This month, Winchester Cakes and Bakes celebrated our first birthday! What other theme could we have to mark this special occasion except ‘Birthday Party’? Our bakers did us proud with an array of both sweet and savoury treats, we all enjoyed a cheeky glass of something fizzy, and we played some party games too. With a special decorations too, it was a fun and special evening.
Most of us started the party food with the savouries – Faye’s lovely Sundried Tomato and Chilli bread and Chelsea’s Cheese and Potato Bread Twists. Both were very popular. 
Our ‘gateway’ bake, bridging the gap between sweet and savoury, was Aniseed Wafer biscuits; a really unusual flavour, using fennel with sugar, but very, very good.
Then it was onto the sweet treats 
and what an array to choose from: both Carrot Cake and Mojito cupcakes, Lemon Butterfly cakes (as Vicky said, you can’t have a birthday party without butterfly cakes!), scones and Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies.
Mandy kindly brought along some tasty homemade Rum & Raisin and Funfetti cupcakes and bags and bags full of coloured buttercreams fitted with her new special shape nozzles (an array of flowers, leaves, snowflakes, and ice cream amongst others!) so we could all have a go at using them and decorate our own cupcakes! Much fun was had by all.
To mark the occasion in the bake itself, David piped a 1 onto his scones in green dough, Chelsea made 1 shaped Lime biscuits to decorate her cupcakes and Jayne bought us our lovely little blackboard stands for the labels. 
Top marks however go to Cat for producing these tasty carrot cake cupcakes complete with edible ‘candles’ made from white chocolate and a shred of desiccated coconut! A real labour of love this, involving cut down drinking straws, melted chocolate and a freezer. Not easy to do I’m sure but they were definitely impressive.
We also enjoyed a traditional game of Pass the Parcel – with a few sweets inside every layer everyone was a winner but unwrapping the main present was Jayne – now Star Baker as she’s the proud owner of a set of star shaped cookie cutters.
Time has flown since we first met back in September 2017 for our launch event at which twelve bakers joined us with their ‘Signature Bake’. Since then, 23 different bakers have joined us for events and we’ve seen everything from breads, buns, scones and cupcakes to biscuits, layer cakes, cheesecakes, traybakes, pies, tarts, and pastries. Our themes have been varied: we’ve recalled Holiday Memories, celebrated All Saints and All Souls, got a bit tipsy with Boozy Bakes, paid tribute to the Great British Bake Off, feasted on Festive Flavours, had a Picnic, enjoyed Afternoon Tea, kicked off the New Year with Something New, marked Shrove Tuesday with a celebration of pancakes, livened things up with The Spice of Life and shared our favourite Hand Me Down recipes. Here’s hoping many more bakers will join us in future.
The full list of bakes from our Birthday Celebration event was:
Faye – Chilli and Sundried Tomato Bread
Jayne – Aniseed Wafers
Chelsea – Cheese and Potato Bread Twists, Mojito Cupcakes with Lime Biscuits
David – Scones with jam and cream
Vicky – Lemon Butterfly Cakes
Tina – Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cookies
Mandy – Rum & Raisin and Funfetti Cupcakes for decoration
Cat – Carrot Cake Muffins with Edible White Chocolate Candles
Winchester Cakes and Bakes 