What a mouthful and I’m not just talking about the title! This year the lovely lads and lasses at Millar West have been getting in touch with their expert culinary skills to produce a range of Christmas bakes worthy of a golden handshake from Mr Hollywood….seen here with our Mark Voegeli.
This idea to test our baking knowledge came from our very own Sales Director Richard Jay (yeah thanks for that Richard, why couldn’t we just do Secret Santa without the bake off part!) Firstly we all had to write down three foods that we would like somebody to create (lovingly) for us, and to pop these in a box. Then our lovely in house events organiser Tracy Lawrence whittled the three down to one for each person. This part was essential otherwise we would have been left with a table full of produce that could rival that of the food tent at the Royal Norfolk Show!
We then had to individually pick a piece of paper out of a hat and voila!….. revealed was what we were to secretly bake and for whom….all to a chorus of “OMG! really” or “not that again” (we did a bake off last year) or “get in I can nail that!” the latter most probably referring to the request for cheese and pickle sandwiches! (only joking who would request that) The idea was that on the big day the secret person we were baking for had to taste their treat and guess who had baked it…easy
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This morning the fun began. Watching staff discretely arrive with bags full of their wares was intriguing. Who had made me my Cheese Straws? (dairy & gluten free….what a challenge) What was under that gigantic foil covered mountain? Why has Gary turned up without anything, has he forgotten or is he actually calling our bluff and is going to wow us with his amazing cookery skills?
Well what a feast we had! All us hungry bunnies really did fill our faces, and a Gary update….. he did himself proud and treated us to his homemade buttery flapjacks…yummy. Myself being the nuisance no dairy/gluten pain of the office was presented with a shepherds pie (yes shepherds pie!!) fresh from the mini oven upstairs….impressive and very tasty, thank you Mark.
My personal top 3 though would have to be (in no particular order) Michaela’s gingerbread snowmen, Tracy’s cheesecake and Tony Millar’s awesome coffee cake, particularly impressive as last year we witnessed a complete savory cheese muffin fail from Tony, these were subsequently used as doorstops…they were so heavy!
Tony cutting his delicious cake……
We were all so impressed with the standard of cooking today from everybody, and were all left feeling satisfied that not one of our creations was left untouched, or deemed inedible…WELL DONE GUYS! There were a few leftovers however but these were quickly distributed and given to husbands, wives, kids and dogs (how rude!) at home. The rest of the afternoon was spent feeling totally stuffed and wanting to curl up for a snooze in our showroom’s cosy Verco Jensen Hut and dream about doing it all next year!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM US ALL AT MILLAR WEST!