Cake Bake & Sweets Show, Melbourne

On Sunday, I attended the Cake Bake & Sweets Show, Melbourne at the Melbourne Convention Centre.  Basically, this was a bakers paradise, with vendors of cake decorating supplies from around Australia present. 

I bought some cool new cake decorating supplies, before taking a priority seat at Adriano Zumbo's show for the Food Network.  During the show, a Food Network guy decided that Adriano should don a bright pink wig taken from  an audience member:

For her trouble, she received some free Cake Boss accessories.

Adriano's show lasted for just under an hour, during which he made this spooky Halloween eye frozen dessert:

Hidden inside the icecream are some frozen carrot entremets.  One lady from the audience won the right to eat one of these desserts by doing a cartwheel in front of the crowd, but it looked like it was a difficult dessert to eat because it was both large and frozen.

In the afternoon, I attended a four hour cupcake decorating course with Janet O'Sullivan, who came from Adelaide to do the Show.  Here's Janet showing us how to make her Freddy (frog) cupcake topper:

The course featured piping, modelling and moulding.  I was especially interested to learn how to use tylose, which I have never used before.  Here is my box of cupcakes from the course:

My favourite was the snail topper:

 
Isn't he cute?

We also made a quilted topper:

 
A ladybird:

 
A heart on a stick:

 
A cherry:

 
A blossom cake:

 
A daisy topper:

And a moulded lego topper:

I learned some new things in this course; in addition to the use of tylose, Janet corrected my piping technique (although I think I got by just fine doing it "wrong" previously), showed me how to use an embossed fondant rolling pin, and introduced me to the use of foam domes to create perfectly round dome toppers. I also liked her tip of colouring fondant by using a small blob of pre-coloured fondant instead of gel colour for certain applications - that was a neat idea.  I enjoyed modelling the snail and the cherry, and I am a little sad that we didn't have time to make Freddy in class.

Janet's class was lots of fun, and proved that there is always plenty to learn, even if you think you know a fair bit about cupcake decorating.

I enjoyed the Show overall, and lapped up the chance to buy from vendors that I wouldn't normally get to visit from interstate.  However, as is always the case with these sorts of events, I can't stand the pushing and shoving from the crowds, all falling over one another to be the first, to get the sample, to grab the bargain, to see the show.  It turns me off going, so I will have to weigh up whether I could be bothered playing survival of the fittest again next year.  Maybe I will centre my visit around classes and prebooked events at the Show and leave the scrum in the vendor stands to those who enjoy the fray.