in between the morning spent mooching at borough and the afternoon's terror in the sky, there was a wee jaunt eastward on saturday, to the excel centre in the docklands. why? was it to register for the london marathon with the other hundred thousand, slightly more svelte attendees? no, no it was not. was it to attend the casual world of warcraft, middle-aged-and-balding-man affair? again, no, it wasn't. i was there - at least, i thought i was there, because i was under the presumption that there would be free cake. nicola had scored some free tickets to cake international; the sugarcraft, cake decorating and baking show, and i got to be her lucky +1 on the day.
we casually made our way there along the south bank and across tower bridge, jumping on the dinky toy train at tower gateway, docklands bound. not before being mesmerised by tom daley's abs at twenty paces, and then conversing with a complete and total stranger (adult, male, possibly straight) about how amazing the abs were, and how they did in fact deserve their own tv show. those abs though! regardless of the abs, we were keen for cake, and i think nicola was hopeful she'd take some new skills away from the event. we were anticipating masterclasses, taste testing, demonstrations, and most definitely cupcakes to take away for our desert later!
ohhh myyyy goddd; it was such a bust. we were a mere twelve steps inside the door before the realisation hit and it had dawned on us what we had just walked into... that's right ladies and gents, we'd casually made our way into a flippen trade event. a wholesalers delight! providing nothing of which was of any help your friendly neighbourhood kitchen bakes or... me, the person wanting to just eat some goddamn cake. because you know what was worse than all of what i just wrote? there was zero cake!
there was none to eat, there were none to buy. the only cakes that were present at the event were the ones in the competition classes. and they were all so fricken amazingly crafted, that you tended to forget that they were actually made of cake. i was trapped inside a tin can full of baked goods, and i wasn't allowed to touch any of them, let alone eat them! i wandered, blown away by the creativity and intricacy of the ribboned creations, but ultimately pretty bloody pissed off that i purposefully bypassed all the cake stands at the market, choosing to save myself for this event, just to (repeating myself) be left wanting.
we barely put half an hour in to wandering around the event before deciding to bail for the lure of home made pizza, a bottle of wine and... well, you know what happened next. i gotta say, as much as the event wasn't what we were expecting, and i was pretty sulky about the lack of edible cake, it was an incredible offering of creativity, ingenuity and bloody hard work. the amount of time and effort that went into each and every one of those competition pieces was truly impossible, and i applaud every single person who entered - whether they won, placed or were lucky enough to have even have their creations make it in one piece to the show.
we barely put half an hour in to wandering around the event before deciding to bail for the lure of home made pizza, a bottle of wine and... well, you know what happened next. i gotta say, as much as the event wasn't what we were expecting, and i was pretty sulky about the lack of edible cake, it was an incredible offering of creativity, ingenuity and bloody hard work. the amount of time and effort that went into each and every one of those competition pieces was truly impossible, and i applaud every single person who entered - whether they won, placed or were lucky enough to have even have their creations make it in one piece to the show.
i take my hat off to everyone who takes baking that seriously. you're incredibly clever.
now, where's my cake bitches?
