Baking for show: when my hopes, and cake, sink in the middle

But just recently, I've been binge-watching shows such as Great Australian Bake Off, Great British Bake Off and Extreme Cake Makers. I may have developed something of an inappropriate crush on GBBO judge Paul Hollywood, the way he kneads out a round of dough, or takes a mouthful of moist sponge cake.

I was spending a lot of time thinking about, and perhaps a little too much time eating, all things cake, biscuits, pies and slices. So when Merran Hunter, effervescent show cookery steward, sent Kirsten Lawson and me an email asking if we were thinking about entering the show again, thoughts started bubbling like some bicarb soda. Kirsten had already reaped the rewards in some rhubarb competition Kitchen Gardener Susan Parsons had set her up in. I'm known to be a little competitive so, in what I'm sure was a sugar rush, I entered the show.

Not just one thing, but four entries - a marble cake, a cinnamon tea cake, a plate of two varieties of slices and a zebra cake, the 2020 "challenge cake" if you like. With obviously no memory of how stressful it had been previously, I thought, how hard can it be?

Especially when I contacted my friend Kirsty Reiter, who was bitten by the show cooking bug a few years back, is winning competitions left, right and centre, and is now also a steward of the show cookery section, one of those behind-the-scenes worker bees who make it all happen.

She was telling me about her plans, and when she sent me a photo of her kitchen bench on show eve, I was dumbfounded. Twenty entries, 20! What right did I have to complain about only having to whiz up four entries? Just get on with it, woman!

And so I did. First I went looking for recipes. Here you'll find some recipes from Merle Parrish's Country Show Baking and Other Favourites. I used Parrish's butter cake recipe as the base for my marble cake, I cooked her mint slice, and her cinnamon tea cake. If Parrish, a legend in country cooking circles, could win ribbons with her recipes, so could I.

For my other slice, I wanted something that would complement the mint slice. I remember my previous efforts, where a spectacular passionfruit slice was trumped by a plate that held a caramel slice and a mint slice, so I went for two chocolate options. Mint slice and Wagon Wheel, my two favourite Aussie biscuits. I googled it and found a recipe on the Queen website. Yes queen. Yikes, I had to make my own marshmallow, but surely that would get me some points with the judges. Let's wait and see.

The best way to describe the process involved in a zebra cake is to say "google it". It's basically a two-flavour, chocolate and vanilla marble cake, but the batter is painstakingly put into the pan spoonful by alternating spoonful. It's meant to bake into zebra like stripes, only revealed once the cake is sliced in half.

So there I am, close to midnight on the night before the show, spooning in spoonfuls of batter, one after the other - thank lordy I have the luxury of an episode of Paul Hollywood's A Baker's Life playing on my laptop to distract me. Chocolate, vanilla, chocolate - oh look, it's Paul kneading pizza dough with those strong hands of his - chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Oh, hang on.

I was smart and had cooked my marble cake the night before. I'd tucked it away somewhere dark and cool to keep it fresh-ish. Now to ice it with my favourite buttercream icing recipe, swish in some delicate waves in the icing as a bit of a flurry. Done. It looked great. Happy with that.

The cinnamon tea cake was a simple recipe. Too easy. I was surprised when it didn't rise as much as I thought it would, but Parrish's example was rather flat as well. Sprinkled over the cinnamon sugar, licked some off my fingers (oh Paul!), and that was done too.

The slices were also half done by pre-show eve. The filling for the mint slice wasn't as white as I had hoped, a little buttery, maybe. But the chocolate topping was glossy and smooth. The wagon wheel slice was a triumph. Who would have though marshmallow was just gelatine, water, icing sugar, caster sugar and vanilla? It looked superb on the beater of my trusty Breville mixmaster, shiny and delicious. With a layer of raspberry jam, and another glossy chocolate topping. I was happy with how the slices looked when I pulled out my ruler and knife to cut them into the 4x6cm pieces. My hot knife cut through the chocolate without too much trouble.

