Dunedin office bake-off

This morning for breakfast Adam, Susie, Genvieve and I had lemon and lime cheesecake, a samosa, a cupcake, a pork-crackling mini scone, a choc-covered red bull jelly, a brandy snap, an empanada, ginger slice, apple slice, caramel slice, chocolate slice, raspberry tart, apple and walnut cake, a chocolate macaron, lemocello cake, sweet fruit bread, a pretzel, a yoyo, and that was before my first cup of coffee!  Then there were still another eight treats to sample.  It was the great Dunedin product development office bake-off of 2010 and the competition was fierce!

The blog team arrived at work to a kitchen overflowing with lovingly-crafted treats.  It was a little overwhelming at first, but we took a collective deep breath, and starting at one end of the room we dove in and tasted, dissected, and scrutinised each entry.

The standard was so incredibly high that we had a hard time choosing the winners, but thanks to a handy spreadsheet created by Susie that weighted categories including taste, texture, presentation, inventiveness and skill level (scientists eh?), we came out with some clear winners.

First place went to Sam, one of our electronics engineers, for his beautiful chocolate macarons.  Second went to Simon, one of our senior engineers and a guest blogger (check out his Schiacciata con l’uva here), for his lemoncello cake, and third place to Isabelle, an engineering team leader, for her sweet, braided, fruit bread.

Highly commended was awarded to Matt, another of our senior engineers, for some very cute little cakes topped with strawberries roasted in balsamic vinegar.  Best presentation went to Balint, our technical writer and another guest blogger, for his cloth-lined basket of pork-crackling scones complete with description and table-cloth, while the best flavour prize went to Manju, one of our cooktops engineers for his amazingly delicious samosa.

We announced the winners to a packed staff kitchen, prizes were doled out and then we all tucked in for the best shared morning tea this office has ever seen.  Well done product development we are all officially impressed!

Look out in the New Year for guest posts from our winning entries.