An Unexpected Blog: Bake Off Competition

This week was my turn to enter a submission to the work Bake Off competition. This competition has really gone off with a bang! We started it to try and get the two different sections of the office to be a little more social, and it seems to have worked. Out of about 25 of us 19 have entered the competition. This is great as not only does it mean we will have 19 different cakes over 10 weeks but when we go for after work drinks more, or different, people are joining us. I'm lucky, I'm one of those people who never knew what they wanted to do in life but I have landed on my feet in this job because it is so interesting. I'm really enjoying it. It can be ridiculously busy and frustrating at times as well but in my experience having good work colleagues helps you manage the stress and frustration so I like to think this competition is helping with that, but really it's all about the cake.

There are four different categories and will be one winner for each category. They are;

1. Taste

2. Presentation

3. Originality

4. Patriotism

Now as much as I wish I was good at baking I'm not. I don't leave things long enough in the oven, I make up quantities and my presentation leaves a lot to be desired, but as I am one of the instigators of the competition I thought I'd make an effort. After a few trial runs I decided to make Eton Mess Cup Cakes. I took the recipe for Vanilla Cup Cakes from here. To make them a little more patriotic I split the cake mix in half and put red food colouring in one half and blue food colouring in the other. When I put the mixture into cases I put the blue on the bottom and red on the top. I made up my own butter icing; butter, icing sugar, a little double cream (for smoothness) and home-made strawberry syrup (strawberries, a little brown sugar; heat, squash, cool, sieve) mixed it all together and when the cakes were cool iced them. To finish off I added a strawberry and some crumbled (shop brought) meringue. I tried making the meringues at home but they were a total failure so M&S saved the day. Popped on a poundland Union Jack cake stand and they were ready for tasting!

My Eton Mess Cupcakes

I don't want to blow my own trumpet but apart from those who suffered a huge sugar crash they seemed to go down really well. We'll have to wait and see in six weeks if it is enough for me to win any of the categories though. To get you really jealous here are a few snaps of previous entries