I made a cake in Digbeth in Birmingham & felt like a Great British Bake Off star

I’m one of those people who can’t boil an egg, bake beans - or even toast a slice of bread without burning it.

Yet I love cooking programmes! The Great British Bake Off, MasterChef, Cooking with the Stars - I watch them all. It’s so relaxing watching other people cook, and I’m a big fan of eating out; but I’ve never felt inspired to get into cooking myself.

So it was with some trepidation that I took up my latest journalistic challenge for BirminghamWorld! I had been invited to experience the Big Birmingham Bake on Floodgate Street in Digbeth. It’s an award winning venue featuring a Garden Bar and cooking tent - styled in the same fashion as the world famous TV programme The Great British Bake Off; where soggy bottoms, a bit of wrist action and a host of other puns rule the day. However it’s not officially affiliated with the TV show.

The garden bar is a great way to unwind with friends when you arrive. It features a huge mural near the entrance, so you can’t miss it, and is filled with greenery and cosy seating. Unlike the programme guests are invited to bake with a buddy at the Big Birmingham Bake. And you can bring more friends and compete against each other. It’s proving to be a popular experience for hen parties, mum and daughter days out, couples, groups of friends and more.

The cooking tent is full of mod cons and there’s a button to press if you fancy a beverage or two while creating your masterpiece. The hosts are so friendly and ran through how to use the equipment and find ingredients ahead of our baking. It was all quite efficient - and before I knew it, our 90 minutes had started and I was all set to bake my first cake since a cookery class at school.

My mission was to create a Summer Roulade following the instructions before me. There were two sets of eggs, flour and butter already laid out. The oven was on and there was a selection of food colourings and flavours to choose from for the batter and filling to make this my own unique showpiece.

Anyway, luckily for me the Big Birmingham Bake team were on hand to help as my baking buddy couldn’t make it at the last minute. It’s not easy making a summer roulade, you know. And that hour and a half can soon whizz by.

I’ll spare you all the details of my disasters. But with a little help, I actually managed to make a cake. It was so exhilarating and fun. I haven’t laughed so much in ages as I juggled cracking eggs, heating my batter and whipping up my delicious butter cream and spreading my fresh blackberry jam.

After rolling out our sponges and decorating them to our own individual tastes, the Big Birmingham Bake team invited us to show off our workmanship and tell our fellow bakers all about our inspiration. There were some fantastic themes - like festivals, summer, even Digbeth itself. My theme wasn’t so creative, more utilitarian - it was just survival! Anyhow once we heard about the stories behind the cakes an overall winner was selected and we all gave them a well deserved cheer.

It’s a really fun experience and definitely worth a go, if you haven’t been already. With MasterChef moving to Birmingham soon, maybe Digbeth could become a baking capital of Britain! You’ll definitely have the chance to be ahead of the curve at the Big Birmingham Bake.