We love a celebration here at Fresh Start, and in lieu of slaying any fire-breathing dragons, what could be a more English way of marking St. George’s Day on April 23rd than by baking cakes?
As you can see from the photos, we take our baking very seriously, and while not everyone is blessed with show-stopping artistic flair, we can confirm that all the entries score very highly on the all important taste-o-meter.
Even more importantly, the proceeds from each slice sold is being donated to charity, with this year’s recipients being Cancer Research UK.
The judges for the event are none other than our Commercial Director, Colin ‘Hollywood’ Harvey, and Traffic Controller extraordinaire, (Mel And) Sue Clements.
“The standard of entries is sky-high this year,” (Mel And) Sue says, “there’s barely a soggy bottom among them.”
“I fully agree.” ‘Hollywood’ Harvey continues as he snacks on a chunk of marzipan. “It’s great to see everyone getting into the spirit of things, and this must be the first cake I’ve ever eaten which in the shape of a Fresh Start waste wagon.”
It’s not just bin lorry cakes which are up for the top prizes today, though. One of the tenets of any design brief is that the finished product has to be instantly recognisable. There’s no mistaking one of our famous orange and blue wheelie bins in cake form. This was a sterling effort by our CEO’s young daughter.
Of course, as it’s the patron saint of England’s feast day, there are also plenty of St George’s Crosses on display. It adorns cupcakes, a heart-shaped vegan coffee cake and a triple-decker Victoria sponge, where it is depicted in a tasty tangle of strawberries and raspberries.
Ultimately, the deliberation period between ‘Hollywood’ Harvey and (Mel And) Sue was difficult, vocal and protracted, with the duo only emerging from their judging room to have an extra slice of each cake so that they could “make absolutely certain” that they’d picked the right winner.
Eventually, wiping a dollop of cream from the corner of her mouth, (Mel And) Sue stepped out in front of the expectant entrants and announced the winner as Account Manager, Anita Perrin for her half Victoria sponge, half chocolate with butter cream frosting cake.
“I couldn’t be happier!” Anita cheered, fighting back tears of pride, “I’d like to thank my friends, my family, my agent, the judges, and everyone at Fresh Start for making this possible. I am the best at baking cakes.”
Not only this, but Anita also came in second place for her strawberry & raspberry cream cake entry!
We’d like to thank all the competitors for taking part in this year’s Great FS Waste Bake Off, where we feel an extremely high bar has been set ahead of the next edition.
Most importantly, though, we managed to raise £200.00 for Cancer Research UK.
