AN Ingleton food hall held its very own ‘Bake Off ‘ last week when it invited 25 customers to make a cake to celebrate its silver anniversary.

Bakers from across the region took part in the 25-cake challenge which was judged by former Great British Bake Off winner Nancy Birtwhistle alongside Country Harvest owners Mike Clark and Gay Penn. The event was held in a marquee in the grounds of Country Harvest and even Nancy said there were certain similarities between the event and the television series she won in 2014.

The standard of the bakes was extremely high, but the overall winner was Louise Chaplow who stunned the judges by creating three crates full of vegetables - all made out of different flavoured cake. She won a trophy, £250 in cash and will now make the food hall’s official ‘birthday’ cake for its anniversary in October. Runners up were Ruth Parker, of Bentham, who based her cake on her grandmother who was a farmer’s wife on a dairy farm and in third place was Lynette Bathgate.

Other entrants included the winners of previous Country Harvest food competitions including Sandra Lund, of Litton, who made a cake to mark her ruby wedding anniversary . Other cakes included rich fruit ones with exquisite sugar work to three-tiered confections with layers of sticky toffee pudding, chocolate and morello cherry and Victoria sponge. After the winners were announced, Nancy went on to give a demonstration and shared her expertise making pastry and an open fruit tart which was attended by more than a hundred people.

“It was such a fabulous event and I sympathise with Mary Berry, Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood as finding just one winner from such a talented line-up was so hard,” she said Mike Clark. “I was absolutely bowled over by the stunning cakes and I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who baked a cake and all those who attended the event. The place was buzzing and it was a wonderful way to mark Country Harvest’s 25th anniversary.”