It was a long night, but I was drying my last bowl as the clock struck midnight and I was done. The next morning I loaded up the car, driving carefully up Northbourne Ave, when I hit the damn light rail track. Something went bump. I had a bootload of hockey gear as well. Surely a ball had just rolled somewhere? I didn't put the plate of slices on top of the cake container did I, did I?

Once parked outside the Harvest Hall (and who can remember those big displays of fruit and vegetables that used to fill the hall? Loss of funds and sponsorships meant the end of that apparently), I opened the boot and found a single piece of wheel that had fallen off the wagon, so to speak. Miraculously, it hadn't cracked.

Let the judging begin. There were three separate judging tables at this year's show. My entries were spread out across all three. That was a good sign, I thought. Up first were the zebra cakes, under the eye of judge Helen Robinson. And guess what? I came first! First cake to be put back on the shelf of shame. My cake was the second one selected. I told myself it was because she liked the look of the top of it. But once she sliced it open the stripes were more hippopotamus than zebra. Failure.

Keen contestants sat around watching Robinson judge the cakes. She'd pick them up and give them a look over, top and bottom - wire rack marks are a big no-no. It was kind of satisfying - in a bad, resentful way - to see other cakes fail as well, with no discernible stripes, skewer marks - also a big no-no - and other non-regulation disfigurements such as paper marks, flour or unevenly risen monstrosities. Finally the winner was announced. As chance would have it, I was sitting next to the woman who made it. She told me that once she had made the batter, she weighed it and divided it up and put in a tablespoon of chocolate for every tablespoon and a half of vanilla, because the chocolate batter is heavier once the cocoa is added. It took her quite a while to fill the pan. I'm a very patient woman, she was telling me, but I was only half listening because I saw my marble cake up at another table. What is this patience?

I was pumped for this one. My cake was the only square cake, the only cake topped with such a delicious looking fluffy icing. It was the first cake the judge, Pat Mulley, picked up. Disqualified, she said. And handed it, unceremoniously, to my friend Kirsty who happened to be helping her. Why, why? I wanted to scream, but it was the buttercream. Apparently, "icing" means a little icing sugar and some butter - boring old plain icing. Even my swirls were cause for disqualification - apparently they're "decoration", which is banned. And Mulley also pointed out my cake had sunk in the middle, and dared suggest my buttercream was a disguise for my flop.

How dare she! Actually, it was hard to be angry at Mulley. She's been entering and judging shows for as long as she can remember. Down from the Southern Highlands for the show weekend, she said the Canberra Show was a step up from the regional shows, "but if you want to see some serious baking, get along to the Sydney Easter Show, that's a whole new level again".

Mulley also held the fate of my cinnamon tea cake in her hands. She didn't mind this one. The batter was a bit holey; the trick there is to bang your pan on the kitchen bench to get rid of the air in the batter before baking. But again, there were some that were supposedly better than others. It's such a subjective thing.

Especially when it comes to judging slices. Thick, thin, chocolate, layers ... so many different varieties. How do you compare a passionfruit slice to a mint slice to a ginger slice? Judge Colleen Urquhart casts an eye over all the plates, there's nothing in the schedule about the evenness of layers, or height, or anything but she seems drawn to thicker ones. She cuts a few: some slice easily, others, only naturally I'm telling myself, topped with chocolate take a little more effort to slice, of course they do there's a hard chocolate layer on the top. But then your slice is squished a little, my plate was doomed from the start. She doesn't taste many. A woman beside me says it's obvious she doesn't like peppermint as they all get moved aside. But what would we know. We're not judges, just enthusiastic bakers with a competitive streak.

But I can't help myself this time and I do yell out, "I made my own marshmallow", like that line in Dirty Dancing, "I carried a watermelon". No one really seems to care. Maybe next year I'll grow a watermelon and enter the produce section. How easy to just pop a few chat potatoes on a paper plate and call that an entry. Or an onion or something.

Or some garlic even; the glorious smell wafts across to the cake judging area when the judges slice it as the vegetables are put through their paces. Someone has been disqualified from the bread section because they entered a fruit loaf, rather a plain old loaf of white bread. And when, as the smell wafts, I suggest perhaps next year she enters some garlic bread, we both make a snarky comment about how that wouldn't be acceptable either. The oven mitts are off.

