Cake, Bake and Sweets show; Red Cross Big Cake Bake

Line up now for your healthy — and not-so-healthy — slice of cake.

Melbourne’s Cake, Bake and Sweets show should draw 25,000 visitors.

I can’t recall: is one slice of carrot cake equal to a serve of vegetables, or is it two?

This month is all about the cake, it seems, with the Cake Bake and Sweets show in Melbourne, and the Red Cross raising funds with its national Big Cake Bake.

For those in the wellness camp there are recipes from the likes of My Kitchen Rules’ Luke Hines, known for confections such as the Golden Gaytime cake, which is free of gluten, dairy and refined sugar. For those of us who still think a treat should be more like, well, a treat, the show — expected to draw more than 25,000 visitors — also promises oodles of deliciously unhealthy goodies to eat, make and ogle.

In 2014 the annual show hosted a wedding chapel made out of cake, and there was an attempt at the world record for the largest chocolate garden.

This year, British chocolate sculptor Paul Joachim will create a life-size solid sculpture of jockey Michelle Payne (sans horse).

While the garden was auctioned off in pieces for charity, it is still undecided what will be done with Payne.

International cake artist Verusca Walker was the lead architect for the wedding chapel, in which a couple actually tied the knot.

She will teach three classes this year for people who want to know how to make fun cakes that look gravity defying — whether that’s a handbag, a burger or, for those who perhaps take the idea that cake can be healthy a little too far, a cake that looks like a salad.

“Every time I do a new cake it becomes my favourite,” she says.

“It’s like my baby. I spend months and months (creating cakes) so my students will be able to produce it in a one-day class.”

Walker specialises in three-dimensional objects and says clients tell her they want a designer handbag but can’t afford it; what they can afford, however, is a cake that looks like the handbag.

If you’re not up to making a handbag, though, any cake will do for the Red Cross Big Cake Bake.

This year the Red Cross wants to set a record of more than 35,000 Australians taking part in the national event, a fundraising initiative that asks people to host a morning tea or other baking-themed event.

Big Cake Bake ambassador and Melbourne chef Adrian Richardson says his mission is to inspire more men to get baking this month after a rather disappointing turnout last year, when blokes accounted for just 8 per cent of hosts.

“Big Cake Bake is the perfect event for us fellas to show what we’re capable of in the kitchen,” he says. “You’ll be helping Red Cross raise funds and you never know whose day you might make that little bit brighter.

“Whether it’s with a simple afternoon tea or a more competitive bake-off, Big Cake Bake is about getting in touch with family, friends and neighbours.

“After all, the best meals are the ones we share with others.”

Big Cake Bake events can be organised anywhere, any time this month, with the official day of celebration on Friday, October 28. Register your Big Cake Bake event at bigcakebake.org.au, call 1800 652 635 or stay in touch with the wider baking community via facebook.com.au/BigCakeBake.

The Cake Bake and Sweets Show runs October 21-23, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. More: Cakebakeandsweets.com/melbourne