the occupants of the camper van are picnicking inside the van - in the car park. They lean out of the window and say "don't park there, how on earth are we going to get out?" We thought they could maybe get out by simply driving straight forward and driving through the bloody great camper-van-sized gap. Not wanting to cause an argument, we found a lovely spot next to the river. 

Tempting though it was to stay in the car and take refreshments there, we headed out to seek entertainment in carnival and fair form.

We were not disappointed. Child and friend head straight for the candy floss, I head straight for the weapons and attempt to win Leanne a ridiculous stuffed Unicorn. The girls were successful, I was not. All I won was a piece of card with two holes in - only one through the star. Leanne was polite in accepting what I’d ‘won’ and managed to hide her disappointment well. On to the carnival.

It was soooo hot, we wandered through the carnival entrants, we were impressed by the variety of vehicles and avoided the bouncy castles, rodeo bull experience and random toilet queue. When we got to the classic cars we knew we were at the end of the display. I’m sure Leanne liked my suggestion of buying a classic car which would mean we would always get a good parking space at such events. Next year, I may just roll up in my Citroen C2, pop the bonnet and stick a random number and rosette on the front - sorted.

People had been lining the streets for hours to get a good view of the procession. We arrived just at the allocated start time. The Police closed the road as we walked up, so we just wandered along the road, and stood right next to the start, in the road, choice.

We were amazed and delighted by the carnival procession. Men with cans of beer dressed as Mary Poppins, girls (Carnival queens) in frilly dresses stuffed into the back of cars waving (what is that all about?) Men dressed as women, women dressed as gnomes, yep just like Pride.

Leanne and I wandered about hand in hand without a care that we might be stared at strangely or challenged. There was so much weird stuff going on around that no one noticed or minded. So my advise to all, if you are the only gay in the village, just go to the carnival to recreate the Pride experience. There maybe fewer moustaches (and they're mainly on the girls) but that’s all.

Back to the car via a little bit of thrill seeking and a proud sunny day was had. Happy Carnival/Pride one and all.