People are invested in the cookery competition, that's one thing I've noticed. People have travelled from interstate to enter, a couple from the NSW Central Coast have cleaned up, another group of women have come down from Sydney, making a girls' weekend of it. There were more than 300 entries this year. Chief steward Chris Tarlinton says it's been a high standard and numbers are up on previous years. I'd like to know how many individual entries there were. Or were there lots of people like Kirsty, and to some limited degree, myself, who put in multiple cakes? Kirsty is happy with her haul. She took first place with her gluten-free banana cake, biscuits and apple cinnamon muffins, she came second with her carrot cake and slices (damn her) and a couple of third places "I can't remember what for" - so many cakes, so little time.

Earlier in the day, while waiting for the judging to start, I wander off to the craft expo and look at the winning works of cross stitch and remember a previous life where I did that. I'm thinking I've got a couple in the back of the cupboard that would do well. Maybe next year I'll change it up.

But then I bring my leftover slice into work for afternoon tea. I wanted to grab my disgraced cakes and bring them in too, but no I have to leave them all on display for people to mock all weekend. My poor little marble cake tucked away in a corner - "no one puts baby in a corner" - when it would have been happier being devoured by my work colleagues.

My slices are a winner in the tearoom. Everyone is aghast that the judges weren't impressed by them. I've saved a couple of pieces for the boy's lunchbox too and he wants me to make them again. I know now I'm not a competition baker. The only thing I want measured is the number of lips or fingers licked after someone has eaten something I've made with love.

Ingredients

125g butter, at room temperature, chopped

3/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

3/4 cup milk

Icing:

1 1/4 cups icing sugar

30g soft butter

1-2 tbsp boiling water

Method

1. Preheat the oven to moderate (180C). Grease a 20cm (base measurement) round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.

2. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla in the small bowl of an electric mixer until white and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Transfer to a larger bowl.

3. Fold in half the sifted flour with half the milk, then the remaining flour and milk. Spoon into the prepared tin, and smooth the surface.

4. Bake for 40 minutes, or until springy to a gentle touch in the centre. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

5. To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, and add the butter. Pour the water onto the butter to melt, and stir until smooth (add a little more water if necessary). Spread over the cake and leave to set.

Serves 8.

You can whip up this simple little cake in no time at all for last-minute guests.

Ingredients

60g butter, at room temperature, chopped

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 egg

2/3 cup self-raising flour

1/3 cup plain flour

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp butter, melted

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat the oven to moderate (180C). Grease a 20cm (base measurement) round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.

2. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla in the small bowl of an electric mixer until white and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well. Fold in half the combined sifted flour, the milk, then the remaining flour.

3. Spoon into the prepared tin, and smooth the surface. Bake for 30 minutes, until golden and springy to a gentle touch in the centre. Leave in the tin for five minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

4. Invert the cake onto another rack, and brush the top of the warm cake with melted butter. Combine the caster sugar and cinnamon, and place into a fine sieve. Sprinkle evenly over the cake, and leave to cool.

Serves 8.

Ingredients

Base:

125g butter, at room temperature, chopped

1/3 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup self-raising flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Filling:

1 cup icing sugar

1 tbsp milk

60g softened butter

1/2 tsp peppermint essence

Topping:

200g dark chocolate, chopped

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

1. For the base, preheat the oven to moderate (180C). Grease a 26cm x 16cm (base measurement) slice tin and line with baking paper, hanging over the two long sides.

2. Use electric beaters to cream the butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Stir in the sifted flour and cocoa powder. Press into the prepared tin, smoothing with the back of a spoon. Bake for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool completely.

3. To make the filling, sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix together until smooth. Spread over the base. Leave to set.

4. For the topping, place the chocolate into a heatproof bowl and stand over a pan of barely simmering water (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water). Heat until softened, then add the oil and stir until smooth. Spread over the filling, and refrigerate until set. Lift out of the tin, and cut into squares to serve.

Makes 24.

Recipes from Merle's Country Show Baking and other favourites, by Merle Parrish. Ebury Illustrated, $39.99 (2013).