All I knew of Tooting Bec was that it was the place a couple of plastic bags went to “Waft about, mate, waft ableedingbout“. It turns out there is much more to Tooting Bec, including The Big London Bake. As a staunch North Londoner, traveling for an hour over the river is something I would normally avoid at all costs, but this is an event not to be missed.
We arrived at The Castle pub and after navigating our way to the back of the garden, found the Big London Bake tent. Filled with familiar work stations, mixers and ovens, I felt nervous and excited in equal measure. There are ten stations and everyone competes in teams of two. To describe my baking skills as terrible would be an understatement, however my better half is excellent, so naturally I enlisted him as my team mate.
On our bench we found a basic recipe card and ingredients laid out for us. Our judge informed us we would have 80mins to bake and decorate our cakes before the winner would be decided. I felt that we started off strong, I mainly stood and drank whilst Charlie made the cake. He gently suggested I head over to the decorating station and choose items to beautify our cake. Once our cake was in the oven, we kicked back, had some drinks, checked out the competition and obviously argued about how we would decorate our masterpiece.
Praying that there would be no soggy bottoms, we took our cake out of the oven, argued some more whilst it cooled, heard the judge yell “9 minutes remaining” and proceeded to haphazardly adorn it with icing, smarties and crushed biscuits (I cannot be held responsible for the decisions made under extreme pressure). All contestants approached the bench with their cakes to be judged. As they were sliced and tasted, I made peace with the fact we had definitely lost until by some kind of miracle the judge announced that we were the winners, which goes to show that dreams really do come true.
I cannot recommend The Big London Bake enough, it was pure simple fun. Take a bunch of friends, or compete against strangers, just make sure you go! Have some drinks, bake a cake, possibly even win and then take your creation home. There’s far more to Tooting than merely wafting about.
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