So, who took the biscuit?
So what type of biscuits should we make? How should they be decorated? What flavour are they?… and so the questions continued.
We decided to have our own mini Bake Off between the mark-makers to decide the answer to these and many more questions, like, ‘Do real men wear pinnys?’
Overnight Kasia, David, Nic, Mike, Lisa, Steve, Shannon and both the Russ’s baked until they could bake no more. The next morning we had 10 different varieties of biscuits from, David ‘s Christmas Rusks to Mike’s Milk Chocolate Shortbreads. We even had Christmas tree biscuit lollies which were enough for two people.
The clear winner for creativity, impact and Christmas crunch were the star and heart glittery biscuits produced by Nic. Using Delia’s gingerbread mix, edible gold and silver spray with decorative icing these biscuits were everyone’s favourite.
All the biscuits were amazing and the next few days were great as we had a whole variety of tasty treats to go with our tea.
Oh, and the answer to the question, ‘Do real men wear pinnys?’, well you will have to see for yourself in the picture gallery…
The Big Bake
Well the great Christmas bake-off almost didn’t happen as, despite all my careful planning regarding logistics, quantities etc, I had overlooked one vital task – buying the ingredients! So at 10.00pm on a cold, Wednesday evening I dragged myself away from the fire and legged it to Tesco for a frantic trolley dash in the baking aisle. Disaster averted, my job saved…
The day of the bake off dawned and the mark-making* crew assembled bright and early, rolling pins and aprons at the ready. After a brief team huddle (it was very cold in there), we split into groups and set to work like a well-oiled machine. The Russes (Holt and Hendo) zested, Kasia cubed, Steve sifted, Lisa (that’s me) ladled and Nic kneaded. By 11.00am the fridge shelves were laden with rows of neatly cling-filmed biscuit dough and we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves and looking at the prospect of an early finish. Did I mention we had to bake over a thousand biscuits?
The Christmas Card
This year our Christmas card had to work very hard. Firstly we wanted to wish all our clients a Merry Christmas, but at the same time introduce PROJECT:PLEDGE, our initiative to donate time and skills to great causes throughout 2013.
What better way to visualise this than with a pop-up present. “MERRY:MAKING” was used on the front not only in reference to our name, but also in the hope that the gift of homemade biscuits would spread some Christmas cheer.
The finishing touches
Who’d have thought the CO-OP supermarket could be so inspiring? I nipped in to get some light brown sugar as Sainsbury’s didn’t have any (The CO-OP isn’t my normal Supermarket of choice. Too far to walk), when I happen to come across the Dr. Oetker range of cake decorating. A little tingle of excitement came over me as I saw the potential for my biscuits. Ooh how the edible silver spray will hide a multitude of overcooked biscuit sins and look at the lovely colours of icing. The main consideration for the decoration was to have a design that not only looked good but could easily be implemented to over 1,000 biscuits by different people, hence the simple yet I like to think, Sophisticated end result.
In and around the day job we have spent a busy few days decorating and packing biscuits resulting in some rather large queues at the Post Office.. sorry about that!
