Brands2Life British Bakeoff for ByteNight

Sep 23, 2012

Last week I was one of three judges for the ‘Brands2Life British Bakeoff‘ at work to raise money for Byte Night – the IT industry’s sleep out to raise money for Action for Children. Along with fellow judges @goldenbrown01 and Lucy, we judged the cakes on three criteria – flavour, the bake and presentation. We had a huge selection of cakes to choose from – Mississippi Mud Cake to Sachertorte to chocolate swiss roll and Chocolate and Guinness cake. All but one entry was chocolate – a brave banana cake.

I have never eaten so much cake in one sitting!! It was really fun to judge the cakes and sachertorte came in first place for its glossy finish, tasty sponge and jam, icing and sponge combo. It looked very professional too. In joint second place was the chocolate and hazelnut cake for doing well across the board and the refridgerator cake for being particularly ‘scrummy’. Well done to everyone that entered! We then sold the cakes to raise money for Byte Night and made over £100!

What’s the difference between a pancake and a crepe?

Feb 25, 2010

This is the question my colleague asked me last week. I think he thought because I had started a cake blog, I had now become qualified to answer such questions. Clearly not. My first reaction was a crepe is thinner than a pancake. Another colleague mused that perhaps it is all about the coarseness of flour.  A quick Google search and Wikipedia look up suggests some interesting differences. BiteSizeCooking has a nice post on all the variations of pancakes around the world. Not quite as simple a question as first thought!

English pancakes are not as ‘lacy’ as French crepes apparently. Crepes are thinner than pancakes and stuffed with more filling. For a little French regional variation, a Breton galette from Normandy or Brittany is made of buckwheat flour and is large and thin and only cooked on one side (no flipping fun then!).

So there you have it. You’re armed with pancake/crepe knowledge – you never know when that question might turn up in the next pub quiz!

And which pancake flavours went down a treat at my flat last week for Pancake Day? After the consumption of 30 pancakes between 6 of us, the votes have been counted.  For savoury – German salami, goat’s cheese and sundried tomato with some salad on the side (I thought it best to pretend we were atleast trying to be vaguely healthy).  And for a sweet and sugary fix? Melted dark chocolate and banana. It went down a storm. Next time I will know to buy double the chocolate and bananas!

Feel free to let me know what you think is the difference between a pancake or crepe if I missed something and suggest other cool pancake flavour combos!