Congo Calling - 29th Nov

I had my tickets booked for Congo Calling's event in St Stephen's Church on the High Street a while ago. Bandi Mbubi was going to come and talk about Congo Calling at the hub (an event organised by the TEDxExeter team although not actually a TED event) but the success of Congo Calling meant that they outgrew us and so moved to St Stephens. I last saw Bandi at TEDxExeter 2012. 

I bumped into the TEDxExeter team while I was having a leisurely breakfast and they were having a meeting on the next table. They talked cake sale and I offered to get Baking Club involved. That chance meeting led to an amazing Bake-In at the hub on the Wednesday and a great cake sale at Congo Calling on the Thursday. The Congo Calling we so generous with their thanks and that meant a huge amount to Maria, Isabela, Geraldine, myself and our Baking Club Boss Lauren - who is the star in all this. 

Lauren wrote out an ingredients list with military precision, I went shopping, we brought in all our equipment from home, put our catering oven from my cafe days in the alley (to protect our fabulous ceiling) and got busy. Four and a bit hours later we had filled boxes with all sorts of goodies and had a ball doing it. 

All butter lemon dinosaur biscuits 

Maria wrapping the biscuits

Geraldine making Best Ever Brownies

Lauren's cupcake factory

coffee and walnut cupcakes

It's a fiendishly complicated brownie recipe

I love my KitchenAid

She's the Buttercream Queen

Cupcakes in Congo Calling colours

Bandi's talk was eye-opening, thought-provoking and emotional. It was a call to get involved and start making changes. Do have a look at the video below...