The Big London Bake you’ll have a scarily good time

This October The Big London Bake have gone all Halloween with their Sugar Skull Cake Month.

On a complimentary basis I Steve was invited down on a complimentary basis along with my friend to get into the spooky spirit for this Halloween in the The Big London Bake tent to make a cake of a Dia de Muertos (skull).

The Big London Bake

Set within a tent in the back of The Castle at Tooting you can take on the challenge and bake but will you be victorious and be the star baker?

There are ten cooking stations set within the tent each accommodating two people. You’ll be provided an apron, cooking essentials and the ingredients for the bake.

With just 90 minutes to bake the pressure was on for this ultimate baking extravaganza.

Every night The Big London Bake will be lending a helping hand to bakers be it to bake cupcakes or a pavlova will you be Star Baker of the night or will you end up with a soggy bottom?

Dia de Muertos

The Big London Bake in Tooting is a pop up which just keeps sticking around, and thankfully so!

Set within the back of a pub in Tooting, there is a bake-off style tent set up outside with everything you need to make in their monthly challenges. Past events have seen people making all types of treats such as marshmallow cones, mousse tarts, and mille-feuille. These are all more advanced bakes, but thankfully everything is laid out for you step by step.

Tonight I returned for this month’s special Halloween cake bake which is a of a sugar skull representing the famous colourful Dia de Muertos which is worn in Mexico to celebrate the Day of the Dead.

I had no idea how this would be made going into the evening and was surprised by the process.

With just 90 minutes to whisk, roll and drizzle our way towards a winning bake. Instructions at hand, tools and tips we got to work on our masterpiece.  

We needed to make three things for the cake, one being the cake itself. For flavouring, I went with a banana flavour added into the cake mix and a lemon grass cordial to be drizzled on the cake once baked. I really wanted that candy shop banana sweet flavouring but then paired it with the lemongrass to mute the overly sweet taste of it.

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This was all just the first step where we mixed the pre-measured cake ingredients and baked the cake for 20 minutes.

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Once it was slightly cooled, we chopped it into one inch cubes and poured the lemongrass cordial on top.

This cake mix was then smushed into a lovely skull tin, creating the shape we wanted. 

The cake also had a layer of blueberry jam which we made ourselves. There were many berries to choose from, but I thought blueberries would go nice with the banana flavour. Along with the jam, we mixed up a batch of dark chocolate ganache. We could have done white chocolate, but I really liked the idea of dark to again, compliment the banana. With the instructions and pre-measured ingredients, both of these were easy to make.

The competition is timed and time flies away for you in the bakers tent. The twenty minute mark went off which was the point decorations should have started but our cake was just going into the freezer to set!.

We had to cut freezer time down and pulled the cake out early to lay down the fondant which we had rolled out into a thin layer. This was then moulded onto the skull side of the cake.

In a blistering final 5 minutes, we quickly whipped up some decorations using the traditional day of the dead iconography. Our fondant was cut too short, our jam was overcooked, but our cake was going to be well decorated!

Judging time came and we saw all the lovely skulls before us. They were all so different with their decorations, some using real flowers and others had jelly sweets. For a group of mostly amateurs, we did pretty well which is a testament to the great instructions and having everything laid out before us.

We never won but it was such fun and the best of all was that we did not need to cleanup after as this is handled by the staff so all we had to do in the end was walk away with our cake in a takeaway box!

Challenge your friends at London’s first pop up bake off! All the ingredients are good to go, a top baker at your side, an irresistible monthly baking theme, an unforgettable experience and one winner. It’s time to unleash your competitive cooking streak.

Hauntily fun

We had a thrilling time and ended up with a hauntingly delicious cake which we decorated to a ghoulish perfection!

The Big London Bake makes it easy to learn from their easy instructions on how to bake from start to finish with help at hand.

Go along and bake….. if you dare!

Question is will your bake come out to perfection or will it end up looking ghastly?

The Big London Bake – Get set and bake

The Big London Bake
38 Tooting High Street
London
SW17 0RG

Walk through the Castle Pub to the rear garden

• 1 x awesome marquee
• Ingredients provided
• 10 x cooking stations 
• Mix in up to 10 teams of 2
• Add a dash of competition
• Set the timer to 90 minutes
• Stir in a slice of creativity 
• And when the time’s up, the winning team is crowned 

Discover more https://www.thebiglondonbake.com/

Written by Steve Peca

Thank you to The Big London Bake for letting me come down to bake a spookily good cake to celebrate Halloween this month.  This experience was complimentary from them but all views are my own honest opinion.

Click link below to read all the other blogs and reviews from past bakers who took their baking within the The Big London Bake tent. All their views are of their own honest opinions.

The Big London Bake