The Office Christmas Bake-Off: Part 1

I had no idea …
Invited to join in the Office Christmas Bake-Off I innocently baked a cake.

This one …
Had I been made aware at the outset of the vicious cut-throat world of workplace baking I'd have run screaming from the kitchen.
The sheer eyeball-gouging, face-clawing ambition of my otherwise sane colleagues has revealed a new and scary world and robbed me of my cakey innocence.
What can a man do in the face of such festive fanaticism? Such belligerent baking? Such …
Well, You can judge for yourselves over the next couple of days.
The official results will be announced at the Office Christmas Party on Wednesday. If I survive that I shall let you know who won. In the meantime you can cast your votes for looks and presentation. Unfortunately you can't taste any as we ate the lot (not such a wise move in some cases as you shall see).

My own personal favourite was this entry, from Chris (last year's winner with a lot to live up to).
Okay, so he bought the boxes, which marks him down, but the sheer excellence of his pastry blew my tastebuds clean out the room. The man is a diva.

Get this …
Cute baskets of pastry leaves contained a home-made pistachio mincemeat (oh, yes, you heard me - and boy howdy it was as good as it sounds) topped with a bitter chocolate and pistachio granache, finished with those exquisite little pastry holly leaves and berries.

Boffo! Top marks for taste and texture. I could eat these every day and never grow tired of them (though I'd be even fatter than I am now).

These were nice.
Emily assured us that the gold paint was not the car-retouching stuff in the rattly cans, but was in fact edible.
Unfortunately she ran out of spray paint when she was only half-way through so the rest are covered in choccy things.
The gold ones were white chocolate-coated truffles and they were smegging gorgeous.

 Cassie recently spent two weeks making a beautiful model of a new building for a sports car museum. Tragically, she built it from wood and cardboard when she'd have impressed the client a whole lot more had she made it from gingerbread.
It was a shame when we demolished her little witch's cottage but soooo gingery. Yum!

Not all the bakers showed such talent.
I'll say this for the other David's skills in the kitchen: for a baker, the man sure can bowl. He's a monster on the lanes on a Friday lunchtime but perhaps he should work on that rather than be allowed anywhere near a kitchen from now on.
When your cupcakes weigh more than your car it's time to put down the whisk and step away from the mixing bowl. And when you decide to accompany your lead-filled baked weapons with an earthquake-demolished poo sculpture I'm afraid the votes for presentation are going to be pretty thin on the ground.

Kellie's presentation might not have been up there with the best, but wait until one of those balls hits your tastebuds, bud.
Up top of the picture we have chocolate fudge, which was both chocolatey and fudgey, but those balls at the bottom …
Woohoo!
Advertised as mere chocolate truffles they made my mouth do backflips. Wow! I asked her what the secret ingredient was and she said simply "peanut butter."
I have the recipe now. I am SO gonna pig out on these all over the holidays.

Micro-cupcakes came from Jill's kitchen. And darned yummy they were, too. Three colours for three very alcoholic flavours.

 Sophie got high marks for some awesome Rocky Roads. Not particularly original and containing some suspiciously non-homemade ingredients they were still bloody delicious.

 I know he's a senior partner and my immediate boss but Stuart needs to be told that no matter how much gin and vodka he puts into his snowballs, mint-flavoured fondant (even very well made mint-flavoured fondant such as this) will always feel and taste like toothpaste.

Well, that's the opening nine entries for you to cast your finely judged votes upon. The second nine will follow tomorrow and then after Wednesday's party I'll let you know the official results.