Have you ever baked a cake so delicious you’ve wondered to yourself, I should enter this in a baking competition? Well, turns out you could be onto something. I spoke to food consultant and Sydney Royal Easter Show judge Brigid Treloar and learned that while cake baking competitions are notoriously strict – the judges even carry their own tape measures to make sure every entrant is compliant – taste, the most obvious marker of quality, still takes the cake. “Taste is so important,” says Brigid, “If you don’t like the taste, you’re not going to eat it again.”
That being said, if you want to know whether your cake truly would stand out from the bunch, it’ll need to be technically proficient as well as tasty. Here are the cake details Brigid says separate average cakes from “amazing”, award-winning cakes.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Sydney Royal Easter Show judge Brigid Treloar reveals the secrets that take a cake from average to award-winning.
- Technical perfection means nothing if your cake doesn’t taste incredible — and a competition judge may choose flavour over flawless.
- The details judges notice may surprise you: from whether your flour has been triple sifted to the size of your cake tin — and yes, they carry tape measures to prove it.
1. Evenly mixed batter
One of the most common mistakes Brigid says bakers make in the cake competition at the Sydney Royal Easter Show is failing to mix the batter correctly. This can mean not creaming the butter and sugar for long enough, resulting in a gritty texture. “Make sure you’re using caster sugar, as it’s a smaller grain to dissolve.”
Some award-winning entrants even go so far as to cream the butter and sugar for at least an hour.
It’s also important to make sure the dry and wet ingredients are well incorporated before pouring the batter into the cake tin. “I can often tell if people have scraped the bottom of the mixing bowl – where the creamed butter and sugar haven’t mixed with the flour properly – because the middle of the cake will be a different colour and we’ll see granules of sugar,” says Brigid.
2. Cooked evenly, all the way through
Think you’ll get away with a half-baked effort? Think again. The first piece of cake the judges will taste is right in the centre. “We cut every cake in half and then cut a small ‘v’ out of the middle – because that’s where the cake is least likely to be cooked,” says Brigid.
A cake that’s cooked all the way through will bounce back when gently prodded. When baking competitively, never, ever use a knife or skewer to check the cake’s doneness – cakes with surface marks will be instantly disqualified.
Watch: Brigid Treloar talks The Sydney Royal Easter Show with James Tobin of Sunrise
3. Made in a cake tin that’s just the right size
During our conversation, I admit to Brigid that I’ve never made a cake without a crack. I’ve just come to terms with it (or covered the faux pas up with icing) but Brigid says there is one reason it could be happening that no one really talks about: the size of the cake tin.
“I had a chocolate cake the other day – now, the sides of it were not very high, but it had a huge dome in the middle. What happened was she’d put the cake batter into a tin that was too big. If she had made it in a slightly smaller tin, the sides would have risen more, and it would have been more in proportion,” she says.
4. Baked at the right temperature
If your cakes are prone to doming and cracking, other things to check include the temperature of the oven, says Brigid. “If your oven is too hot, what happens is that the cake seals over on top first. But then the middle of the cake will be desperately trying to rise, but now it’s got to rise through a sealed surface. Eventually, it breaks through, and you’ll often end up with a crack.”
It’s best to follow the temperature instructions included in the recipe as a starting point. Make notes about how the cake turned out and adjust the temperature accordingly during subsequent bakes.
Another thing to consider is the position of the cake in the oven. Cakes should be baked on the middle rack – this ensures heat can circulate evenly.
5. The flour has been triple sifted
Texture is everything when it comes to nailing a sponge cake, and triple sifting the flour isn’t a suggestion – it’s mandatory, says Brigid. “If the dry ingredients aren’t evenly distributed, you won’t achieve the fine texture we’re looking for in a sponge cake. You want very fine little air pockets.”
Triple sifting also ensures the baking powder is well incorporated with the rest of the flour. “We often see tunnels through sponge cakes, and that’s because the baking powder hasn’t been distributed evenly. If you’re concerned about big air pockets, when you put your cake into the tin, just lightly drop it on the bench. It will help to collapse those bubbles.”
6. It tastes incredible
One of the most surprising things Brigid tells me is that it’s possible for a cake to be technically perfect but not taste very good.
She tells me a story from early on in her cake judging career where she was faced with two marble cakes from two separate entrants. One was technically flawless – the marbling inside was completely symmetrical and she couldn’t deny how incredible it looked in the display case – but it didn’t taste very good. The other cake? Well, it wasn’t nearly as technically perfect, but “The taste was just amazing.”
The moral of the story is that yes, pay attention to technical details, but not at the cost of taste.
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