How anyone can make Bake Off ’s magical illusion cakes

...with a huge dollop of patience and a dash of cunning trickery

Glistening green all over and bigger than a rugby ball, it looks like the juiciest watermelon you’ve ever seen. Once carved, the flesh inside is shocking red and studded with tiny black pips. it looks mouth-wateringly refreshing . . . except you’d probably prefer this particular watermelon alongside a nice cup of tea.

that’s because it isn’t a fruit at all — it’s a cake, made from red dyed sponge, chocolate chips and fondant icing, camouflaged with edible green paint.

Viewers of the new the great British Bake Off will, of course, recognise it as one of the showstoppers from the first episode of the show.

Almost 7 million of us tuned in to watch the debut of the series in its new home on Channel 4 — and marvelled at the spectacular cakes created by some of the contestants.

in what was dubbed the ‘most difficult challenge ever on the first episode of the show’, the bakers were asked to make illusion cakes — entirely edible creations that looked like anything other than cake.

While liverpudlian grandmother Flo, 71, the Bake Off’s oldest ever contestant, wowed the judges with her life-sized watermelon, steven, 34, from Hertfordshire, made a cake ‘loaf’ with a bacon, lettuce and tomato ‘sandwich’, and biomedical scientist Yan, 46, from london, whipped up a sponge bowl of noodles, complete with ‘chicken fillet’ and ‘vegetables’ made from coloured icing.

Other offerings included a champagne bottle with sugar ice cubes, a pork pie with a boiled egg centre and a stack of pancakes topped with berries and cream — all made from deliciously sweet sponge.

though their creations were impressive, they’re far from the first amateur bakers to make illusion cakes at home. the trend has taken Britain by storm over the past six months, with bakeries, wedding cake-designers and caterers seeing a spike in orders for cakes that look like very different food. so why is there such a demand for these cakes? Juliet sear, author of the Cake Decorating Bible, says the trend has been brewing in countries such as America and Japan — and has reached us via baking trade fairs, tV shows and online videos.

SHesays: ‘People feel encouraged to create amazing showstoppers. Home bakers are getting more ambitious, and social media means they’re competitive, too, as they want to show everyone what they’re capable of.’

Juliet adds that the wide availability of specialist equipment means professional-looking designs are now possible at home.

indeed, the cake decorating business is booming: the industry is worth £3.6 billion a year and Cake international, a specialist cake decorating trade fair in london and Birmingham, receives more than 30,000 baking-mad visitors a day.

Fondant icing — ready-made, solid sheets of icing which you can mould like plasticine — unusualshaped cake moulds and tools such as edible paint are flying off the shelves at lakeland, while equipment such as blow torches and airbrush guns (which spray tiny particles of paint through a stream of air on to your cake) are available in supermarkets.

‘i’ve made an 8ft-long beach cake, a trainer, a bouquet, and even a Christmas jumper,’ says Juliet. ‘there’s something really satisfying about making a cake that looks like another type of food. it brings the magic back into baking.’

so how hard can it be to make your own illusion cakes at home? And how much specialist equipment do you really need?

i raided my local lakeland and tried my hand at the three best Bake Off showstoppers . . .