The Office Christmas Bake-Off: Part 2

Hokay … Part two of the Office Christmas Bake-Off and it's time to get seriously silly.

Tadaa!
Adrian spent all night making his Christmas Village (and the whole of the previous day fretting and worrying about it) and it's currently the hot tip for the top prize, but we shall find out who won later today at the dreaded Christmas Party.
More of Adrian's Christmas Village at the end of the post.

But first, this is what happens when you DON'T spend all night working on your entry.

Appearances can be deceptive. These are not dog biscuits but are allegedly Christmas Cracker-shaped cookies. The squidgy poo stuff is chocolate, though from the taste I suspect it was cooking chocolate rather than anything edible.
Luke made these and I actually ate one (the down side to being in the competition is that you have to judge EVERY entry, even if you don't want to). It wasn't too bad in a bland, biscuity type of way, but it didn't make me feel at all festive.

This, on the other hand, did. Matt presented us with a basket of yummy stöllen, nice and fat and fruity and with a marvellous marzipan filling. Each individually wrapped and presented in a festive basket presided over by a robin he made when he was five.
Anyone seeing him down at the bowling alley will wonder if he's ever going to reach six.

And talking of glorious German cakeyness, Markus (who has an advantage in the German cake stakes being German himself) baked these unprepossessing yet utterly fabulous and unpronounceable spiced ginger squares. Honestly, they tasted wonderful. Pure Christmas Heaven.

Phil went down the cupcake route and made sexist cupcakes with flowers for the girls (and plenty of alcohol in the cream). By the look of the uneven brown tops his oven is about as reliable as mine, but they sure tasted scrummy.

Dale gives good truffle. Damned good, in fact. I loved the presentation, too: simple yet effective … and worse than crack cocaine for a truffle-hound such as myself.

Erin apologised in advance for her biscuits but she had no need to; they were tasty and crisp and ever so slightly disturbing in that the topping was kind of sticky and jelly-like and stretched across the office like mozzarella. Bizarre gets good marks in my book.

Emma knows what sells. Good gooey chocolate sponge is never going to go out of fashion. A nice dark chocolate topping and a sexily seventies black cherry filling. Does anyone else (this side of the Pond) remember those seventies staples when we were clawing our way out of austerity: prawn cocktail and Black Forest Gateau? No meal was complete without them. This brought back all manner of memories.

 Time for the capo di tutti capi: Robert the Big Boss made both Christmas Tree biscuits and fudgey chocolate brownies and both were delicious.

I was most impressed with the crunchiness of his biscuits. So many people these days go for the soggy yet enticingly over-sweet American cookie instead of a good crisp English bickie. Yay for the boss (he sucked-up obsequiously).

Unt zo we come at last to Adrian's Christmas Village.
Snowmen and reindeer (with cute pretzel antlers) and yummy edible trees.

A feast of flamboyant festive fun. Every piece of this winter wonderland was made of sponge cake and lovingly (some might say insanely) iced and decorated. The snowmen had sunflower seeds for noses and mini-Oreo and chocolate button hats.

The cute, bonkers-eyed reindeer had Smartie noses, some kind of weird minty eyes and pretzel antlers. Adrian got through three big bags of pretzels making all the shapes.
So, the sponge cake might not have been as tasty as some entries (though the combination of salty pretzel and chocolate is always a winner), but the sheer hard work and the unhinged fanaticism on display has made this the bookies' favourite for the prize. There's still some uncertainty, however, as presentation and insanity were only two of the many categories to be judged; taste and texture might tip the balance in another direction, and any non-homemade item loses marks (such as Smarties, Oreos and pretzels). We shall see …

I particularly love the trees. How festive are these? Cute little cones of sponge cake speared with cocktail stick trunks and smothered in creamy goodness and pretty decorations. Whee!

So that's it for this year's festive baking extravaganza. Pass your judgement as you will; I'll announce the real winner after the party.
Next year they threaten a Festive Knit-Off, where we are all to knit an outlandish Christmas Jumper (tasteless is what gets good scores here) and wear it at the 2012 Christmas party.
Ye Gods!

Merry Christmas, Blogville!