Bake or Donate at work - Fundraiser for Cancer

        Just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive here! It's been a hectic 3 weeks with Mum and Dad overseas in Vietnam. On top of working full time I have to come home and put on dinner for my 3 sibblings and myself. They are old enough to look after themselves and have been very helpful with chores around the house but there are some things that I can't rely on them for, like dinner.

        I was mighty impressed a few weeks ago when one of my younger brothers (who has never cooked anything other than bacon and eggs) decided he wanted to try and cook chicken schnitzels from scratch and researched a recipe and did all the shopping for ingredients himself. For a first time, I thought he did a great job, that was a one off though.

        I've also had various baking projects squeezed in between all of that, and  trying to fit in a gym session here and there so I am completely exhausted by 9:00pm and am ready for bed. Barely any time to blog or read other blogs.

        So about 2 weeks ago, we had a bake off at work to raise money for the National Breast Cancer foundation and the Australian Prostate Cancer foundation. I love it when we do this kind of thing at work. It's actually been about 2 years since we actually have. The amount of effort everyone puts in and the crazy and creative ideas that come out is quite amazing. Most people (myself included) would have stayed up past midnight in their kitchen putting together their creations.

        There were 4 sessions held across 3 days to cover day, afternoon and night shifts. Each shift had awards for Most Pink, Most Blue, Most Creative, and People's Choice. There were alot of pink and blue cupcakes and a few very outstanding creations too.

        From what I saw, this had the second highest number of votes for People's Choice. The teapot was a Missisippi Mud Cake and the round cake was an almond cake. I work with the lady who made this and it's her first ever time using fondant icing. Better than my first go at it.

        This received the most votes for People's Choice. The top half of a cake is a female body with a bra and the bottom half is a male body with briefs.

A bouquet of cupcakes.

        This actually was brought in on the previous night shift and won the grand prize but was put on show for the rest of the event. Apparantly the person who made it was a cancer survivor.

        Snakes and Ladders cupcakes. Can't remember what the note said about the meaning behind this but it was pretty creative.

        Checker board with pink and blue cupcakes. There's a note that asks 'have you had your check up yet?'. See those blue cupcakes there? They won the award for most blue. I had one and think they should have got an award for most sweet too. They were very yummy but the sweetness sent my brain into a spasm, and that's the only thing I ate for that morning. Was probably a good thing I didn't eat anything else.

Some pretty dainty cupcakes with pink and blue icing ribbons.

        And these were my creations. I knew I just had to make macarons to bring in (and I also knew how popular they would be). My pink macaron boobies are what they are and achieved the effect that I had hoped for. The blue macarons... well I had no idea what I could do for prostate cancer. Male anatomy was just too rude so I had a great idea of piping P's in blue. Well, with a broken piping bag and an oven disaster that's how they turned out above. And all the boobie jokes in the office afterwards... =D

        The reactions I got at work... were quite amusing. And embarrasing on my part because I was the one that made them. I think they made some people a little uncomfortable and were the last to go in the bake sale. So I guess I 'accidently' made what I originally thought was just too awfully rude to be bringing in to work... not that I ever had the intention to do it anyway! Everyone absolutely loved them, it was funny hearing the echo's around me 'Did you try a macaron yet? They are so good!' And then it was like a chain reaction with someone else grabbing one to try.

        And guess what? I won the most pinkest goodies! Which totally caught me by suprise because I wasn't expecting to win anything. Last time I made pink profiteroles, with pink pastry cream and pink icing and they didn't even get me anything. ***Edit. Charlie points is our rewards system at work. It eliminates the whole issue of having to get gift vouchers & makes the reward system streamline and more transparent across the whole business. One point = $1 to spend on the online 'gift shop', kinda like Red Balloon, you can trade in points for any goods or experiences.***

        So in total across the 4 sessions we managed to raise $3050.00 in total. Our MD was really touched by the event and said that he would match what we raised dollar for dollar so that brings out total donation to $6100.00 to be split equally between the National Breast Cancer foundation and the Australian Prostate Cancer foundation. The organising team did an absolutely awesome job organising the whole event and it was all for a good cause. I do hope that they do it again next year.