Thursday 26 January 2012

Announcing a New Baking Challenge - AlphaBakes




Welcome to AlphaBakes, a new blogging challenge which will be hosted on alternate months by Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker (host for February) and Caroline from Caroline Makes. This will be a monthly challenge where the aim is to bake with an ingredient that starts with the random alphabet letter chosen for that month. We debated about working through the alphabet in sequence but it's much more fun having a random letter which will keep us all on our toes. We won't repeat the same letter unless we have been through all of them! By then we will hopefully have come up with some new ideas (we already have a few knocking about).

We will be using a random letter generator to ensure fairness :) http://www.randomlettergenerator.com/ 

For now, please do join in and indulge your creative side. Most bakers like a challenge and it would be interesting to see what everyone comes up with for the same letter. In case the idea is not clear, I'll give you some examples..... 
'A' can be apples, apricots or Anzac cookies 
'B' can be banana, bread or a bumblebee cake
'C' can be coconut, cheesecake or a chocolate caramel cupcake
 .... the possibilities are endless!

Each challenge will start on the 1st of every month and finish by the 25th of every month. A round up will be posted on the host blog by the 1st of the next month. 



Now on to the rules which you MUST comply with

1. Post your recipe on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will  include in the round-up at the end of the month. 

2. You can use your own recipe or someone else's recipe. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture!  Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!)  You can also republish old posts/recipes but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules. 

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post. 

4. Email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include: 
  • Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog)
  • Your blog post URL
  • Recipe title
  • Photo of recipe (to be included in the round up)
5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

9. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see. 

10. Have fun! :) 

The AlphaBakes Challenge will start on the 1st of February. The random letter selected is 'L' which will be hosted by Ros @bakingaddict from The More Than Occasional Baker 

26 comments:

  1. Great idea!! There's a lot of freedom in the theme too! Will have to get my thinking cap on for 'L' in February!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Look forward to seeing what you come up with! I was slightly worried the first letter would be 'Z' or 'X'!

      Delete
  2. Ooh this is so exciting, what a cool idea! and as soon as I read 'L' my idea popped in to my head! can't wait!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So pleased you think its a cool idea. Cant wait to see what you come up with :)

      Delete
  3. Great fun! I love a new event - though I'm bit confused which of the two of you is hosting this month?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Sarah, hope you will join in! I will be hosting Feb to kick off the challenge and will post again on Feb 1st when it officially starts.

      Delete
  4. Great idea! I'll have to look around for "L" recipes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Look forward to seeing what you come up with!

      Delete
  5. Wow, what a great idea. Thinking cap on! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you like the idea, look forward to seeing what you come up with.

      Delete
  6. My first L word was Learner! It looks like a car number plate! Brilliant idea I shall put my thinking cap on!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent! Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

      Delete
  7. Lovely idea - I'll try to join in if I can get some time in the kitchen. My first thought was L for Lousy - I've made a fair number of cakes like that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really hope you can join in! Lousy cakes not accepted as I'm sure they are awesome so you'll have to save it for "A" ;-)

      Delete
  8. Yey!! I love baking challenges!

    Bit of a head start for Feb then!!??

    Hmmmm what to do with "L"......

    xx Kat xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hurrah! Will be great if you can join in. Thought I'd give everyone a head start as its a new challenge and it's a shorter month! March will start 1st March! x

      Delete
  9. I m so excited about participating in this event!!! It ll be my first blog event ever yay!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So pleased you will be joining in. Look forward to seeing what you come up with!

      Delete
  10. L is for...! Great challange will get my thinking cap on!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hurrah! So pleased you will be joining in, look forward to seeing what you come up with :)

      Delete
  11. Thinking, still thinking, painful... good idea though!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL i'm sure it will be brilliant! Can't wait to see it :)

      Delete
  12. Nice challenge.. Will try to participate

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please do! look forward to seeing your entry :)

      Delete

I've had to turn word verification back on as I've had a lot of problem with spam lately, Apologies! Please, please do leave a comment - I appreciate every one of them and will reply to all of them. Thanks!