So this weekend was the Boy’s birthday and I was baking him a cake.  A recent issue of Good Food magazine had a cake on the front cover where every layer was a different colour.  Looked pretty good so I thought I would give it a go.  The recipe recommended Dr Oetkers gel colours so I duly trotted off to Sainsbury to get some.  At £1.49 for a little tube they’re not the cheapest colouring on the market but I was assured that I would get vibrant colours so I invested in 4 tubes – red, blue, yellow and the luridly described neon orange.

After a frantic day of cleaning, sorting, running the Girl to dance lessons and pony club, I was ready to begin the bake.  A quick read through the recipe led me to my first problem.  “4 medium eggs” What?  medium eggs?  Every recipe I possess for baking uses large eggs.  Even my esteemed Good Food magazine uses large eggs.  Everybody I know buys large eggs.  Why has this woman suddenly thrown me a curve ball and said medium eggs?!  Just to emphasise the point, the recipe then opens the brackets of doom “(it is essential to use the right size)”.  Right, well I’m not heading up to the local shop to source medium eggs.  It’s basically sponge cake that’s been coloured so I find a nice victoria sponge recipe that uses large eggs.

First sponge mix made and it’s time for the colouring.  I pick up the tube marked neon orange and squeeze a bit in.  Not a lot of difference so I squeeze in a bit more.  The sponge mix has now changed to a pale shade of apricot.  I finally squeeze in the rest of the  tube.  With a sponge mixture now a delicate peach colour, I pop it in the oven.  Hardly the neon orange I was expecting!

On to sponge number 2.  This time I went for blue and I was less cautious with the colouring.  Half the tube in – looking a bit green.  Rest of the tube goes in – still green.  A lovely shade of green but not the vibrant blue claimed by the tube.

Finally sponge number 3.  The red.  or raspberry pink as I prefer to call it.

I didn’t bother with Sunshine Yellow.

Sponges cooled and it was time to layer up the cake.  As I piled them one on top of the other, sandwiched with vanilla buttercream, I realised that I was creating something along the lines of a cake leaning tower of pisa and it was in more danger of falling over than the original.  In the absence of a team of skilled engineers,  I decided to make two cakes and seperated the top three layers from the bottom.  Once smothered in buttercream and sprinkled with white chocolate stars, mini gold stars and few silver balls they looked quite passable.  The Boy was pleased.

Next day, several other boys joined my Boy for his birthday.  The moment of truth had arrived.  I cut the first slice.  There was a lovely effect of layered coloured sponges.  True, it wasn’t the vibrant orange, blue and red I’d been going for but the apricot, green and raspberry looked very nice and just as effective.  It was demolished by said boys so I suppose that deems my fraught baking day a success!

So this week I’ve been watching old episodes of Great British Bake-Off and Kirsty’s hand-made Britain.  GBBO markets itself as the competition for amateur bakers.  We follow people who like to bake at home as a hobby.  Now these people are home bakers.  When I think of home baking, I think of scones, butterfly cakes, victoria sponge.  None of it looks perfect, it all looks a little lopsided and well, home-made.  This is not allowed on the GBBO.  Contestants must push the envelope, take risks and above all, their finished result must look professional!  Anybody else notice that paradox?  The amateur home bakers must be professional!!!  But that’s not enough,  whilst the lovely Mary Berry likes traditional, Paul Hollywood likes contestants to take risks, try something they’d never tried before (possibly not the best tactic for a baking competition…). The first series semi final they had to make something elegant that would suit a traditional afternoon tea.  Miranda made perfect little lemon fairy cakes, beautifully iced and decorated and professional looking.  They were…… elegant.  Ruth and Ed decided to experiment.  Now I love both Ruth and Ed and would eat anything they produced,  but what was produced that day can only be described as disaster, a dogs dinner.  So who went through to final?  Miranda who fulfilled the brief perfectly and whose amateur buns were finished professionally?  Of course not, she was booted out.  And so began my confusion with the GBBO.

Kirsty Allsop on the other proudly proclaims herself to be an amateur.  In the first week of her show, she entered a cake baking competition.  She had to produce an afternoon tea and she also entered the single cake competition.  The judges (and who had no idea who had baked what as the programme was at pains to tell us several times) noted that Kirsty’s (anonymous) scones were overdone (some of us would say burnt, I prefer caramelised) as was her caribbean fruit cake.  Somehow, she managed to get second place with the afternoon tea and first place  with the fruit cake.  Now I shudder to think what the other offererings were like if burnt scones and cake are what passes for winning entries.

So my confusion about competition baking remains.  Am I going for professional and beautifully finished?  Or burnt/looks like a dog has vomited on a plate?  I think I may just stick with looking home-made!