Cake Monday - August

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.

'Courgette Cake' by Greg

Chosen because Nigella worked for him last time and this was the next recipe in the book. 

Eggs, sugar, oil were creamed together. Flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda were sifted and added into the mix together with grated courgettes and sultanas. The cake was baked in two tins in the oven for 30 minutes. 

The recipe provided a lime filling, but as this was similar to his last cake, Greg went off-piste (again) and made up his own using walnuts, pistachios, honey and sugar for the middle filling of the cake, and figured he'd make a cream cheese type frosting for the the top of the cake similar to the icing used for a carrot cake. His frosting was made from soft cheese, butter, icing sugar, lemon juice and a pinch of cinnamon.

The Verdict:

Good cake!! We liked the improvisation. It was tasty, moist, didn't taste like vegetables and we liked all the nuts. It seemed to be the filling that lost the cake some marks. Whilst the look of the filling put some people off (diarrhoea with sweetcorn anyone?), others found that it made the bottom half of the cake a little soggy and that having the filling and frosting with different flavours didn't mesh as well. That said, the top frosting was appreciated. 

 'Courgette Cake' Average Score: 7.7 

Next time: Adam's holiday abroad was ruined when he received the text to say he had to bake a cake upon his return.

Quiz Night - July 2016

We split into 2 teams. The strategy was - put all our quiz-master-queens in one team to win (eyes on the prize), and everyone else in the other team with the booby prize in their sights. The experiment failed. The losing team won! Several things were taken from the evening; Peter Crouch, Sue's map drawing of Florida, "Uncle Jamie" (appearing very early doors way before the pub was ready for him), the Icelandic clap, the sailing question, and the maths question (you know who you are). Now all we need to do is defend our title...

Cake Monday - July

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.

'Apple & Cinnamon Cake' by Jamie H

Chosen because it's the first recipe that came up on a Google search for 'Dorset Apple Cake' inspired by a recent holiday. Jamie's method as always was short and to the point - flour and cinnamon were mixed, sugar, butter, eggs and milk were added and mixed by hand. He peeled an apple, cut it into chunks and mixed it in with the other ingredients along with sultanas. Demerara sugar was sprinkled on top and into the oven it went. 

The Verdict:

Relief was the overwhelming feeling towards this cake. It was edible and more than that, it was tasty. (People still fear kale cake creations). The fact that this cake was made without machinery aid and involved hard labour pleased some, not Jamie however, whose wife queried why he hadn't used an electric mixer after he had finished making the cake. Plenty of people enjoyed the apple and crunchy sugar topping. Half found it a moist cake, with others referring to it being slightly dry and needing icing or something to moisten it. We think this was because some slices had heaps of apple and some didn't, and those without found it a tad dry. Everyone liked the combination of flavours in the cake and it was plain to see that this was Jamie's best ever cake. Jamie is now out of the competition for another year.

'Apple & Cinnamon Cake' Average Score: 7.8

Next time: only three people were in the race due to booked holidays. Greg lost...

P.S. the office fridge is smelling beautiful again.

Smelly fridge update

The smell is getting worse!!!! Jamie's even googled "smelly fridges". There was another milk carton contender, but although that smells, it's not THE smell. Teresa is sniffing plastic containers to work out the root cause.

Mystery Smell Drama

Cake Monday will follow soon, but the "mystery smell" has taken over the office since last Thursday. Adam has received all sorts of derogatory comments about his cauliflower meal creations, but his defense has remained resolute; the smell began before cauliflower was introduced. The focus moved at one point to an old cup of coffee whose milk had turned to cottage cheese. Gone off milk? Spilt milk? A bin leakage? Neighbouring offices have even started commenting. The cauliflower concoction was asked to leave the premises.

All windows are open. Teresa has cleaned the fridge inside and out, broken nails in the process and yet the wafts continue. One thing's for sure, when the cause is found, that colleague will never live it down. Ever.

Lunch out - we discover what Sam ordered and what Sue ordered:

Cake Monday - June 2016

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.

'Coconut & Lime Cake' by Greg

Greg likes coconut and lime as a combination, but he couldn't find a cake recipe for this, so he used Nigella's coconut cake recipe and adapted it.... Bold, for someone who's never made a cake before. 

The first adaptation he did was to change her proportions (NB. this is no slight on Nigella) and he went large. He soaked dessicated coconut in boiling water (this in itself blew Adam away). He added the list of ingredients and the whole thing looked "way too liquidy". No matter, Greg ploughed on and setting the pinger for 20 minutes, poured it all in the tins and turned his attention to the butter icing. Here, he toasted dessicated coconut adding icing sugar and butter once cooled. The icing for the top of the cake was icing sugar mixed with limes. 20 minutes on and the cake still looked like a pool of liquid sitting in a cake tin. Greg now conscientiously checked the cake-cooking at 5-minute intervals. Panic beginning to set in, he covered the cake in foil to stop it from burning on the top and closed the door hoping it would cook. 40 minutes later the cake appeared done. And very large. Lime marmalade was added to one half of the cake and the butter icing to the other before they were sandwiched together. Icing was poured over the top and lime zest grated over the top to finish it off. 

The Verdict:

This was a strong cake. We've never had anyone boil or toast anything before - this was out-of-the-box stuff from a cake novice. The coconut texture and flavour was appreciated even from those who were nervous about coconut flavours. The lime meant it was "zingy" without being sweet. There were a lot of steps to execute this cake and despite opening the oven door in a fan-like motion, the cake managed to remain moist and "summery". Only one person was less keen on the cake (Sam) who felt the top of the cake didn't match the bottom of the cake in the piece that he ate (he may have experienced a large blob of lime marmalade), but Sam being Sam, this didn't deter him from a 2nd helping. Greg received 3x 10/10s for this cake and is joint first on the leader board! 

'Coconut & Lime Cake' Average Score: 9.1:

Next time: Jamie H - his last one for a year. With quite a few people out of the competition for a year, the race to become the next baker is getting tense.