Cake Monday 19th January 2015

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.

'Sparkly Rocky Road Cake' by Katie. Katie's baking background is 'packet-mix' cakes. 

Question: how do you make a cake when you have no weighing scales?

Answer: you guesstimate each quantity.

Question: how do you make a cake when you have no liquid measuring jug?

Answer: you clean out a beer bottle and use that as your measuring vessel.

Question: how do you mix the ingredients when you don't own an electric blender & don't want to spend all afternoon mixing?

Answer: you use a 1950s egg beater of course.

Ingenuity was used in this cake. Katie remembered that cocoa as a chocolate flavour received criticism in the past, so she melted a bar of Green & Blacks finest into the mix. Only problem was, she melted it on its own so she didn't have long to beat it into the cake before the chocolate began to solidify. The other issue she faced was that the cake didn't appear to be cooking 20 minutes in. It was then that she realised that Mary Berry's recipe was intended for TWO cake tins, not one. At this point, the cake changed from a sandwich cake to single-layer cake.

Once the chocolate cake was cooked (and burnt bits removed), Katie turned her attention to the decoration and made a butter cream mixed with marshmallows (some of which were melted into the icing) to cover the top of the cake. She also cut out a heart-shape from one of the marshmallows and sprinkled pink glitter on top. Katie spent a lot of time on the glitter part. Cookies were also placed on the icing. 

The Verdict: there were a few who appreciated the cake, but many who didn't. The decoration was described as 'weird', it looked like scrambled egg, and the marshmallow detail was compared to those polystyrene wotsits used for packaging. The other problem was with its construction; the icing came away in its entirety as you took a mouthful. All in all, the cake was okay, but the icing wasn't. Katie doesn't want to do Cake Monday again. 'Sparkly Rocky Road Cake' Average Score: 6

Next time: we haven't got long to wait to sample one of Jamie O's masterpieces. 

New Year, New Job?

Happy new year! We had staff holidaying in Dublin, the Isle of Man, France, and way “up north” on NYE. That alarm clock has been a struggle so far this year, but it’s only a couple of months until we hit the slopes on our work ski weekend.

New resolution to change jobs? We are hiring! We look for self-motivated, ambitious and enthusiastic people who have the ability to quickly assess information and make decisions! Click and apply.

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……