NEW Cakeriffic competition

Something that might interest everybody who likes to bake:

I have 2 copies of 

The Great Australian Bake Off recipe book to give away.

Would you like to win?

How to win:

I have 2 sons. Connor and Leith. 

They both have middle names. 

Leith's is "Haddon", but can you guess what Connor's middle name is?

You need to post your guesses on the 

Cakeriffic Facebook page:

If you are a friend of our family then, really, you cannot enter, but everyone else can.

This competition will run until Saturday evening 31st August and I will announce the winners then.

Note that even if you guess correctly, I will not say it is correct until Saturday evening, because if I do then everyone who's online at that time will hop on and also get it right - not fair for those who aren't online just then.

The two winners will be the first two who guessed correctly.

I may hand out a couple of clues.

If you have any friends who love to bake, please let them know about the competition.

This is a Cakeriffic competition and it is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

Cakeriffic expo pictures

Here's some more expo photos from Cakeriffic.

More expo piccies

I hope you enjoy these beautiful photographs by Moda Studio Portrait and Wedding Photography:

Part of Sweetest Obsession's display:

Gorgeous edible shoes from Cakes N Supplies by Ximena:

Cakeriffic Expo pics

Some shots of scenes from the Cakeriffic expo 

- taken by Moda Studio Portrait and Wedding Photography.

Customers checking out the fantastic products at the Cakes n Supplies by Ximena stand. Ximena and her husband Vince came all the way from Florida for the show. 

I reckon their suitcases were made from the same material from which the tardis was made, because the amount of stuff that came out of there was incredible!

Two of our fabulous volunteers manning the entry table.

Another piccie from Ximena's stand.

Gorgeous wee shoes all edible.

A piece of Sugar Veil lace.

Amazing product and demonstrated at Cakeriffic by 

Greg Cleary from Cakes Around Town.

Photos from Cakeriffic

Sharing some photos from Cakeriffic.

All taken by Moda Studio.

Action in the Kids' Creative Corner. Janita is in charge and that's my nephew's lad at the back right with the stripey top.

Lesley from Little Bits showing how she does some 

beautiful embossing effects on cards.

Part of the gorgeous display from Sweetest Obsession:

Simone from Amazing Cupcakes & Treats. Whilst she was not able to trade (due to not having her permits finalised) Simone did give us some awesome demonstrations on how she achieves some beautiful flower tops for her cupcakes.

Here's Rod and his Missus who run Tops For Cakes. These guys make acrylic cake toppers in all sorts of designs.

Advice and hints being given out by members of the 

Victorian Cake Decorating Society

A fabulous photo of Verusca Walker.

Here's Nick from Where Is My Cake. These guys had a great time selling their "cake on board" signs. 

John and the doggies.

Thought I'd share some photos taken at the Cakeriffic expo.

These were all taken by Moda Studio. 

Here's John Quai Hoi who was one of our special guest demonstrators. John demonstrated flowers and also showed how he makes cute wee dogs at his stand. Every time I went past there was a big crowd of people watching him.

Here's John concentrating and a piccie of John and me.

One of the doggies John made.

John concentrating on the job at hand.

Some more of John's doggies:

(No - John's not suddenly grown hair and put a flower in it that's an incidental photo bomber me-thinks!) 

Extra winner!

Only just got around to emptying my car this morning (too slack to even think about it yesterday). 
Brought in the prizes with the winners' names attached (these are the ones that are being delivered) and discovered an extra prize!

So, I've drawn another winner from the entries that we took out of the barrel (couldn't actually bring the barrel home!).

The winner of this final prize for Cakeriffic expo 2013 is...
Lauren Crowther.

I'll be emailing Lauren with the good news to organise delivery/pickup.

Thanks again everyone for coming along and your encouraging comments. xo

Cakeriffic was awesome.

Wow - Cakeriffic was totally awesome!

Firstly I wanted to thank all the volunteers who helped out at Cakeriffic at the weekend. I appreciate that very much. You all did an awesome job and I'm very grateful for your help.

I was totally blown away by the number of people who came along - it was awesome and I thank all of you for your support and positive feedback. 

There have of course been a couple of small teething issues, which we are looking to rectify. 
We will be changing the camera angle on the demo area and I have already spoken to the hire company about this. 
And the demo area will be away from the cafe or blocked off to minimised the noise from that service.

We have had a few suggestions which we'll look into and assess as to whether we can apply those things to the expo. 
There's always stuff to learn no matter how long you've done this sort of thing for and it's no different here. The traders I'm sure have learnt a lot too.

I want to thank the traders for putting their faith in us and also our special guests, Verusca, John and Stella and also the GABO contestants. You were all fabulous and I hope next time to actually get around and watch some of your demos and buy some stuff (thinking...nah, that's not gonna happen, I'll be too busy).

I'll post the winners of our competitions in the next post coming up in just a minute...

Demos, demos, demos

A list of the demonstrations that are on at the Cakeriffic expo this Fri, Sat and Sun.

In the demo area:  
Verusca Walker demonstrating handbag cakes, high heel shoe cakes and figurines; John Quai Hoi is demonstrating a small selection of flowers. He’ll also show how to cover a poly dummy. If extra time - using modelling chocolate; 
Stella Abraham lace work and stencil work on cakes.
You can access the demo timetable for these presenters on the facebook page. 

https://www.facebook.com/Cakeriffic

Click on the "photos" link and you will see the demo timetable right there. Click on the timetable and this will bring it up big. Print from this window.

In the main trading hall: The Great Australian Bake Off:
Julie     Friday: 1pm- 3pm making fondant bees
Jonathan - Saturday: 10.30 – 12.30pm Ganaching a mudcake


Cakes Around Town:
Greg Cleary – demonstrating Sugarveil, Royal Icing Piping and what he is famous for his Roses – there will be one of each demo throughout each day.
Anna Maria Roche – Airbrushing, Silicone Plastique and how to get sharp edges.  (Anna Maria is a well known cake decorator from Planet Cake) – there will also be one of each demo throughout each day. 
Saturday - Darrell from Crystal Candy demonstrating Crystal Candy lace matts and their new Crystal Candy Sugar Lace.

And these traders have indicated that they will be giving demonstrations at their stands:

AMAZING CUPCAKES & TREATS
BLACKWOOD LANE
CAKES N SUPPLIES BY XIMENA
CHOICE CAKES
CRAFTY CAKES DECORATING SUPPLIES
FLORAL ART AND SUGARCRAFT
LEARN CAKE DECORATING ONLINE
LITTLE BITS
MY CAKE DELIGHTS
SKAT KATZ 
THERMOMIX
Victorian Cake Decorating Society
Cake Decorators Association of Victoria Inc.

We have other traders who are cake decorators and also a few who will be selling cupcakes etc. at the venue.
Contemporary Cakes and Classes are launching a book and are doing signings. 

A number of the traders sell tools, supplies and equipment including Ximena who is coming from Florida and has some things that are not available in Australia.

Tickets are available at the door.