Sponge Wenteenth Century: My Summer Touring Village Fete Cake Tables With a Frosted Mona Lisa

There is a rule in village fête baking competitions, and it is this: your Victoria sponge must be flat, your jam must be visible at the edges, and under no circumstances must your cake have a face.

I learned this the hard way, eleven times, across a summer of marquee-flapped madness from Kent to Oxfordshire. Armed with a vanilla-frosted Mona Lisa portrait cake — piped by hand, smirk included — I entered Britain's most politely hostile sporting arena: the fête bake table.

The Rules of Engagement

Each entry was judged on the standard fete criteria: appearance, texture, flavour and, crucially, suitability. Suitability is the catch-all clause WI judges deploy when they want to say 'no' without saying anything at all. One judge in Surrey described my Leonardo tribute as 'technically accomplished but spiritually concerning', which is now framed on my wall.

Scoring was out of ten per category. Here is the tour, ranked.

11. The Smirk Victoria Sponge — Blewbury, Oxfordshire

The disaster entry. An attempt at a classic sponge with a jam smirk hidden inside, revealed on cutting. It was not revealed. It seeped. The judge cut one slice, watched raspberry preserve pool like a crime scene, and simply said: 'No.' Score: 4/40. A steward asked if I was 'quite well'.

10. Great Bookham, Surrey

The cake melted slightly in the marquee. Renaissance women, it turns out, do not enjoy 31°C and no breeze. 'Liquefied enigma,' noted the scorecard. 19/40.

9. Chiddingfold, Surrey

Disqualified before judging for 'unauthorised facial features'. The schedule, I was shown, specified 'sponge cakes, plain'. Mine was neither. 0/40, spiritually 40.

8. Deddington, Oxfordshire

A breakthrough! Third place in the 'Any Decorated Cake' class, behind a christening cake and a genuinely astonishing hedgehog. The judge called my piping 'a torte de force' and then apologised to the hedgehog's owner for the compliment. 28/40.

7. Ardingly, West Sussex

The smirking face was ruled 'distracting to the children'. There were no children present. 22/40.

6. Alresford, Hampshire

An elderly judge tasted the sponge, closed her eyes, and said: 'The vanilla behaviour is impeccable. The face is not.' 26/40, and a genuine compliment I treasure.

5. Henfield, West Sussex

Fifth place on merit. A steward whispered 'it's the lady off the telly' and someone photographed it for the parish newsletter. Fame at last. 29/40.

4. Woburn Sands, Buckinghamshire

The judge asked if the smirk was 'load-bearing'. I said yes. She gave me marks for structural ambition. 30/40.

3. Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

A rosette! Fourth place, but a rosette nonetheless, which now hangs above my oven. The judge wrote: 'Disturbing. Delicious. Disturbingly delicious.' 32/40.

2. The National Federation Show — the Final Showdown

The big one. The annual NFWI show, where the very best sponges in the land sit under strip lights like contestants on a reality programme. My Mona Lisa was placed on the table between a mirror-glaze showstopper and a fruit cake older than several of my friendships.

The judging took an hour. When the marks went up, I'd scored 35/40 — fourth in class, beaten by three women who have been doing this since before I was born and one of whom, I'm told, once judged at the Chelsea Flower Show. The head judge approached me afterwards, looked at the cake, looked at me, and said the words I will have engraved on my headstone:

'Novelty nonsense. But well-executed novelty nonsense.'

What I Learned

Village fêtes are not about winning. They're about the quiet dignity of a hedgehog cake, the tyranny of the suitability clause, and the fact that somewhere in every marquee is a judge who secretly loves a smirk.

The Mona Lisa went eleven for eleven without a win. But every crumb was eaten, every photograph was taken, and at one fête a man offered me £40 on the spot.

She has, historically, refused to smile for less.