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New Consultants join Enterprise

We’ve had four new starters recently – Adam J and Callum have joined our software team, while Tom and Jamie O have joined our mechanical and manufacturing team. They come from a variety of backgrounds and all bring something new and individual to the teams. We’re now into the second full week of training and while they are getting to grips with all the technical side of things we have so far concluded that their tea making ability is ok – but could do with more practice, and we’ve yet to test their cake making ability, but it can only be a matter of time……

Cake Monday (on a Thursday) - 9th October

We race (electronically) and the loser has to bake a cake to feed the office. 

Why? Because we like cake.

Who? Everyone in the office. No one gets out of it. When? 1st Monday of the month. The rules: you make the cake yourself, without any help. You can't 'repeat' a cake. Your cake will be judged on presentation, difficulty and taste, and marked out of 10 by each colleague. When you have baked 3 cakes, you are out of the competition for 1 year.

Before we discuss this week's cake, we need to inform you of some shocking news; we have a Cake Monday cheat. Someone's cakes have had to be removed from Cake Monday and its score boards as we have Facebook evidence that they did not make their own cakes. Yes, it's true. Not only did they cheat, but they carried on the lie throughout the weeks that followed! The powers of Facebook. Now, onto more jubilant matters of this month's cake... 

'Snickers Cake' by Rosie. Rosie volunteered for this month's Cake Monday - so extra 'brownie' points there. There had been much talk about whether or not to do a snicker's cake and a fair amount of prior research. The efforts to achieve such a cake also resulted in our first Cake Monday injury. A chocolate sponge was made, a chocolate ganache was made (injury-free thus far), a peanut butter and cream cheese filling was made (still no injury), and then the toffee topping was made. This involved heating sugar to a high heat whilst stirring in cream and butter. A circular template was drawn up so that the molten toffee could be manipulated into a circle to sit on top of the cake. And her next move was Rosie's fatal error, she touched the volcano-hot-toffee. Blister-city is all I'll say. Fortunately, I can tell you that Rosie is ok and was even able to continue with her bake and toffee-fy her walnuts before placing them on top of the cake. 

'The Verdict': a sterling effort from Rosie, no one doubted how much work had gone into this cake, but it did split the camp into those who like peanuts and those who don't. Quotes from the pro-camp included, "loved it - it brought the dream of a snickers cake alive (albeit that it tasted more like a Dime bar)". "I like the mix of flavours, chunkiness and chewiness". "I wasn't expecting those walnuts - they should come with a warning! They're like pork scratchings, but sweet". 

The more negative comments included, "impressed with all the techniques going on, but wasn't a fan of the toppings and the sponge was a little dry". "Too many things going on - every one of them tasted good individually, but not all together". 

And then there were Jamie's comments, "I really didn't like it. It reminded me of sickly popcorn". (Jamie - stop). "I can't believe you are getting all of these high scores". (Jamie - STOP!). "I just didn't like it and...." (Jamie, STOP TALKING!!). 

Snickers Cake Average Score -  7.3 (higher if you exclude Jamie's mark)

Next time: Smritee is back in the kitchen - will she increase upon her already leading score? 

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Cake Wednesday - September 2014

We race (electronically) and the loser has to bake a cake to feed the office. 

Why? Because we like cake.

Who? Everyone in the office. No one gets out of it. When? 1st Monday of the month. The rules: you make the cake yourself, without any help. You can't 'repeat' a cake. Your cake will be judged on presentation, difficulty and taste, and marked out of 10 by each colleague. When you have baked 3 cakes, you are out of the competition for 1 year.

'Raspberry Bakewell' by Jamie. Jamie doesn't have the best track record in Cake Monday with a history of producing dry, over-baked fruit-flavoured cakes and here he stood before us having gambled with fruit again. Proclaiming it as a very easy recipe where everything went in a bowl and was then turned out into a tin, Jamie was never going to hit top marks for difficulty. However, he did keep watch over it in the oven this time and had added baking powder to the batter "to make it rise", a tip from Teresa apparently (as it happens, Teresa was referring to a sponge cake requiring height and fluffiness, not a plain-flour-almond-cake such as this, which is designed to be low to the ground). 

