With Brexit dominating the headlines you may have missed out on what our armed forces have been up to lately. Keeping the peace across the world ?, chasing down demented dictators, extremists and terrorists ? Well yes of course but they’ve also been busy baking cakes, no seriously!.
The annual forces Christmas baking competition took place over the weekend, and yes this is a real event not made up , have a look at the picture for evidence !. Army chefs from the Royal Logistic Corps produced festive cakes and puddings at the annual Christmas cake contest.
Cakes included ‘decorated Christmas cake’, a glazed fruit and nut loaf cake and ‘gingerbread festive centrepiece’ with 60 soldiers put their baking skills to the test. The first ever baking competition was judged by military and civilian judges including professional pastry chef and BBC Bake Off judge Claire Clark MBE.
Ms Clark said she was “blown away” by the level of professionalism saying”I didn’t really know what to expect. I have judged competitions where the Army have been competitors, so I knew the standards would be high. But I didn’t think they would be this high!. When you see some of the cakes from the juniors, they are outstanding. I have staff that couldn’t do that well and they are trained pastry chefs, so for me that is impressive.”
The winner was Lance Corporal Glen Smith for his decorated cake, with Sergeant Matthew Hunter from 19 Regiment Royal Artillery winning the challenging gingerbread category.