The Great BSFC Bake Off for Breakthrough Breast Cancer

Our first ever Great BSFC Bake Off event was a great success with lots of effort made by both students and staff to help ‘raise some dough’ for the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Charity.

The event, organised by Personal & Guidance Tutor, Jen Foden, PA to the Assistant Principal, Bev Farlam and our Student Ambassador Team, showed off our staff and students culinary skills with an array of baked goods being brought in for judging in our own version of the GBBO tent – our student Conservatory.

The College’s answer to Mary Berry, Catering Manager Gail Hosie headed up our judging panel which included our Finance Director Karen Wiggins, three student representatives and special guest Judge – Lee Hollywood. Lee, who owns Wirral-based baking company Born & Bread, is the younger brother of The BBC’s own Great British Bake Off Judge, Paul Hollywood.

After tasting the delights on offer, our Panel selected the winners of the Best Sweet, Best Savoury and Best Overall Bake. Our staff members bagged the prizes for Best Sweet and Savoury with Business Studies Tutor, Steve Hafford claiming Best Sweet with his Coffee and Walnut Cake and our Admissions Officer Hilary Mitchell winning Best Savoury with her Yogurt and Blueberry Loaf.

The overall winner of the Bake Off, was our Deputy Head Student, Aaron Pryer, with his Chocolate, Vanilla and Fruit Cake Masterpiece with the surprise M&M filled Centre! The winning showstopper took over a week to create with Aaron having to prepare the Fruit Cake and then create the layers of Vanilla and Chocolate Cake and stack them all carefully.

Aaron is delighted to be named the College’s star baker, saying, “I am really happy to have won the bake off and it was a lot of fun to do. I wanted to create a showstopper - something that would look good. The top hat and pocket watch design was inspired by the steampunk style which is based on Victorian clockwork and steam-powered machinery so it stood out. I didn’t tell anyone about the M&M Centre – I wanted that to be a surprise for the Judges!”

Guest Judge Lee was so impressed with Aarons winning cake that he contacted his brother Paul to tell him all about it and Aaron is expecting an email of congratulations from the famous baker which he is extremely excited about.

“My friends are all encouraging me to apply for the next series of The Great British Bake Off, but I don’t think I am ready for anything like that yet!”

After the judging the baked treats were placed on sale over lunchtime to raise money for the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Charity with a total of £212.43 being raised over the hour from the sale of the baked goods.

Breast Cancer is the most common form of Cancer in the UK with one in eight women facing it. Breakthrough Breast Cancer say they won’t rest until they stop breast cancer for good and the money raised will go towards the following research:

• How to prevent breast cancer
• How to detect breast cancer earlier
• How to treat breast cancer more effectively

BSFC Bake Off

Well done to all who took part and don’t forget to head over to our Facebook page to check out our Bake Off Album for more photos of the event and the delicious baked goods.