I think it is fair to say that staff in IT Services are partial to a bit of cake judging by the amount of people who turned up to sample the bakes on offer at the IT Services’ 2nd Annual Bake Off on Thursday, 13 June. Competition was fierce and there was a very strong field for this year’s Bake Off, including a record number of vegan entries, which to the untrained eye (and taste buds) were indistinguishable from traditional bakes.
All of the bakes looked and tasted amazing but of course this was a competition and there had to be a winner. The judging for Star Baker was carried out by IT Services’ very own Mary Berry (Jane Adams), Prue Leith (Mat Butcher) and Paul Hollywood (Luke Atterbury) who had the onerous task of tasting all of the entries and choosing a winner. Due to the high quality of all the bakes, making a final decision was difficult. However, after careful deliberation, a winner was chosen despite the arrival of a last minute entry that almost changed the outcome.
The top 3 places for this year’s IT Services Bake Off were as follows:
In joint 2nd place
Chris Withers’ vegan chocolate cake
Spencer Webb’s chocolate brownies
First place and the winner of the prestigious IT Services’ Star Baker Award
Natalie Gibbons’ vegan chocolate and nut brownies
Natalie was presented with the coveted Star Baker Award by Chief Information Officer, Mark Gee. On winning the award, Natalie had this to say, “Given all the lovely bakes I tried I knew was up against some fierce competition but obviously I am very happy to be crowned Star Baker and help raise such a fab amount for charity.”
The icing on the cake (pardon the pun) was that sales from the Bake Off raised a fantastic £166.67 which will go to Special Effect, a charity that uses gaming to help people with disabilities.
We would like to say a huge thank you to all the competitors who baked and helped make the competition such as success.
Katy Leighfield – orange and almond cake
Sam Harrow – chocolate cookies
Faith Thomas – carrot cake
Ursula Houston – vegan blueberry cake
Lydia Rea – lemon fairy cakes
Neelam Bhandari – pakora bread
All the ITS Bake Off recipes are now available on the ITS Social Teams site – get in on the action with join code 35kxxwr