Going to let you into a little secret, one of the perks of being a blogger is you get invited to some awesome events. So when London and Country (L&C), invited me to a morning of baking as part of their ‘Piece of Cake’ campaign (mortgages are piece of cake… geddit?), I pretty much bit their hand off – although, acted totally cool as usual. As if…

Got given an L&C apron which I was pretty pleased with (as you can see from my face!) ha.

Guys, those scones… I’m starting to think that maybe a scone is the best dessert. Well, 100% the best breakfast option anyway.

Check out that cake batter. Professional right? 😉 They were very picky about contamination, so didn’t stick my finger – or face – it in once. Shame really.

This blog is all about the baking competition…, but I will say that if you are thinking of getting a mortgage, I would 100% recommend you get in touch with L&C (both me and my sister used them when buying) as the advice you get is totally free. However, be aware that it doesn’t check direct only deals – which we did independently. Anyway, that’s a whole other blog (or maybe book).

Oh look – it’s Emma from EmmaDrew.Info. Because we’re on opposite teams, she instantly became my enemy in the kitchen. You can’t see me scowling off camera.

Look at the concentration on that face… I was feeling very smug about that garden.

Here I am raiding the cutlery draw while a chef looks on a bit concerned.

So turned up at 10:25 to meet Emma from the brilliant EmmaDrew.Info who would be baking with me. We knew we had to work in pairs, so secretly concocted a plan to work together, which was thwarted pretty quickly when pairs had been decided in advance. Proper school flashback there!

The cooking school had baked scones for us, with apricot jam and cream. Seriously guys, they were HEAVEN. I have been cutting back on sugar the last couple of months, so the jam was extra sweet.

My baking partner in crime, Kathy.

This photo made me laugh. Caught discussing roof construction.

Emma made a pretty impressive log cabin. I’d actually love to eat that right now!

I wasn’t actually teamed up with a blogger, but with a lady called Kathy who had just remortgaged with L&C – who herself was a pretty good baker (there were seven teams in all). Kathy took control of the baking part, while I concentrated on the decorating.

The challenge was to bake a house themed cake within three hours (which really didn’t feel like a lot of time). Kathy and I discussed quite a lot about the shape etc, so started planning as soon as our batter was in the oven.

Ta-da! This is the finished cake. What do you reckon? I’m pretty pleased with my piping skills. Kathy covered the roof with buttons, made the curtains and door, while I did all the garden bits.

As pleased as we were with our cake, it wasn’t a winner (still crying). However, the chefs in the cooking school did point out just how amazing and totally different all the cakes were.

This is the design that won. I bet little girls would kill for this cake.

Here’s Emma’s cake. Looks delicious and chocolatey.

So once out of the oven, Kathy cut and shaped the house and it looked perfect – so was up to me to decorate. I went with a country cottage because there was hardly any time left and thought it would be easier to just pipe on a design, than cover it in fondant (which I think was my downfall).

The judges looked at all the houses and rated them on things such as design, taste, enthusiasm and picked a winner – which was the pink castle, which was pretty fabulous!

Some awesome fondant work here.

This toadstool one is straight out of a fairytale.

The roof on this is so clever.

Kathy took the cake home, because I couldn’t bear for it to be cut in half – plus, trying to not eat sugar remember! And then me and Emma went to Honest Burger around the corner for food and a proper gossip.

So what do you think of my decorating skills eh? Not too shabby right?