Appliances Online get involved with National Baking Week

They are calling it the Baking Renaissance. Shows such as ‘The Great British Bake Off’ have rejuvenated our love of all things baked and it seems we can’t get our goodies to rise quick enough. There are plenty of TV chefs spreading the gospel of cake, tarts and bread buns, though it may surprise you to know that it isn’t just the more mature generations who have cottoned on.

To support National Baking Week 2011, 17th – 23rd October, Leisure Range Cookers released the results of their study about baking, and they were really rather unexpected. It turns out that people aged between 16-24 are six times more likely to bake something from scratch every day, in comparison to every other age group.

These TV programmes are clearly having a big effect, as now 77% of us Brits enjoy making something sweet or savoury from scratch. That’s a pretty tasty statistic, especially if you’re getting invited round for afternoon tea!

In honour of the rekindled love for all things born in the oven, we in the Appliances Online Content Team held our own baking competition to put our culinary skills to the test. Dubbed the ‘Bread-a-thon 2011’, there were only two rules: No store bought items. No bread makers.

After some apprehensive conversations before the big day and a healthy amount of gainsmanship, a few good recipes and a selection of fantastic ideas got us all through the experience with ease. And the results were stunning.

You can see for yourself that everyone really pulled it out of the bag. We loaded all our loaves, bread buns, Stromboli and even hot cross buns on to the judges table, waited for them to finish casting their votes and then dived in to enjoy the fruits of our labour.

It wasn’t long before the whole office came to have a nosey and at the end of the day, there was nothing left but crumbs. I think it’s safe to say we’ll all be trying our hand at baking again soon, though I think our Director of Marketing might be disqualified next time. His Apple & Cinnamon hot cross buns won 1st prize, though the fact he was on the judging panel may have had something to do with it…