Thirdly, far from being unappealing, the reaction of almost everyone to the table of cakes was laughter. Which, considering the money raised was going to the charity ‘Mind’ and aimed to raise money to fight depression, is a great consequence!

The variety of bakes was fantastic. This was partly due to impressive forward-planning… the event was marketed extremely well, (through twitter, facebook and an email campaign to anyone who said they were interested in helping) and people were encouraged to email in advance with what they were baking in order to avoid too many duplicates.

There were sad-looking shortbread bears, two rainbow cakes, gingerbread men, carrot & lemon cakes, many many different pretty cupcakes, and my own contribution which was fruity iced tea bread! (Thanks Paul Hollywood for the recipe).

Some of the packaging was really beautiful too. The brownies were wrapped in greaseproof paper & newspaper, and someone else had made biscotti and madeleines and wrapped them in blue tissue paper with ‘Depressed Cake Shop’ stickers to seal them.

I got stuck in with helping out… my work in several bakery/patisseries has prepared me as well as anyone for dishing out cake to eager customers! And positioned in the middle of University of Birmingham’s biosciences (the ‘Undercroft’) building there were plenty of eager cake eaters around.

The donations were incredibly generous too. I was impressed at how successful an idea it is to simply ask people to donate however much they want to in charity collection pots on the table, as it doesn’t exclude those who don’t have a lot of money, and at the same time most people probably gave much more than they otherwise would have.

 

In fact they raised a whopping £730 in total, just from cake!

I’ve always thought that small things in life… even tea and cake… can make a big difference to the world. It’s not just the money raised, these type of events show how many people are eager to help out, give money, and bake for a good cause, while giving the opportunity to people like me to meet new like-minded people (I found out about it through twitter).

Tea and cake. It can save the world.