 With Christmas just around the corner, UCB are in full swing of Christmas pudding production. Each year, bakery students make hundreds of delicious traditional Christmas puds using Guinness to create that perfectly rich flavour, and sell them in the University’s Cakes and Bakes shop. This year a limited edition of UCB’s Christmas pudding has been made using a coconut-based beer brewed within ‘hopping’ distance of the uni to support local producers and create a sustainable product. The beer was sourced from the ‘Burning Soul Brewery Company’ in Birmingham’s 7% Coconut Porter, which is located less than a mile from UCB’s Summer Row campus. Not only is the company sustainable, it was named as ‘Best New Brewery’ in the West Midlands by the international RateBeer.com community when it opened its doors during 2017. The use of the beer has also created a great taste in the puddings as the fresh hand broken coconuts really accentuatethe other flavours. Swapping the Guinness for the Coconut Porterhas promoted sustainability, and supported our fantastic local producers in Birmingham. The puddings were even put through sensory analysis with students, and the Coconut Porter came out on top as the favourite. Our sustainable limited edition Christmas puddings are now available to buy starting from £1.80 at the Cakes and Bakes shop in Summer Row for students, staff and members of the public. We hope to delight everyone’s festive tables this year and bring a sustainable tasty pleasure to each mouth! Merry Christmas to all, Katie G. 
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Hello everyone I’m Reanna shore and I’m the new ABST student representative for Tameside college alongside Tony Rees, I am currently a Level 3 student and I am excited to work with the Committee, representing my College is something I already do as a rep at Tameside. I’m honoured to be working along side you all in the ABST, I have attended the conference previously and last year I won a 2nd place of the Novice Cup. I love learning more and taking on extra curriculum activites, my mission with this Student Rep role is to gain more experience and put forth my ideas/thoughts from a student perspective. My background is more towards Cake Decorating, I specialise in little figurines and hope to maybe one day use my skills in a job. My tutors are incredibly supportive and I am glad I have pushed myself to take on extra responsibility as I love meeting new people and talking to like minded bakers from around the country! I can't wait until the Conference next year, I would appreciate any advice or guidance in regards to competitions but most of all I am looking forward to working alongside the other ABST Student Reps and hopefully, I will see you all next year! May the odds of bread be in your favour :). Bake on! Reanna. Surplus breads from commercial and small bakeries are taking the punch in the battle to address the million slices of bread being wasted yearly. Monday the 4th November, National Bakery School was invited by Toast Ale Ltd and Brewdog brewery and hangout place in Tower Hill, to experience how they transform surplus or leftover breads into beer and to take part in their exciting bake-off challenge which showcased the use of pumpkin as the star ingredient. The surplus breads and other native beer ingredients along with enzymes and brewer’s yeast are mixed together and undergo a series of fermentations within temperature-controlled tanks. Sven, the head brewer and James the event organiser talked about their average weekly consumption of surplus bread coming from different bakeries and taken to their largest brewery site in Yorkshire. In addition, they are also looking for a company that can process surplus breads into manageable sizes ready to make the brewing process runmore swiftly. The by-products from the brewery are then delivered to the farms which serves as animal feed hence, nothing is wasted. I tried the Toast session IPA and it had a clean citrus-like taste, whilst the Pale ALE had a soft malt-like, clean taste. Both beers have a hint of caramel due to the bread crust which I find interesting. This was a new beer drinking experience for me and the bake-off concluded with my classmate Amy winning the challenge with her sustainable pumpkin pie. Whilst my winter spiced pumpkin and raisin loaf was voted as the people’s choice award. Jay Matic. |
