Macmillan Coffee Morning / Bake-Off 2017

(Written by Hannah Gough & Kaja Milczewska)

Following on from last year, the Macmillan Coffee Morning 2017 proved to be another storming success in the Met department. Four tables full of cake and other goodies were sold across the morning, raising well over £300 for Macmillan Cancer. We combined this with a ‘Bake Off’, where two tables of bakes were entered into four categories: ‘traditional’, ‘pumpkin’, ‘WCD’ (weather and climate discussion) and the technical challenge: scones. Competition was fierce, with no bake being disliked by our judges: Steve Woolnough, Claire Morris, Rob Thompson and Michael Jonhston.

The goods which did not make it into any category (but definitely into our bellies!) made up two other tables, featuring the likes of rum cake, banana bread, Swiss roll, cookies and cupcakes of various flavours and a very shiny-chocolate topped salted caramel slice.

Those with allergies were well catered for with gluten free chocolate orange iced cupcakes and chocolate fudge cake. Vegan entrants included chocolate muffins and a lemon and chia seed loaf with rain cloud decoration!

Josh Talib won the scone category with butternut squash, thyme and goat’s cheese scones, Rebecca Frew won the traditional cake category with a tasty Bara Brith (speckled bread), a Welsh speciality. The pumpkin category was won by Wendy Neale with some scrumptious pumpkin and ginger cupcakes, whilst the lightning bolt biscuits by Dan Hodson zapping the competition in the WCD category.

A big thanks to all who donated cakes, time and cash to this event. Macmillan Coffee mornings are held frequently all over the country, raising money towards cancer care. We hope this continues in our department in the future! For more information on the work Macmillan do, visit https://www.macmillan.org.uk/

 

Macmillan coffee morning

Email: h.l.gough@pgr.reading.ac.uk

If there are two things that keep the Met department running it’s cake and coffee. This year the department got involved in the Macmillan coffee morning on the 30th September and raised a whopping £282 within three hours.

There was a bake off, a general cake sale and a guess the number of spots on a cake game, which got very scientific! The bake off had four categories, each with a prize: Savoury, bake your research, green theme and free-from, ensuring that there was something for everybody. As always the competition was good-natured but fierce and the judges (2 members of staff, 1 post-doc and 1 PhD student) had a sugar crash at around 3pm.

Here are some of the creations from the event:

First up (left) a chocolate cake carved into the shape of Africa, complete with wildlife, sprinkles and clouds. The judges didn’t want to cut this one, choosing to eat Madagascar first!

The next bake (top middle) went on to win the Best in Bake-off award, vanishing within minutes of being put on the sale table! Each slice was a decadent mixture of chocolate and lime.

The marvellous creations in the bottom middle image were free from everything except nuts. Using vegan marshmallows and chocolate alongside gluten free biscuits created a wickedly dark rocky road with plenty of crunch and just the right amount of marshmallows.

These gluten free wind turbines (right) were entered into all four categories of the bake off. Making gluten free pastry is no mean feat and unless told, no-one was aware that these moreish snacks were gluten free!

Finally, a shot of the table before it got too full of goodies! There are the edges of vegan pretzels (front left), a shop brought Victoria sponge (front middle), a supreme chocolate cake with Malteaser decorations (right) and a hazelnut and pear chocolate brownie which really captured the autumnal flavours and was the first to be completely sold!

Fortunately the department has its own running group to help counteract some of the cake eating.

That’s it from me for now, hopefully they’ll be more foodie posts soon!