Bakewell Baking Festival + A Giveaway

A few weekends ago saw Bakewell host the Bakewell Baking Festival (the world’s first baking festival) for a third year. And I, lucky bugger that I am, managed to win a pair of tickets.

Bolstered by a little over excitement about going to a show dedicated to baking and with the Mr as company I was Bakewell bound.

The event is essentially an opportunity for bakers, amateur and professional alike, to get together and immerse themselves in a day of baking. Complete with stalls selling baked goods and baking paraphernalia, as well as some street food vendors, a bus bar and some music being played on actual gramophone. A more twee sounding event there couldn't be.

Knowing this event is still in it’s early years I wasn’t sure on what to expect but it was definitely bustling by the time lunchtime rolled around. We spent sometime wandering around the stalls. The one thing that left me slightly disappointed about the event was the lack of stalls selling baking equipment. I had partially expected to stumble across a stall dedicated to tins and icing tables. I’m in the market for a few new cake tins – predominantly a 7 inch round tin and a long rectangular tart tin (you really needed to know that, didn’t you?) – however, I can understand why there wasn’t one present. Having a more commercial stall at this event would seem odd. The majority of the stalls that were there were fabulously independent.

We bought some Herb and Sea Salt Focaccia bread from the guys at The Wellbeck Bakehouse and it was beautiful. It didn’t survive the day.

There were an awful lot of stalls selling vintage crockery. And there were also a lot of stalls and people walking around dressed Rockabilly style. It made me start to wonder about baking and it’s place in the “Cool Hobby” category. It struck me that it has become incredibly fashionable to be twee and to revert back to vintage in order to make baking seem a little more…..hip? For a second I felt as though I had slipped into a parallel hipster universe and it made me feel remarkably uncomfortable.

I soon recovered when I spotted the Churros stand. Apparently these are becoming a tradition for Mr M and me whenever we visit a festival. It’s a tradition I think I can just about stand. Even if the chocolate dip is a little too runny.

The highlight of the day came for me when we headed to the event’s main tent: the Demo tent.

Throughout the day famous bakers gave demonstrations on how to bake different things. Unfortunately we missed the Stacie Stewart one at 10am so decided to arrive early for a demo by Edd Kimber.

Winner of the first ever Bake Off Edd had never really piqued my interest. I only loosely watched the first series and found that subsequent series (*ahem* series 4) over shadowed the earlier ones for me, so I never really paid too much attention to the contestants. That has now changed. Edd Kimber is hilarious. He was honest, down to earth and had some really good tips. Whilst giving us a demo on why you shouldn’t make Jaffa cakes in a hot marquee and how to make a Battenburg he started chatting about the Bake Off. I genuinely love that fact that he was so happy to talk about it, was humble about it and even shushed the nonsense on having regimented sized bakes.

We left the tent an hour later slightly warm and definitely hungry. Having circuited the festival twice and seeing the mammoth queues that had developed at all the lunch spots we opted to head into Bakewell for food.

Bakewell is a regular haunt for us and as what I would dub as the foodie capital of the Peak District we knew straight where to head for: Ricci’s. A little Italian that opens all day supplying the masses with takeaway pizza for a cheeky Sunday lunch. We ordered, waited 10 minutes while our pizzas were made fresh, then devoured.

Bakewell Baking Festival is a must visit for avid bakers. I think the event could stand to be a little bigger with a few more stalls and producers but it’s still a young festival so it has time to grow. I loved every minute of it and plan on returning next year. I may even try and get a blogger trip going, but we’ll see on that one (let me know if you’d be interested!)

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Now, time for a giveaway. For no reason at all other than because I felt it was time. You may (or may not if you’re not a regular reader…..you should become one!) have seen my post about my visit to the Prestat Kitchens. As I mentioned in the post the lovely people at Prestat sent me on my merry way with a big old bag of goodies to keep my fix going. This included a box of their award winning, new to their range, Yuzu Sake Truffles.

I want to give this box to one of you lovely lot. Find out a little more about these in my last post and from the Prestat website, but the only thing you have to know is that you haven’t lived until you’ve tried one.

To be in with a chance to win fill out the Rafflecopter below (T&Cs Apply: Please give them a read.):

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*I have been in contact with the team at Prestat and they have agreed for me to give these Truffles away, however, they have no participation in this giveaway and hold no responsibility for it.

**I won tickets to the Bakewell Baking Festival. The organisers of the festival did not know I planned to write a post about the event. All purchases made at the event were made with our own money and all views and opinions are my own.