MassKara Cake Festival in Ayala

The pandemic has brought out skills and talents among many of us amidst long lockdowns. Online barter and market places thrived with home-cooked delicacies that made entrepreneurs among homemakers.

This inspired restaurateur Joylyn Young Uy to sponsor the MassKara Cake Festival 2022 to discover homegrown talents in the field of baking and provide them with a venue and a small capital of P50,000 for the grand prize.

On October 18, catch 10 would-be bakers compete in a live Dress-The-Cake competition and 20 other entries of cakes display, plus the search for the 1^st Bakersfield MassKara Cake Queen at the Ayala Malls Capitol Central starting at 10 a.m.

Joylyn, who is a baker and manages Joy’s Kitchen Bacolod along with her brother Stev Young and cousin Joydee, thought of adding this event to the 43^rd MassKara Festival to promote young entrepreneurs and showcase the creativity of Bacolod bakers.

The Youngs are descendants of Cesar Young who founded V4 Farms. When Cesar’s son, Stephen, took over the business, they expanded to table eggs and piggery that is now among the biggest in Western Visayas.

Eggs are, of course, one of the main ingredients in baking, not to mention the fact that Bacolod is the capital of Negros Occidental which is known as the country’s sugar bowl, Joylyn said that this event is “a fitting tribute to our business and to sugar, our main industry.”

“Festival in the Philippines,” is the theme for the Cake Display category, the winner of which will bring home P30,000 while the second and third places will win P20,000 and P10,000 respectively. While there is no height restriction to the display, the piece must withstand the duration of the competition which is expected to last the whole day.

Joylyn said that while aesthetics and creativity get huge points in the criteria, “the cakes must taste good as well.”

In the live Dress-The-Cake category, the theme is “MassKara Fantasy,” and ten bakers and their team will compete decorating their 3-tiered cake entirely by hand, with at least one tier edible. The overall winner in this category will get P50,000 while the runners-up will get P30,000 and P20,000 each.

Meanwhile, the Bakersfield MassKara Cake Queen which is open to local residents carried the Balik Yuhum theme of regaining the smiles of the Bacoleña through baking, amidst the pandemic. The crowned queen will get P30,000 plus a cake mixer worth over P23,000 and a Negosyo Package from Bakersfield. Two runners-up will also bring home a Negosyo Package from the sponsors to help their businesses take off.