Gosia Jackson took out first prize with a superb orange chocolate cake – and a story to match. Photo: Lisa Herbert.
Sunday (2 November) was a perfect, warm, spring into summer day in Bega, and hundreds gathered on the sloping grasses of the town’s Old Hospital to celebrate community strength and diversity – and cake!
The Friends of the Old Bega Hospital (OBH) once again donned their aprons, brandished tongs and cake servers, and cut several hundred sandwiches, which some members have been doing for more than 20 years.
When the hospital burnt in 2004 the resident tenant groups, including a tea room, were shuttered, but the drive and dedication of these ‘friends’ never wavered; they have worked tirelessly selling raffle tickets, baking and making sandwiches and writing to politicians.
Finally last Sunday the doors were thrown open to the sunshine and the people, and the ‘women’s ward’ hummed with hundreds enjoying tea and sandwiches, while observing the newly created ‘Flower Show’ for the first family fair in the restored building.
Two new ‘show pavilion’ style events were created for the revamped fair, the first to take place in the newly refurbished building: The Arrangement of Spring Blooms and The Cake with a Story competitions.
An incredible display of spring blooms (locally grown) judged by Kay Crocker George and Bella Sieger adorned the tea rooms throughout the day.
The Cake with a Story event attracted excellent entries according to show judge Nelleke Gorton, who was joined by celebrity chef Paul West, and Headland Writers’ Festival’s Myoung Jae Yi to judge the 10 cakes and their stories in this inaugural competition.
The judges of the Inaugural Cake with a Story comp – Paul West, Nelleke Gorton, Myoung Jae Yi. Photo: Cliff Shipton.
After each cake was cut for display, and pieces were taken from the centre, the story attached was read aloud. There was consideration and discussion, and the process was repeated until three prize winners emerged.
There was a ‘corrugated’ sticky date cake, an intricately decorated chocolate cake covered in ganache and cream piping, a classic boozy fruit cake, a pineapple coconut cake, apple tea cake, monster chocolate creations, boiled orange cakes, cakes displayed on boards with chocolate leaves, antique implements, cakes festooned with flowers and one iced blue kangaroo.
To highlight the story element of this year’s inaugural competition an award was created to acknowledge the memory of Bega journalist, historian and OBH activist Claire Lupton. Ms Lupton’s daughters were on hand to choose the story in her name.
First prize for Cake with a Story went to Gosia Jackson of Tanja, whose orange-almond cake was enrobed in chocolate, topped simply with several rose blooms, the story telling of growing up in Poland where oranges, which she loved, were only available as a special treat for Christmas. Now as an adult in Australia Gosia grows her own oranges, a fruit she still adores. It was a poignant tale, and a reminder of our country’s bounty.
In an interesting twist of the orange slice, the second prize winning cake was also a boiled orange cake, this one adorned with hand-made chocolate leaves, and created using oranges from a tree grown from seed 15 years ago by the baker’s children, it thriving next to a compost pile in their Tathra garden. The baker was local Landcare worker and environmentalist Luke Hamilton.
Second prize winner – Luke Hamilton’s orange cake with chocolate forest floor. Photo: Cliff Shipton.
The story accompanying the third prize winning cake, a delicious pineapple and coconut cake, was the longest of the three. It told of a time the baker, Bega Councillor Helen O’Neil, was given the recipe after a transformative cake experience in a roadside cafe in Queensland’s Glasshouse Mountain area – “pineapple growing country”. Helen said for this cake “you must use tinned pineapple”.
Legendary Bermagui baker Honor Northam won an award not for her baking, but for the story that accompanied her “Hungry Boy Cake” entry.
Honor’s story told of pre-swim squad feeds, constant baking for family, and mistakes that could happen which gave a certain spice to life, and cake. Claire Lupton presented Honor with this award saying her mother “would have loved the structure – the beginning, climax and denouement of this story”.
After the judging, all 10 cakes were divided into pretty boxes as a cake tasting pack for sale in the tea rooms, for which there was a very long, and ultimately appreciative queue.
In delicious news, we are assured by the organisers that the flower and cake events will take place again in 2026, and the 2025 cake event will become an episode for Community Radio to air soon.
