Today it was an absolute pleasure to come to work, as I was helping out with Reaseheath College’s Year 9 Schools Bake Off Competition.
The competition has attracted some very talented entries, from Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Manchester, Wirral and mid Wales, and I was seeing the 8 best entries!
The contestants had to produce something with a British/Royal theme.
I was hoping for a crown of lamb or turkey, with King Edward or Jersey royal potatoes, or maybe coronation chicken - but the finalists had all gone for sweeter items.
These two girls from Llanfyllin, were making fruit tarts:
and all the rest made cakes.
I was amazed to hear the students using technical terms like "bain marie" and "ganache". If this is what they're like before they come to college, we'll have some great bakers and chefs in the future.
This girl is air brushing Prince George's cheeks, to make sure they're rosy:
A girl from Grove School, in Market Drayton, got her grandfather to make a mould for the biscuits to decorate her cake:
I wish you could smell this cake:
This cake, made by two girls from Cransley School, had lemon curd inside (which they made on the day). It was decorated with pretty icing flowers, which they also made:
The Manchester High School for Girls entry had a spun sugar crown:
Here you can see the team from Stockport, who've made soldiers from icing, finishing off their cake:
If there was a prize for ingenuity, it must go to the girls who made fish and chips (which is apparently one of the Queen's favourite meals:
The fish is cake with buttercream and crumbled honeycomb toffee, the chips are shortbread and the mush peas are marshmallow pieces in a buttercream with some green colouring.
I was very relieved not to be doing the final judging, which was expertly carried out by chef Brian Mellor, Cheshire WI judge Mary Hignett, and Peter Wright, the chairman of Wrights Pies Food Group - who also sponsored the competition.
They were extremely thorough, and assessed in great detail the quality of the bake, and the knowledge and skills of the entrants, as well as the appearance of the final product.
I'm sure it was a very difficult decision, I was quite upset that they couldn't all be winners:
In the end they decided on 3rd prize to Cransley School, for the iced cake with flowers and home made lemon curd.
The 2nd prize went to Stockport for this cake:
and 1st prize to The Grove:
I was really impressed with all the contestants, everything went like clockwork (there were no accidents/cremations/spillages unlike certain TV programmes of a similar name).
I hope to see some at Reaseheath, when they've left school.
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