Features / Baking
Showstopping culinary creations at Bake It! Bristol
If the new season of The Great British Bake Off has tickled your taste buds but you’re not quite ready to enter the tent, a new baking experience in south Bristol should be next in your journey to securing that famous Hollywood handshake.
Bake It! Bristol has been opened by sisters Aleena and Kalisha Patel on East Street in Bedminster.
There is no canvas roof, television cameras or the raucous laugh of Alison Hammond. But there are a dozen cooking stations, baking paraphernalia, instructions and every ingredient you need to make your own showstopper in this “baking competition experience” that their website makes clear “has no affiliation with The Great British Bake Off“.
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On a recent evening, my two daughters put on their aprons to take part in a session in which they had to make a cake with a hot air balloon topper.
I did my best to supervise sisters Mersina and Lois as Aleena and Kalisha worked their way around the room (in what used to be East Street Emporium), helping where needed but more than happy to give space if the bakers had everything under control.
Two team members put the finishing touches to their cake at Bake It! Bristol – photo: Martin Booth
A big element of pressure at Bake It! comes from the limited time available combined with the multiple tasks needed to finish your culinary creation.
Themes change each month for the cake, with hot air balloons followed by August’s ‘A summer picnic’ and this month’s ‘sailing through September’ featuring a fondant sailboat atop the cake.
At the end of the allotted 90 minutes of baking, each team needs to take their cake to the front in order to be judged on both presentation and taste, with prizes awarded to the star bakers.
Team Booth did not win this time but ten-year-old Lois already wants to return as soon as possible; a resounding seal of approval from a baker with ambitions of one day entering the Bake Off tent and securing that famous handshake.
Main photo: Martin Booth
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