Baker Street reveals competition winners

UK bakery brand Baker Street has announced the winners of its care home cake-making competition.

The Beeches care home in Leatherhead was awarded first place, winning £1,000 for the facility thanks to a blueberry and blackberry creation.

Second place was awarded to Pen Y Bont Care Home in Abertillery, Gwent, who impressed the judges with an Easter creation and were awarded £500 for the facility.

Third place proved to be the hardest decision and eventually the judges awarded a joint victory to Hazelgrove Court Nursing Home in Saltburn-by-the-Sea for their Seaside Delight design and Castlebar Care Home in London for their Sherlock Holmes-inspired offering.

Castlebar recently closed, but Baker Street were so impressed with the level of resident involvement that they have agreed to provide hampers to all the homes who have former Castlebar residents.

Baker Street launched the competition at the end of 2020 after a turbulent year for the care home sector.

In a bid to bring residents together and offer some ‘light relief’, the brand offered free samples of its Sponge Layers for care homes to get creative and enter the competition by making their own showstopper.

Scott Oakes, commercial manager for Baker Street, and Lynsey Highfield, NPD technologist at Baker Street, joined forces to review more than 70 entries from across the UK.

Oakes comments: “We honestly weren’t expecting so many fantastic entries. They made our job very difficult, but we’ve picked winners that really entered into the spirit of the competition and created some brilliant desserts from our Sponge Layers.

“The resident involvement in some of these entries was so heart-warming and just brought to life the real reason that we wanted to run this competition,” he continues. “Care homes had a terrible year and to see photos of residents coming together with staff to make something as a team was just fantastic.

“We’ve also been so impressed with the entries, we’re looking into running the competition again at the end of this year. Baker Street is all about sharing quality, reliable, classic bakery and this competition really sums that up.”

Images of all the winning creations will be shown in the summer issue of Care Home Catering.