Well… I don’t know how to say this. But it appears I may have competition in Cake Club at Republic. This is a ridiculous story here and I still can’t get over it. It started last Friday when Nicole, who was supposed to bake something to represent Client Services, said that she wouldn’t have time to bake anything that weekend as she was going flying with some friends in Essex. She said she was probably just going to buy a cake. And so, I said, “I’ll bake you a cake!” I wasn’t serious, but she handed me £20 and the next thing I knew, I was asking what she wanted me to bake. A tart, she said.
A tart. I said to her I don’t usually make tarts. I have more experience with cakes. To be fair, Nicole said that I could do that if I wanted, but I wanted to please, so I went for tart. And that’s why I was baking 3 apple frangipane tarts on Sunday during the London Marathon. I only brought 2 to work on Monday, as me and Katie ate half of a tart that Sunday.
I was going to go in early and put them in the fridge so no one would realise that I’d baked instead of Nicole, but there were a few already at the office when I got there and Phoebe and Fran found out. Now, I’ve got to say that my intentions were not to get Nicole to the next round. I figured that if she wasn’t going to bake, then Nick, who was representing the Creative department would automatically go through, and he’d already got through the last round because no one in the Creative department had bothered to bake anything. So I thought I’d just take the opportunity to bake and at least make Nick think he had to compete with another entry before getting through again. Someone offered me an opportunity to do what I love and I took it. Simple as that.
Anyway, Nicole and I thought we’d still have some fun with it and only let people know after the voting. Long story short, my/Nicole’s apple frangipane tart lost against Nick’s blueberry cake! I was well-gutted even though it really wasn’t my round. And technically, it means that Nick has already beaten me. Which is just… Grand.
One of my apple tarts:
Nick’s winning blueberry cake:
To be fair, his cake was good, and that’s a good photo of it, if I may say so myself. But I also took that photo, so umm yeah.. Of course I try to make all my food shots look half decent. 
Anyway, needless to say I got a lot of stick, firstly for baking for someone else and supposedly “cheating” and then losing, regardless. All in good fun though. I have a feeling they’re going to make fun of me everytime I bring in a cake now. But I’m not taking any chances and will do a proper cake for my next round (one that I’m actually supposed to be in). Any recommendations for a show-stopping cake, anyone?
