With the simple Facebook description of ‘Eat pudding on a Sunday in the seminar room. Spoon and plate required. 2pm.’, it is no wonder that Butler’s Pudding Society has 291 names on its mailing list and succeeded in massively overpopulating its venue during the first meeting of this year. Vanilla sponge cake and millionaires’ shortbread, a brief introduction to the society and a baking-themed quiz, formed the basis of the group’s opening gathering, although a typical session is more like Durham’s own answer to the Great British Bake Off.
Each meeting several bakers bring along their creations, matching that week’s designated theme, (be it biscuits, layered cakes or pastry), which they then distribute around the room while the other attendees have the onerous task of taste-tasting each one and rating them upon taste, presentation, effort and originality. The score sheets are then collected in to be added up by the presidents while everyone else, content and with full stomachs, (on popular weeks the tasting can verge upon a Man vs. Food challenge!), relaxes and chats over a board game whilst wondering which bake will emerge victorious. At the end of the hour that week’s winner is announced and that lucky and proud individual is roped in to bake again for the final, a sure fire way to ensure more great-tasting cake!
Last year’s winning creations included a huge snowman composed primarily out of white chocolate and marshmallow as well as a chocolate and courgette cake complete with a seemingly suspended belt of raspberries. The standard in the final is incredibly high and the atmosphere is charged with excitement and tension as the various competitors sporadically arrive, preciously guarding their often delicate and intricate masterpieces. As if baking against the other week’s winners isn’t already hard enough, the two finals of last year involved first baking to a Christmas theme and then earning extra crucial points for incorporating unusual and tricky ingredients (hence the courgette!), adding a whole new dimension to the contest.
Julia Cushion, one of this year’s presidents and mastermind baker behind last year’s honeycomb profiteroles, maple and pecan sticky buns and trio of heart-shaped Welsh cakes, believes that the success of Pudding Society lies largely with its friendly and relaxed environment. She told us “in terms of commitment it involves minimum effort for maximum rewards! It’s free to join, you only have to bake a pudding once a term but you get to eat about four puddings a week- you can’t argue with that!” And she has a point! Who wouldn’t want to dedicate an hour a week to de-stressing and eating amazing home-baked puddings for free? University can be intense but with cake everything seems so much easier