Christmas Bake Off!

This week we held our annual Queens' staff Christmas baking competition. Mince Pies were on the menu this year and with a record number of entries being submitted, the event was moved to the beautiful Long Gallery in the President's Lodge to accommodate the many staff in attendance.

The competition was co-judged by Anna El-Erian and Senior Tutor Andrew Thompson. All staff were invited to enter and 20 entries were received in total, with a variety of recipes and designs being showcased. From shortcrust to filo, decorated to deconstructed.

The warm and welcoming decorations around the President's Lodge made the perfect setting for the mince pie displays, with entries from a range of departments around the college. The standard was very high and everyone had put in an impressive level of effort to make sure their bake stood out.

The judges split the task of tasting the bakes, with Anna trying 10 entries and Andrew tasting another 10, before they met to discuss their ratings. After some lengthy deliberation, they managed to whittle down the competition to a top three.

Coming in third place was Emily, from the Health and Wellbeing team. Her mince pies consisted of a vegetarian filo and puff pastry case, accompanied by homemade brandy butter.

Second place was awarded to another member of the Health and Wellbeing team, with Jenny taking the second spot. Her entry was a deconstructed pie, with puff pastry rounds, mincemeat and port cream available to 'build-it-yourself'.

Taking the top spot was Maria with her classic, but well executed mince pies. It was a well-deserved win and a lovely celebration of Maria, as she is soon to be retiring.

We want to thank all who participated and came along to celebrate their peers and to Anna and Andrew for judging everyone's efforts.

You can see pictures of everyone's bakes in the gallery below. The first three images are from our worthy winners, Maria, Jenny and Emily. With such a high standard of entries, we can't wait to see what awaits us next year.