Source : Perth Now news
A brutally honest coffee cake critique at a small country show has turned veteran judge Ellice Schrader into an unlikely internet star, with one viral video racking up millions of views.
The clip, filmed while Ms Schrader was judging at the Bungendore Show, near Canberra, has struck a nerve online for its deadpan delivery and oddly specific cake complaints, from a sloping bake to the unforgivable use of a springform tin.
The Bungendore Show is a traditional regional agricultural show where locals compete in everything from livestock and produce to cakes, preserves and home crafts.
“This is the coffee cake. It’s a lovely textured coffee cake, but you can see there’s a problem with their oven because it goes up,” Ms Schrader said in the now widely shared video.
“This is frosting, so we want glace icing. Beautifully textured. But it’s used a springform tin and it’s got some wrinkle marks on the bottom.”
“So a lovely cake, smells like coffee, so congratulations.”
The comments have poured in ever since, with viewers turning Ms Schrader’s feedback into a comedy genre of its own.
The top comment alone has drawn about 80,000 likes, with user thelildirado writing: “Your oven’s broken but other than that I hate it.”
Others joined in with their own verdicts. “This is how my mother-in-law introduces me to people,” instacam98 wrote.
“Urgh spring form tin … may as well have used a blocked public toilet,” gordie_pics wrote.
‘Smells like coffee so congratulations’ is so brutal,” thefoldinglady posted.
Another viewer, wyldie85, joked: “A spring form tin!? What an absolute peasant.”
Ms Schrader, a long-time Country Women’s Association of NSW land cookery judge who also appears on ABC’s Recipe of the Year, admitted she has been blindsided by the reaction.
“I don’t do social media, and I’ve suddenly got these social media accounts, and I don’t know what the hell is happening,” Ms Schrader told NewsWire.
“Someone said to me, ‘Oh, you’ve gone viral,’ and I said, ‘Exactly what does that mean?, “ she laughed.
For Ms Schrader, the humour online has come from a world most people know little about.
Agricultural show judging might look charming and old-fashioned, but she insisted it is “serious business” and governed by strict standards.
She travels across NSW judging at regional shows and major competitions, where the same bakers often enter again and again. In that world, small details matter. A lot.
“With a cake, you want very nice bottoms. You want no marks on the cake,” she explained.
“When you use a springform tin, you get that gutter all around the bottom of your cake. You want a beautiful-looking cake, and the springform tin does you no favours.”
That springform tin critique has become such a talking point that content creator j.ackdale posted a skit about panicking before a bake where he can only find a springform tin.
In the video, a voice behind the camera says, “Who cares?” as he panics about using a springform tin.
“Ellice is gonna care,” he says in reply.
“ She knows if it’s springform. I need a normal fixed base tin.”
He then spirals further, warning, “She’s going to see the wrinkly base and it’s all going to be over for me.”
Ms Schrader loved the skit and joked that he deserved “a medal” for helping raise awareness after judges had been “banging on about springforms for years”.
Ms Schrader explained that one of the biggest mistakes home bakers make is treating competition baking like an everyday bake, explaining it’s “a whole different ballgame”.
“The worst cake crime a baker can commit is obviously not cooking it through,” she said.
Still, for all the memes and jokes, Ms Schrader has not lost sight of what these competitions are really about.
Open judging, where entrants can hear why a cake has or has not placed, is meant to help people improve and keep local shows alive.
She also encouraged anyone who watched the video and is now interested in competing to “go for it”.
“You get a certificate or a few bucks or a ribbon. To be honest, it’s just a bit of fun. And it keeps your show going. Isn’t that what community’s about?”
And in the biggest twist of all, the cake at the centre of the viral storm was not a disaster at all.
“I know it was sloped and I know it was in the wrong size tin, but I would love that recipe. It was a magnificent coffee cake,” Schrader said.
“If that person wants to send me that coffee cake recipe, I would love it, because my oven is straight.”
