THIS is the cake that won 18-year-old Megan Ball the ‘golden whisk’ on The Alan Titchmarsh Show.

Former Didcot Girls’ School pupil Miss Ball is an aspiring baker, and entered the ITV show’s regular bake-off competition.

To her delight, she was invited to come on the programme and cook her Genoise sponge.

She was up against Edd Kimber, winner of BBC Two’s The Great British Bake Off and former chef at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons at Great Milton.

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But the judges tried both cakes in a blind tasting, and declared her’s the winner.

Miss Ball, of Lune Close, Didcot, said: “I was over the moon.

“I really thought I hadn’t won. Edd made a three-tier wedding cake and it looked amazing.”

She said Mr Titchmarsh had to say he “couldn’t possibly pick a winner” on screen, but afterwards admitted her cake was “very nice”.

She added: “I’ve baked my whole life. I used to bake with my grandmother, but over the last few years I have started taking it more seriously.

“I bake novelty cakes. I’ve done a Hollister Polo top and a cat face.”

Miss Ball, who is now taking a gap year, said she had been tentatively looking at joining Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in London.

But with courses running at £14,000 a year, she is still cooking up a scheme to pay for it.

 

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