Wait, before you automatically click “Essential Cookies” please read...
.svg "Keylink Limited"){kind=logo}
Cake & Bake International 2025
Cake International 2025: Highlights from the UK’s Biggest Baking Show
On 31st October, we attended Cake & Bake International at the NEC in Birmingham, sponsored by Renshaw, Neilsen Massey and The Cake Decorating Co. Celebrating Halloween surrounded by life-size, realistic cakes inspired by Michael Jackon’s Thriller, horror movie monsters and elaborate, fantastical scenes was a dream come true!
Read on to find out what we got up to at the show and why it’s a must-visit for bakers and cake enthusiasts looking for inspiration, new ideas and a fun day out!
by Lyndsey Hall
27 November 2025
Edible Elegance & Captivating Confectionery
On arrival, we took a tour around the rows and rows of incredible cakes that were up for judging in the competition. From multi-tiered wedding and celebration cakes, to eye-catching and sometimes mind-boggling edible artwork, the standard of competition was absolutely outstanding.
The winner of this year’s competition was Lucie Charvátová of Crazy Cakes in Czechia, who first entered Cake International back in 2015 and won 1st place for Wedding Design of the Year, as well as 2 gold medals and 1 silver. She has since won a number of awards at Cake International, including 1st place in the horror category in 2023, and a Gold award in the sculpture category in 2024.
Her Horror Bust Cake, Valeora, as Lucie affectionately calls her, was a stunning confection of modelling chocolate and sugar, blending themes of nature, beauty and decay into a detailed sculpture that caught the judges’ eyes.
See the Best in Show winning piece come to life over on Lucie’s Instagram.
Innovations & Inspiration
Throughout the day, there were several tutorials and talks from some of the world’s best-known bakers. Master Chocolatier Oliver Dunn (Oli the Choc) hosted on one of the stages, where a pastry chef demonstrated a method of making fondant icing look like marble with food colouring to decorate sophisticated wedding and celebration cakes. Later, Juliet Sear, beloved baker, TV presenter and author, joined Oli to introduce Renshaw’s new range of fruit fillings.
She baked chocolate cupcakes and filled them with cherry filling, topping them with cherries made out of marzipan and red food colouring, decorated with metallic paint for a glamorous shine.
Juliet was the baker behind the world-famous Bruce Bogtrotter cake in the recent musical remake of Matilda. She spent weeks developing the final version for the film, baking dozens and dozens of decadent chocolate cakes until they were happy with the recipe.
On another stage, a baker demonstrated a Highland cow cake, and there was even a Cakenstein experience filled with creepy Halloween themed cakes that had a huge queue all day long!
As well as discovering some new tips and tricks for cake decorating, seeing the stunning entries to the competition, and chatting with lots of professional bakers, we also sampled some delicious bakes and saw the world’s most expensive cake stand! Adorned with 30,000 hand-embellished Swarovski crystals, the sparkling cake stand by Prop Options is now in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The event ran for the full weekend, and Saturday and Sunday’s schedules were even more exciting than Friday’s! With over 80 exhibitors, 2 stages with live demonstrations, several workshops and hundreds of astonishing cakes entered into the competition, there was so much to see and try, we were in baking heaven for the day.
It was a well-attended and jam-packed day, filled with passionate people from all corners of the bakery industry. If you’re looking to discover some new ingredient and equipment suppliers, find inspiration and learn some new techniques, then Cake International is definitely the place to be in 2026!
Lyndsey is a marketing executive, writer and lover of books and chocolate from Sheffield.
Her favourite bake is a gooey chocolate brownie.
