A piece of snail cake anyone?

THE winner of last weekend’s cake competetion to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a Thame cake decorating business, was a quirky piece indeed and caused quite a stir.

Jackie Kelly’s masterpiece entitled Snail, won the Quirkiest Cake class and the Best in Show as voted for by the visiting public. Rosie Burr also took a junior double, coming second in the Junior section, 12-16 years and winning the Best Junior piece, also as voted for by the public.

Jenny Walker, co-founder with Norma Laver of A Piece of Cake, in Upper High Street, Thame, told Thamenews.net: “We had about 45 entries which we were extremely pleased with. As well as local cake decorators we had entries from as far away as Bristol and London.

“Norma and I opened A Piece of Cake on May 7, 1985. From small beginnings we now have a large mail order department and send cake decorating equipment all over the world. To celebrate our 25 years we decided to hold a Cake Competition but we wanted to make it a bit different to the usual cake competitions.

“We intended it to focus on the fun element of cake design with cakes not being judged on their accurate execution but by subjects such as The Prettiest Cake and The Quirkiest Cake.”

The judges were Alan Dunn, Tombi Peck and Tracey Mann, all top cake decorators and authors. (Tracey lives in Longwick).

Jenny continued: “Due to the overwhelming generosity of many of our suppliers, we were able to give away some marvelous prizes. Bundles of goodies were given to all the winners and all those that didn’t win were given a goodie bag and a certificate of appreciation.”

After my partner, Norma’s recent illness, it was so good to have her there giving out the prizes, which made some of the speeches at the prize giving very emotional – there were lots of tears!”

A full list of prize winners is as follows:

The Prettiest Cake
1ST KAREN CAUDWELL
2ND JACKIE SCOTT
3RD NELL KING
The Quirkiest Cake
1ST JACQUI KELLY
2ND SARAH KING
3RD SARA ALLEN
The Most Retro Cake
1ST JACQUI LLOYD
2ND MATTHEW GOLDSMITH
3RD CLAIRE WILLETS
Best use of a Mould on a Cake
1ST KAREN CAULDWELL
2ND HEATHER JENNINGS
3RD ANURADHA P BHOGAITA
Best use of a Novelty Cutter
1ST JACQUI KELLY
2ND ANGELA TIPPING
3RD JACKY NIXON
Best Sugar Flower Arrangement
1ST GILLIAN GRAY
2ND KAREN CAUDWELL
3RD GILLIAN GRAY
The Best Porcelain Piece
1ST ROBERT HAYNES
2ND ROBERT HAYNES
3RD ANURADHA P BHOGAITA
Junior under 7 years
1ST 1st THAME RAINBOWS
2ND ALAYNE AINDOW
3RD 2nd THAME RAINBOWS
Junior 7-11 years
1ST COURTNEY GALAGHER
2ND TAZ POTHECARY
3RD ELLEN SMITH
Junior 12-16 years
1ST IMANI MILLER-BYGRAVE
2ND ROSIE BURR
3RD

Best in Show JACQUI KELLY

Best Junior Piece ROSIE BURR

Angela Tipping, Heather Jennings and Nell King all work at the shop.