Bakers have recipe for success

Youngsters from Howletch Lane Primary School’s colourful rainbow cake beat the competition at a national event held in London.

The team of four girls, accompanied by two members of staff, travelled to London to take part in the Edu-cake and Cel-a-bake event, which was aimed at raising awareness of bullying.

Claire Patterson, the proud Year 6 teacher at the East Durham primary school, said: “During anti-bullying week we entered Educate and Celebrate’s ‘Make a noise about bullying’ cake competition.

“In December we topped the online vote for this and as a result we were invited to London to compete with 11 other bakers in a live bake off final.

“At the end of the afternoon we were announced the primary winners.”

Miss Patterson said they had a fantastic time in Londay and everyone is really proud of the girls.

The contest was held at The Urswick School in Hackney and the teacher said everyone was impressed with the ‘Team Howletch’ T-shirts, which had been specially made for the event.

Miss Patterson said they all worked amazingly well as a team.

She added: “We all pulled together to get the final touches on our cake and with about ten minutes to spare we were done. Our ‘Non-homophobic Heaven’ was complete and we thought it was pretty amazing.”

The teacher said the judges had a tough decision because all the cakes were wonderful, but the Howletch Lane Primary School team was thrilled to be announced as primary winners.

Miss Patterson said: “We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who voted for our anti-bullying week cake that secured our place in the final and an even bigger thanks to the team at Educate and Celebrate for organising such a fabulous event.

“I can’t say thank you enough to the girls for producing such amazing ideas and being the best team ever.”

Elly Barnes, chief executive of Educate and Celebrate, who ran the contest, said: “It was so difficult to judge as all the cakes were truly creative and stunning, everyone was a winner.

The cakes produced were just incredible and showed fantastic creativity and understanding of the LGBT History Month theme, religion, belief and philosophy.”