‘Absolutely amazing’ experience
Newfoundland baker competes on Food Network Canada’s The Big Bake: Halloween
Catherine Sansome of Indian Cove, NL teamed up with two other Newfoundlanders to compete in Food Network Canada’s The Big Bake: Halloween television show.
Sansome, along with Juanita Tobin of Bay Roberts and Team Taste Buds’ leader Aaron Mcinnis of Conception Bay South, were featured on the series Oct. 14.
The show is touted as a larger-than-life holiday baking competition series with themed Halloween, holiday and spring episodes. In each episode, three professional baking teams have five hours to design, bake and decorate a grand-scale cake creation based on a particular theme.
Although the Newfoundland trio didn’t walk away with the $10,000 weekly prize, Sansome said in a recent phone interview that the overall experience was amazing.
Sansome, who was born in Twillingate, NL – which she says is “just a hop, skip and a jump” from her current home in Indian Cove – launched Catherine’s Incredible Edibles in 2012.
“I was actually living in BC in 2009 when I picked up my first ingredients to try a fondant cake. 2012 was when I officially opened up Catherine’s Incredible Edibles, which was doing cakes from a home-based business,” she says.
She’s no longer accepting custom order requests, and spent last summer working a seasonal job at Blue Barrel Gallery Café in Twillingate, where she did all the baking for the café and the restaurant. “It was extremely busy,” she says.
Getting to participate in the show, she says, was a fantastic opportunity. Here’s a portion of her interview:
Are you friends with your team members Aaron and Juanita?
I had been following Aaron and Juanita through social media ... Aaron has been on other cake competition shows ... he did one with Juanita which was my introduction to Juanita. Meeting each other face-to-face ... didn’t happen until the interview we had for The Big Bake: Halloween.
When was the show filmed?
The show was filmed the end of June in Ontario.
Tell me about your team’s cake – a chocolate monster cake with whiskey?
Our tasting cake was Aaron’s recipe. It was a chocolate cake ... we did a whiskey simple syrup ... and a vanilla spice buttercream on the outside.
Your bonus cake was filled with candy?
Yes ... we put it up high and in that way, when you cut through it, the candy would all sprinkle down and give it a real wow effect.
You had five hours (to make the cake). Was it a pressure-filled competition? It looked like you were having a lot of fun.
(Laughs). As a team we went into this saying ... ‘whatever happens, we are going to enjoy this process and do our best.’ Aaron even says on the episode that, ‘We conquer. We don’t give up.’ Things might happen out of our control but we are going to keep going and we are going to put something in front of those judges that we’re proud of.
Can you sum up your experience being part of the show?
It was absolutely amazing. We’ve made friends with the other teams (the winning team from Abbotsford, BC and the team from Aromas, California) ... everybody we got to meet while filming were amazing ... overall, it was amazing. I enjoyed everything.
Since the show has aired and you can speak about it, have you been getting much feedback?
My phone has lit up ... social media, phone calls, messages ... people are just so excited about it. They were complimenting the job we did and they are just so proud of us for making it this far.
What’s next for you?
A little bit of downtime with my family ... but you never know what the future holds. I loved this experience and I’m going to keep my eyes open and fingers crossed for any other opportunities that might come up when it comes to cake decorating.
New episodes of the show continue to air Mondays at 10 p.m. ET.
CATHERINE’S PUMPKIN SPICE CAKE
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• ¾ cup milk
• Mix together above ingredients
• In separate bowl, whisk dry: • 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• ½ tsp cloves
• 1 tsp fresh grated ginger (or ground) • ½ tsp salt
Directions
Stir wet and dry ingredients together and pour into greased and floured pans (2 X 9 in.) (2 x 8 in.) (3 x 6 in.)
Bake at 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Check centre with toothpick
VANILLA SPICE BUTTERCREAM ICING
• 2 blocks unsalted butter (must be room temperature)
• 5 cups icing (powdered) sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg • Orange food colouring • Pinch salt
Directions
Mix with mixer, gradually adding 1 cup of icing (powdered) sugar at a time.
Use orange food colouring to colour the icing.
A face can be added by using a little fondant, which can be purchased in bulk food stores and some grocery stores.