If you've ever been to the Sydney Royal Easter Show and seen the perishable cooking being judged you'll have seen a lot of strange activities.
Most of them involve a cast of thousands moving cakes to and from different tables, slicing them in half and then turning the pieces over and over again like a prison warden looking for the file baked inside.
Then, only if it's a pretty good cake, will they slice out a tiny wedge of cake, break off a piece and after continuing the inspection for a few more moments, have the smallest, most delicate taste.
Most of the judges give very little away, poker faced and ever serious. A couple though are connected to a microphone and in a testament to the new digital age, they'll try to say something about what they're thinking and feeling and angle a piece of cake awkwardly towards an overhead camera.
It can be difficult to hear what's going on and understand what it is they're looking for. Despite all the ribbons that I've managed to nab over the years there's still a lot of things I don't really understand, but I at least can take a reasonable guess at it.
Rack Marks
Apparently the world ends if you have rack marks on your cake. Yes, I'm serious and yes, the bottom of the cake is just as important as the top. It will get you turfed off the prize table and into the charity bin, I promise.
I suppose what that said in the olden days when you baked for your visitors instead of nicking down to Bakers Delight, is 'I cared so little about the precious guests that I was making it for that I just whacked it down on a wire rack. Serve yourself.'
Wire racks are right up there with wire coat-hangers - a travesty.
It's an easy fix though - just grab a couple of nice smooth and squeaky clean tea towels and lay those across the rack first. Problem solved. Unless you use a seer-sucker tea towel, or anything with texture. Otherwise you are doing the same damage to the cake surface and you'll never hear the end of it from the judging ladies.
From the bottom to the top
No matter what's happened to your cake, don't present it at the Easter Show upside down. They'll think you're hiding something. It's like deleting your internet history, or cleaning the entire house for prints when it's become a crime scene. No one's house is that clean (little tip there for your life of crime). An upside down cake looks suspicious, and the ladies will check.
There's one exception to this rule. If you have your cake out of the oven and you're a little concerned about any softness through the middle, then priority one is to make sure it's cooked - totally cooked! If you're confident it's cooked but you're still concerned, cool it on those tea towels upside down until it's completely cooled. Cakes will become more solid as they go cold. Warm is fragile, cold is stable. So perhaps cool it upside down to try to stop it falling in the centre quite so much. Otherwise keep it for eating at home, fill the sunken centre with berries and tell the family it's meant to be that way. Genius!
Now I'm not saying you want to do all of these at home when you've baked a cake for your nanna or cupcakes for the kids. They will woof that stuff down so fast they're not going to care if it's even cooked.
But whenever I've baked something new the question in my house is always 'Nice... but is it a Show Cake?' If it's not up to scratch I'll say no - but that brings bigger smiles to their faces than if it was Show quality. They love it when I'm a failure.
There's so many more things to go through but to prevent feelings of trauma and invoke the need for counselling, that might do for today. More tips tomorrow hey?