The first rule of Bake Club is you have to talk about Bake Club. That splits off into subsections about using hashtags and Instagram. The second rule of Bake Club is that I suppose a link might be helpful. And the third rule is I’m going to put in a jump cut here. After the break, baking, SCANDAL and random pictures of cats. 

Essentially 83 groups of bakers formed all over Wellington, and for the past month and a bit, they were issued with weekly challenges. My group was called All The Eggs and Bakin’, and we met up at Hashigo Zake every Monday, where the staff recommended beers to match our baking, and made us feel right at home.

We baked scones and brownies and pies, all using Wellington ingredients (Zany Zeus, Whittaker’s and Hansells featured prominently), and eventually it came down to a slice-off. One baker emerged victorious from the sugar coma, and tonight she competed against the best from 82 other teams. Her biscuits were DELICIOUS.

a plate of Belgian biscuits with additional cat pics on them

However, there was some serious competition – behold these sheep, this Wellington sign and even these Wellington on a Plate themed biscuits. These coffee cup biscuits apparently took 20 hours to make. TWENTY HOURS.

ridiculous tiny coffee cup shaped biscuits

In 20 hours, you could possibly fly to Paris to buy macarons instead, but maybe that’s not as much fun. In the end, the $4600+ worth of loot went to someone who is apparently a professional baker, – and the best friend of the woman who won last year.  Luckily for me at least, it wasn’t really about winning, it was about rising to the challenge of baking rather than cooking, and having another opportunity to socialise.

EDIT: She was a school teacher, not a professional baker is the official word. Ahh twitter back-channel, how important it is to take you with a grain of salt!

Although it was the only Wellington on a Plate event I’ve attended that involved NO ALCOHOL, it was still a fun night, for which credit must go to the awesome Positively Wellington Tourism team, who kept the spot prizes and scandalous coin-tossing going for the long time that judging took. You should definitely enter Bake Club next year, if you go into it for fun rather than being too competitive.