England: Natalie Elliott (Interact)
Program: UW Global Launch in London
A couple of weeks ago, I and two of my friends from our cohort, Cassidy and Liam, signed up for and attended the London Big Bake via FIE activities. I have been obsessed with The Great British Baking Show since I was very young, and have always dreamed of being a contestant. The Big Bake was like a sneak peak of being on the show, and so I convinced two of the others to do it with me. On the day of, we headed out to an area of Clapham we hadn’t been to before. It was called Tooting, and it was about a half hour ride on the tube. We left zone two and emerged in a very different looking place than Kensington. It was a lot more urban, and the baking tent was tucked behind a beer garden down the street from the tube station.
We were definitely nervous going into it-with a whole orientation that spelled out the rules and strict time limits for each aspect of the bake, it seemed very serious. The employee who explained to us told us that our task was to create a four-tiered cake of choice that looked like a monster at the end. There were other people in the tent, and we were the only few from FIE. There were families celebrating birthdays, friends together for a fun outing, and even a few people baking alone. We all received aprons and got a table in the tent to bake at. There were all the ingredients we needed laid out on the table for us, and flavoring and decoration stations on the sides of the tent.
The three of us had a few minutes to collaborate and plan our design, and we decided to make a chocolate cake that looked like Sully from Monsters Inc. When the woman running the bake-off shouted, “Ready, set, bake!” it was like I was transformed into all of the bakers I’d watched on my TV screen. My team worked well together, but it was hilarious because we were all very antsy under pressure. Liam formed the face of our monster out of fondant while I whipped egg whites for buttercream and Cassidy kept an eye on the sponges.
I ran back and forth from the flavor station, carrying little bottles of vanilla and almond extract to accent our cake to perfection. The woman reminded us of our timing every few minutes, and I really felt like there was a camera crew recording us as we piped buttercream onto the cake (though, in actuality, it was just Cassidy snapping dozens of photos on her phone). The last few minutes of the challenge felt like a blur and before we knew it, we were placing our creation at the front of the room for judging.
There is a hilarious video of me introducing our cake and our motivations behind it for the judge. I had practiced it in my head a thousand times before, and it was like living out my silly little dream in real life. During the judging, we joked around with a middle-aged British culture and bonded over the way both of our cakes were leaning to the side.
We left the tent with the experience of stressful baking under our belt, some bonding experience, and a delicious (albeit deformed) cake in our takeaway box. I would definitely recommend this experience, and I am looking forward to taking part in some other FIE activities this year.
Natalie Elliot
Program Name: UW Global Launch in London
Major: English
Hometown: Lake Forest, Illinois