The Verdict: the over-riding feedback on this bake was its tardiness. 2 days late was deemed unacceptable & people openly adjusted their scores to reflect their anger at lack of sugar on a Monday morning. The cake itself however, was a triumph for Jamie. A really good cake, that was moist, with a perfect row of raspberries down the centre. Yes it was simple, but it worked. 

Raspberry Bakewell Average Score: 7.5. 

Jamie has made it onto the Leaderboard with his final cake. Whoo-hoo!

Next time: Darren. This will also be Darren's 3rd and final cake for a year, so it's getting tight for those left in the running.

Cake Monday 4th of August 2014

We race (electronically) and the loser has to bake a cake to feed the office. 

Why? Because we like cake.

Who? Everyone in the office. No one gets out of it. When? 1st Monday of the month. The rules: you make the cake yourself, without any help. You can't 'repeat' a cake. Your cake will be judged on presentation, difficulty and taste, and marked out of 10 by each colleague. When you have baked 3 cakes, you are out of the competition for 1 year.

'Chocolate Cherry Gateaux' by Smritee.

Smritee has managed to dodge making a cake since she first joined a whole TWO years ago. Having confessed to never making a cake before, we weren't sure how this cake would turn out. It’s safe to say Smritee exceeded above and beyond our expectations with this deliciously creamy cake. So not to do things by halves, she chose a technically difficult cake to make with three layers of chocolate sponge, 2 different kinds of cream and finally cherries to add even more flavour. The combination was a big hit with the team and some even went back for seconds and declaring it their ‘favourite cake ever’.

The Verdict: 

We had some very high scores for this cake, and generally the verdict was that it was a huge success. The cake looked and tasted beautiful, we felt Smritee had put her heart and soul into this cake and it definitely paid off. Extra points were given for the fluffy texture of the sponge and the creamy chocolate mousse. No one had a bad word to say about this cake. The only negative comments were that some of us didn't like cherries, but these were easy to eat around.

So Smritee came in and blew us all out the water straight away, with her cake being joint top of the leader board!

'Chocolate Cherry Gateaux' Average Score: 8.8 JOINT TOP OF THE LEADER BOARD!

Next time: expectations are low after Jamie's last few baking attempts, we are all hoping he pulls out all the stops for his last cake Monday of the year.

Cake Monday - 7th July 2014

We race (electronically) and the loser has to bake a cake to feed the office. 

Why? because we like cake.

Who? everyone in the office. No one gets out of it. When? 1st Monday of the month. The rules: you make the cake yourself, without any help. You can't 'repeat' a cake. Your cake will be judged on presentation, difficulty and taste, and marked out of 10 by each colleague. When you have baked 3 cakes, you are out of the competition for 1 year.

'World Cup Cake' by Louise. The message driven home with this cake was its expense. 70% posh cocoa chocolate ain't cheap particularly when the Tesco home brand is unavailable. Anyway, back to the cake, chocolate, butter and coffee were melted, flour, eggs and sugar were beaten and added. The missing ingredient of cocoa powder was ignored. A new cake tin was used (further expense) and the cake was watched for an hour and a half. Buttercream, aero balls and a giant chocolate football were then added for presentation. 

The Verdict: positivity all round. No one had a bad word to say about this cake. It couldn't be improved, the only way it could have scored higher points was if it had been a more complicated cake to make. The World Cup theme was appreciated, it was moist yet fluffy and it was full of flavour (posh chocolate rocks). 

Armed with a cake tin and 2 good cakes in the bag, Louise has declared that she likes baking.

'World Cup Cake' Average Score: 8.8 TOP OF THE LEADER BOARD!

Next time: it's taken 21 months for Smritee to finally lose a drinks dash. It better be good...