Sweet charity

Love the cake! Just love the cake, cake, cake and more cake. I am talking about last Sunday’s annual BGF Bake-Off at the Midnight Shift.

Like every other year, the downstairs of the Midnight Shift was packed to the rafters, with punters either enjoying one of the many shows that went on over the whole day or just having a bevvie or two and eyeing off one of the fabulous cakes.

The always-fabulous Mitzi Macintosh, who has become a sort of regular on the Bake-Off stage, hosted the day. With her auctioneer voice and technique practised to within an inch of its life, she raised the crowd to a frenzy and also the prices into the thousands.

Her partner in crime was the pink-headed Cleopatra Coup?who started the day off at a dull roar and by the end, after numerous complimentary homemade vodka shots, could be heard down the road. Who would have thought that Cleo could actually get any louder than she already is?

The way the Bake-Off works is anyone can enter a cake, jam, tart, pie, non-edible cake or biscuit. These are judged in their chosen categories by the celebrity judges, led by the culinary legend herself, Claire de Lune.

Usually the top honour of Best Cake goes out to someone who really knows how to mix her butter and sugar, Miss 3-D. Taking out this prize over many years, 3-D is just in it to help raise money at the auction, though we all have to admit her creations have to be seen to be believed. Truly amazing!

Once all the entrants have been judged, they are put under the auctioneer’s hammer (Mitzi’s huge rubber mallet).

This is where the craziness starts. Items start at reasonable prices that the average Joe Blows could afford. At $50, $60 here and there, they’re still quite steep but for a charity not too bad -“ you can spend that on booze on just one night out. But as the bigger and more fabulous cakes start to be rolled out, in come the high rollers.

Cakes going for thousands of dollars soon make the crowd scream with delight: club owner Tim Berry shelling out big bucks for a gorgeous creation dripping in Midnight Shift logos; a Chanel handbag going out for $1,500 (yes, they had a Chanel handbag); and even Stonewall’s Candy Boxx buying a huge lipstick cake being ridden by a pink showgirl for over $1,000 (all edible, mind you -¦ well, okay, I licked the end of it when it was in the fridge on Monday night. Oops!)

As you can guess, the day was a huge success, with many slicing up his or her very expensive sweets for everyone to share. There’s nothing tastes better than a cake that has just cost over $3,000, is there? Give me that any day. Just one more lap on the treadmill, though.