Kirsty 3. Collabor-bake

In my last blog entry I posed a challenge to readers to ‘help me do the impossible’ by suggesting recipes for baking a cake in 24 minutes. A recipe was given and I rose to the challenge with enthusiasm and optimism, and the results were, well, you can see for yourself.

I decided I would be allowed to start with all of the ingredients on the bench, because the writers were able to start with their laptops/writing implements out for the 24-hour book. I sat all my ingredients on the bench but didn’t measure them, that bit was left to crunch time. I had a quick skim over the recipe but didn’t familiar myself with it too much, as the writers came in with vague ideas but had no solid idea of what they’d be creating until they were writing it.

Go time. I started the timer and began racing around trying to measure ingredients as quickly as possible. Being rushed meant making silly mistakes and spilling things, but in terms of putting the ingredients in the bowl, so far so good. I decided in order to save time I would just throw the flour straight in the mixing bowl rather than sifting, but cutting that particular corner didn’t garner the best results. My house mate was in the lounge room yelling out to me “You should always sift, Kirsty, always sift!” and she was right. The mixture was lumpy and I didn’t have the time to get the lumps out. Here’s a picture of how it looked after I poured the ingredients into the pan.

"You always sift, Kirsty, always sift!"

At this point there was only 12 minutes left on the clock, and I was only just putting the mixture in the oven. I knew at this point there was no way the cake would bake in time. Although the recipe was called a ’30 minute cake’ that meant allowing for 30 minutes total baking time, not factoring in the time to measure and mix all of the ingredients. Just like the Willow Pattern team had to fit not only the writing and editing in the 24-hour period, but the planning, idea creation and collaboration as well (not to mention time to down a few wines!)

The 12 minutes elapsed and the beeping of my stopwatch called time. I took the pan out of the oven and voila! Bon appetite? Anyone?

Safe to say my first attempt at a 24-minute cake was not a bakers dream. Even my 8-year old little brother didn’t want a piece of it, proving just how hard it was to do something that requires more time, in a limited time frame. This got me thinking about how the Willow Pattern team managed to pull off something so quickly, that didn’t appear rushed or of lesser quality. Then it hit me, team.

Although this particular cake was never going to work within the time frame, given the 30-minute cooking time, I started to think that if I were to attempt this challenge again, I’d need a team. Having collaboration on this would have meant having someone to carefully sift the flour while I was preparing the additional ingredients, to avoid the bad quality induced by my rushing. In his book Group Genius, Keith Sawyer states, “collaboration is the key to forming and implementing creative ideas”. Sawyer discusses the importance of collaboration to creative endeavors such as theatre and music and also its importance in the business sector. Ultimately, his research proves countless instances where collaboration has been the direct root for success in many forums.

So, if anyone else wants to shoot me a recipe for a 24-minute cake, I’ll try again with a team to see if my results will be any better (and tastier!).