Week 3 – and the temperature is rising in the Lands' End baking competition. This week's stunning batch of biscuits and cookies transformed our meeting space into a traditional tea room with all entries looking almost as good as they tasted. Gone were the paper plates and plastic tubs from Week 1; replaced with beautiful heart-shaped wicker baskets, tiered cake stands, fresh flowers and even a stuffed patchwork bird as decoration!
Keen to move her team from the bottom of the results table, Shani from Copy & Web followed last week's scone success with an incredible four entries – Lavender shortbread, Chocolate crackle cookies, Pecan and Belgium chocolate chunk biscuits and Pistachio macaroons. Surely worthy of some extra 'brownie' points for staying up past midnight to finish them?
However, the other teams had also upped their game with Fran from Finance providing a truly delectable basket of heart shaped & traditional chocolate cookies whilst week 1's Star Baker Heather, provided a kids' confectionary delight with her piñata donkeys sandwiched with smarties, skittles and confetti sprinkles. Fabulous taste aside, these were serious works of art.
Keen to prove that the men are just as adept in the kitchen, Dom from Merch and Planning baked an impressive looking 3D gingerbread man and woman filled with marshmallows and rolos, whilst ES Director Mark Harris surprised us all with his sumptuously soft Choc Chip cookies.
After ploughing their way through no less than 14 different entries, tasters started to look slightly green around the gills with Jane (this week's nominated taster from the Marketing team) realising rather belatedly that this was surely doing her weekly weigh-in no good at all!
So, which of these crumbly creations were enough to win the day? The award for Baking Team of the week went to Marketing for their joint effort of Double Chocolate chunk cookies by Charlene and Melting Moments (jam and cream-filled Viennese Whirls) by Sarah who used a recipe from the queen of tarts herself, Mary Berry. Shani's Lavender shortbread earned her the accolade of Star Baker but it wasn't enough to stop Merch and Planning topping the table for the 3rd week in a row with a clear 10 point lead.
Check back for next week's update when we get our bread (and buns) in the oven!
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