Automation Team Bakeoff: My Ship Cake Adventure

19 Jul 2023 at 19:29 // under Cooking Work

The automation team at work have been running a weekly bakeoff challenge. Each week a different team member brings in a cake to share with the team, and this week was my turn. No pressure at all.

I'd been watching my colleagues produce some genuinely impressive creations over the previous weeks - though to be fair, most were traditional circular cakes. Only a couple had attempted to make theirs resemble anything other than, well, a cake. Naturally, I felt compelled to take things a bit further. Not that I'm competitive or anything.

The Design

I based the recipe on a chocolate orange Battenberg from Domestic Gothess, but as I was making it, I decided to abandon the traditional Battenberg checkerboard pattern. Instead, I kept the chocolate cake as a solid layer at the bottom to represent oil sitting at the bottom of a ship's hull. It seemed like a nice thematic touch, and frankly, getting the Battenberg pattern right looked like it might be beyond my current skill level.

The Execution

I managed to fit the entire baking process into one evening, which I was quite pleased with. I prepared the cakes as soon as I got in from work, then put them in the oven whilst I had my dinner. The timing worked out perfectly - they cooled whilst I went for my normal RTC run, which meant I could come back, have a shower, and get straight into the decorating.

The basic structure was straightforward enough. Two rectangular cakes sandwiched together with jam, then covered in marzipan and fondant icing. I used pre-dyed fondant in black and red for the hull and green for the deck. This process took about an hour in itself.

Then came the detail work. This is where my enthusiasm started to wane rather dramatically.

Creating the superstructure - the bridge, funnels, and various pipes - took about another hour of fiddly work with small pieces of icing. I had access to all the proper icing tools I could want (my wife has an impressive collection), but the rules were clear: she wasn't allowed to help. My skills were definitely the limiting factor here, not the equipment. My patience was being tested by the end (it was an hour past my normal bed time) and I suspect the quality of my detail work deteriorated noticeably as I got more tired. There's only so long you can maintain concentration when you're trying to make icing look like convincing ship's equipment.

The Result

Despite my flagging energy levels towards the end, the cake was well received at work. Though to be fair, every cake in the bakeoff series has been well received - it's hard to go wrong when you're giving people free cake on a Wednesday morning.

The cross-section reveal worked quite well, showing the orange sponge sitting on top of the chocolate "oil" layer. If I were to make it again, I'd be tempted to add a chocolate sauce filling that would ooze out dramatically when cut, really selling the crude oil theme. Though that might be taking the concept a bit too far for a workplace bakeoff.

Lessons Learned

Next time I attempt something this ambitious, I need to pace myself better on the decorating. Starting with enthusiasm and ending with "good enough" isn't ideal, though I suppose it's realistic for an evening baking session after a full day at work.

Having access to proper equipment certainly helped, but it turns out that owning the right tools and knowing how to use them effectively are two very different things. My wife's impressive collection of icing kit can only take you so far when your technique is still developing.

But overall, I'm pleased with how it turned out. It looked like a ship, it tasted good, and most importantly, it held its own alongside the other impressive entries in our ongoing team bakeoff. Mission accomplished.

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