The time had come. My time to shine. For so long I had been eager to show off my cake making skills following years of hosting bake sales for charity at University…now it’s time to show my colleagues that I can really rise to the challenge.

As you will know, Team MK are challenging each other to a bake off to raise money for Helen’s Trust and are hoping to raise at least £10 each for cause – £10 could help provide patients with:

• Packages of care which meet a individual’s needs.
• Equipment, such as a stair lift to enable someone to remain fully integrated in family life.
• Transport to and from hospital appointments to enable the person to stay at home.

As the first volunteer, I wanted to impress and set the bar high for the rest of the group – however, I may have forgotten my ‘Je ne se quoi’… Nonetheless here it is my Not-So- Millionaires hortbread in the making.

It started well… Ingredients, tick! Measurements, tick! Equipment, tick! Recipe, tick!
Or so I thought…

It actually turned out, after step 1 of melting the butter, I didn’t have a rolling pin to crunch up the biscuits. However, as a PR, we are known for our creativity and thinking on our feet… The wooden lemon juicer became my substitute device…

The next spanner in the works was the sugar. Yes, you should always follow the recipe, but on this occasion time was of the essence…an alternative was necessary…

The whole procedure took around an hour – I left it overnight and in the morning I realised the fatal mistake was using ordinary sugar rather than brown. Needless to say it hasn’t set and needed more time in the fridge at work.

Friday lunchtime: AKA judgement day. As I cut into my masterpiece my heart sank and the cake oozed with disappointment as I realised my appearance score would not be high….

However, the taste…it tasted good!

So was it a success?

The results are in!

Appearance: 30

Taste: 47

Texture: 42

Total Score: 119

Not bad! Let’s see what how everyone else does… Next up is Anna.