Cake and Bake Show revisited...........

It's been over a week and I've only just got round to sharing my wonderful day at the Cake and Bake show with you. Laura and I arrived early and couldn't quite believe the length of the queue outside the Exhibition Centre. We decided to go for a coffee and leave the queue to quieten down, the coffee shop was bursting at the seams as everyone seemed to have had the same idea.

When we decided to brave the queue it hadn't changed in fact it was the longest queue I had ever seen.
Although once inside the crowds miraculously disappeared and we could easily see everything on offer. What was lovely was the variety of different demonstration kitchen areas, from large auditorium style demonstrations, classrooms, small intimate demonstrations to individual stands offering one to one chats and advice with hands on opportunities.

We had booked into two classroom sessions the session with Harpreet Baura demonstrating piping skills was very good and we both came out very inspired to try new things.

The other session we booked into with Ceri DD Griffiths was also good but a little above our skill level, his work with royal icing was fabulous but daunting - not sure we will be piping onto cocktail sticks.

We listened to an informal chat/interview session with Simon Rimmer which was really interesting, he is a local Manchester Chef as well as a well known presenter. Laura has eaten at his restaurant Greens and unbeknown to him he once held the door open for her when his wife was at the same hairdressers.

We also managed to snaffle front row seats to watch Mitch Turner ice and decorate a celebration cake - she was very good and made it look so easy.

Lots of the Great British Bake Off contestants were at the show - John Whaite was in the main hall demonstrating but unfortunately we couldn't get seats, we did however meet Miranda from an earlier series who was icing biscuits - she is so talented and lovely she even posed for a photo in the Squires Sugarcraft Kitchen 

We looked at lots of amazing stands but every so often we felt the need to stop for refreshments which sometimes involved cake and once involved a beautiful homemade pie! One nice stand was Dr Oetker they  produce cake decorating and baking products and were demonstrating some new products which were very good and we both got a little goodie bag to take home. Sainsbury also had a stand and are introducing lots of new baking lines so it's well worth having a look in store.

Laura and I bought some new nozzles to practise our piping skills and some more sugar paste in lots of lovely colours. I bought some large Bonne Maman jars, not sure what I will do with them yet and I also found some lovely miniature milk bottles like the ones we used to have at school - I love them.

A lot of the stands had wonderful examples of amazing cakes, biscuits, breads and so much more.

 I have captured a few tasty images to share with you - it was such a good day out.

Talk soon and thank you so much for all of your lovely comments x