Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children

A solid effort

And the winner is....Teresa for her homemade jumper which included a real carrot nose on her snowman. Jamie O came 2nd with his flashing lights Christmas pudding jumper. Jamie H won the sweepstake. 

Cake Monday - December 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 Cake' Jamie O. Having only joined the Company a few weeks prior, this was Jamie's first cake for Cake Monday. He had pre-warned us that he would be 'fitting' the cake into his weekend and that he would be hungover when making it (based on errors of method, I would actually question overall sobriety). So onto the cake, Jamie 'Googled' a recipe that was "fool proof". The cake was made completely by hand (no electrical assistance) and empathy was awarded for the 10 minutes of focused whisking to beat air into the batter. However, what he didn't realise was that the order of the ingredients had been added into the cake mixture incorrectly, which meant for all the whisking undertaken, no air was ever going to be produced, and what should have been a light, fluffy chocolate cake, ended up as a 1 inch high, dense chocolate brownie/cheesecake. 

The Verdict - the cake had a cracking flavour and this was clearly a good solid first attempt at Cake Monday for Jamie. We appreciated the melted chocolate that had gone into the butter icing. However, the density of the cake was such that it felt as if we had eaten 4 slices of cake by the time we had powered through a slice. Considerable jaw effort was required and the singed edges to the cake did not go unnoticed. There was also some disappointment in the lack of Christmas theme - it is the 1st of December after all... If only he had called it 'Chocolate Brownie Cake'.

'Chocolate Cake' Average Score: 6.1

Next time: Katie's culinary and artistic talents are put to the test. 

Cake Monday – November 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.

‘Strawberry Surprise’ by Smritee. After 2 years of getting away with not making a cake this was Smritee’s second cake in 3 months! There were very high expectations for this cake, with Smritee’s ‘Chocolate Cherry Gateaux’ cake currently holding the joint top place on the leader board, and she didn’t disappoint. Following the Cake Monday rules, Smritee went for a completely different cake to her previous one with this delightful strawberry cake but kept with the fruity theme. The recipe itself was complicated, involving a fresh strawberry puree made by Smritee, which was used in both the cake itself and the icing. The sponge was created using two mixtures one with flour and egg yolks that was folded in to a mix of egg white meringue to improve fluffiness. It had a fresh cream and strawberry centre and was covered in strawberry icing, strawberries and sprinkles.

The Verdict: Overall, this cake was loved by all of the Enterprise staff and with no scores below 6, this sprinkled cake cheered up a cold Monday morning. Feedback was that it was a complicated cake which was very well presented but many marks were lost because the icing was a bit runny. The cake was very sweet, which lost a few marks, but made up for it with the members of the team who have a sweet tooth. The pretty pink cake was a hit and has left the team feeling light and fluffy.

Strawberry Surprise Average Score: 7.8. 

Smritee is now on the leader board twice with her only two cakes, go Smritee!

Next time: After only joining the company in October Jamie O will be making his Cake Monday debut in December, we are hoping for a Christmassy theme! 

Fancy a new title?

Check out our 10 featured jobs for November:

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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