Just saying the name ‘Bakewell’ instantly makes me hungry as I dream of delicious almondy puddings. It’s a town steeped in baking history and this year it celebrated in style with it’s first ever Baking Festival.

The Festival was held on the 8-9th June in Bakewell town centre, I went along on the Saturday to see what was happening.

Bakewell is always a busy town on a weekend boasting good weather, it’s position in the peaks plus it’s pudding fame make it popular with tourists and locals alike, so it was no surprise that I arrived to find the town very very busy!

However I soon spotted signs of the Festival when my daughter saw two people collecting money for charity dressed in Venetian finery, she even sneaked into a photo with them 🙂

Several of the main streets were lined with stalls selling everything from cakes and aprons to vintage homeware. Although the sheer volume of people made a few stalls difficult to see, they were all beautifully presented and appealing. My daughter bought a biscuit from this stunning stall from Nina Holden.

There was also several venues holding workshops and talks, although I must admit to being a little confused as to the location of everything. However after meeting Stacie Stewart I hightailed to Stacie’s talk in the main Festival Tent.

Stacie gave out several great tips and managed to pull together a beautiful White Chocolate Gateau despite the heat (her chocolate embellishments just wouldn’t set).

At the same time as I was watching Stacie my daughter was busy having a Tea Party with the Mad Hatter and Alice! This was located a little walk away from the main town and seemingly suffered slightly for it as my daughter had Alice and the Mad Hatter virtually to herself! She absolutely loved all the attention having dressed up as Alice herself for the occasion.

Although I have to admit to being slightly disappointed about one aspect of the children’s activities. Firstly their workshops were supposed to be prebooked which I hadn’t realised (bad Mummy) but even though they had plenty of space they would not let my daughter join in 🙁 but I can understand this and should have realised in advance. However they were also running a costume competition, it turned out that my daughter had been the only child to dress up, hurrah she wins!! No…. unfortunately not, we were told that the organisers hadn’t got themselves ‘organised’. They could see she was dressed up but said they ‘might’ do the competition the next day?? As we weren’t going to be there that wasn’t much consolation to my little girl. But saying that, Alice and the Mad Hatter were wonderful and my daughter had an absolutely wonderful time despite this slight disappointment.

Final Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed my day out at the first ever Bakewell Baking Festival and so did my daughter. I think allowing children to visit for free was a wonderful family friendly idea!

I did find the locations being set about the town a little confusing as I wasn’t always completely clear what was part of the festival and what wasn’t. However I am not known for my sense of direction, so that could well just be me 🙂

I think for the first year it was incredibly ambitious and ran very well. I for one am very excited to see how it evolves over the next couple of years. I can see it turning into a well renowned Festival in a beautiful location. Keep your eyes peeled for it’s return in 2014!!

Find Out More

To find out more information about this and future Bakewell Baking Festivals visit the Festival website at www.bakewellbakingfestival.co.uk.