Service users at Cygnet Raglan House participated in the Cygnet cake off competition 2021 with other Cygnet services.
This was a joint project led by the excellent professional baking and decorating skills of Dr Nicola Travers Mott. This was a process that spread over two days, with contributions made by several service users.
The first stage of the process was baking a green velvet and buttercream cake. Then, on the next day, service users were deciding over the decoration process using cones of green buttercream and silver balls.
The service users found the whole experience excellent, exhilarating and therapeutic. They enjoyed interacting throughout the two days. Even myself as a service user enjoyed decorating when it was my first attempt.
As a service user, I surprised myself and enjoyed posing for photographs and most importantly enjoyed tasting the cake itself. It felt like a vision of art which made me admire it and felt as though it was too good, subsequently I did not want to eat it because it was visually stunning from my perspective.
On a separate day, gingerbread biscuits were baked to be included as decoration on the cake. The cake itself was moist, not too sweet , light, extremely tasty and delicious in my opinion. The gingerbread biscuits were a welcome addition to the decoration and taste of the cake.
I got feedback from service users who contributed and tasted the cake which was overwhelmingly complimentary. It was generally excellent.
Some service users created the velvet cake and buttercream layers and others prepared and baked and decorated the biscuits to be an accompaniment to the cake.
One service user was so impressed she would like Dr Nicola to bake her wedding cake. The service users who contributed found the baking and decorating element therapeutic and they enjoyed being creative and would like to have baking and decorating group to enhance their skills, confidence and learn a new hobby as a result in the future.
The level of competition between Raglan and the other Cygnet hospitals will be intense and closely contested to determine the outcome for the overall winner.
The cake was stunning in design and executed with precision and the general consensus from staff and service users was that it would be well received by the judges in deciding the winner of the competition.
