The Great HelloFresh Bake Off: Results are IN!
February 3, 2016
by Trisha Our Stories 
The Judges: Mimi and Caroline are giving Mary and Paul a run for their money!
When I describe the Fresh Farm to my friends and family they look at me with a bit of a quizzical brow. A brow that leads me to believe that they don’t believe me. Well, it’s true – we’re just a big bunch of food lovers, eating our way through various samples and making sure that people receive delicious dinners that they can enjoy cooking.
When the samples aren’t enough…
Believe it or not, on most days there will be emails circulating telling us to go and try some samples from our suppliers in the kitchen. Obviously we take testing our ingredients very seriously! If they aren’t up to scratch then our recipes won’t be either – so the more testing the better! But as for the days when there are no emails, our customer care team came up with the genius idea. Those HelloFresh Heroes took it upon themselves to start the Great HelloFresh Bake Off.
The Judges
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[column][title maintitle=”Caroline” subtitle=” Hollywood”]”I find baking very therapeutic and enjoy the method probably more than the finished result. I love getting praise when I’ve made something really good! What I loved about the Bake Off was finding out how talented our team is. Every week, we had really amazing entries all round. There wasn’t one week that was an easy decision for us to judge. I was completely blown away by the final and all of us judges felt real pressure to pick the right winner as they all looked and tasted incredible! “[/column]
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[column][title maintitle=”Daniel” subtitle=” Sue Perkins”]”I really enjoy how experimental baking can be. My friend once started out making a Victoria sponge and ended up with Turkish Delight & passion fruit cake. It was so good, my flatmates & I cried. I was gob-smacked by the level of baking at The Fresh Farm! The final was tough, but Chloe pushed the boundaries with her ‘everything’s edible Fresh Farm replica’. The deal sealer was the beetroot & chocolate soil cake mound filled with even more treats!” [/column]
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[/column][column] [title maintitle=”Mimi” subtitle=” Berry”] “Personally I think my two favourite things in the world are 1) seeing the reaction to a cake I’ve made and 2) eating a perfect brownie… you just can’t beat it! Baking is like an amazing chemical reaction that you can only make work with a bit of love! The Bake Off was just amazing. Everyone completely surpassed our expectations! We were expecting a few standard bakes and we were presented with MASTERPIECES!” [/column]
[/columns_row]The Finalists
We’ve had 5 weeks of some of the most creative and delicious bakes I’ve ever tasted and the final was no exception. Rumours have been flying around about 2am finishes, last minute runs to replace ingredients, broken cake boards and Ubers ordered to work – it was clear that each and every finalist meant business.
Rosanna’s Toblerone Mountain
First up we had Rosanna who was inspired by mountains and Toblerones to give us her Toblerone Mountain – tiers of chocolate biscuit and brownie topped with white chocolate and almonds.
Ellie’s HelloFresh Veggie Patch
Next in was Ellie who pulled on our HelloFresh heartstrings with her Veg Patch complete with mini Halloween-Mimi’s! Inside was chocolate and coffee sponge all topped off with an oreo soil.
Edwina’s Pavlova
From down under we had Edwina with an Australian showstopper – a pavlova covered in vanilla cream and finished off with fresh berries and accompanied by Monte Carlos biscuits.
Leanne’s Chocolate Caramel Cake
Leanne was next to the table with her heartstopper – a chocolate and caramel ombre cake covered in thick chocolate ganache.
Chloe’s HelloFresh Garden
Last but not least we had Chloe who created The HelloFresh Garden complete with carrot cake pots, walnut shortbread shed, chocolate truffles and a beetroot soil.
So without further ado…
In 3rd place for her wonderful presentation and attention to detail, we have Ellie’s Veg Patch.
2nd place went to Rosanna’s Toblerone Mountain for wonderful flavour and textures.
The Winner
Stealing the top spot for taste, creativity and everything in between, was Chloe with The HelloFresh Garden.
[columns_row width=”half”] [column][title maintitle=”Chloe” subtitle=”The Cake Queen”] “Winning was amazing, definitely my favourite day at work! I have since used my Kitchen Aid mixer (prize) to bake requests for people in the office and will continue to do so! I always baked with my mum when I was little which definitely sparked my love of baking.” [/column] [column]
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[title maintitle=”” subtitle=”My inspiration for the bake came from…”] “…thinking about what HelloFresh represents so I thought that a HelloFresh garden was very fitting where vegetables we would have in our boxes could be incorporated into the baked goods. Hence the chocolate and beetroot cake (beetroot makes a cake so moist!) and the carrot cake. I really wanted to do a garden shed and as Christmas had already been I thought a walnut shortbread would be more fitting than a gingerbread house! The truffles were a little add on as stones as I enjoy making them and coating them in different chocolates. I think the most fun part was when the judges used the mini shovel to dig into the chocolate and beetroot cake/dirt mound to find the smarties hidden inside! These were meant to be seeds under the ground.”
