One OF the organisers of the Great Malpas Bake-Off says the event was to celebrate the community spirit in the village.

The bake-off, held last Saturday, saw plenty of brilliant amateur cakes submitted for judgement at the High Street Church, with proceeds going to the organisation of the summer fair.

Beverley Dobson, who shares organisation duties with Jackie Clegg, believes the day was well-supported and was delighted with all the help from villagers.

"Both Jackie and I run the fair," she said. "I chair the daytime stuff and she does the evening. Last year we started with it in the evening after the Malpas Fair.

"Both of us work full time but the work that goes into organising the fair is immense, especially in the last 8-10 weeks before the event.

"It's hard because we work full-time, but it's fair to say we're both in charge.

"With regard to the Great Malpas Bake-Off, everyone in the village gives us help to get the fair sorted so the cake event was designed to say thank you to everyone.

"I'm not expecting us to make much money from Saturday as we only charged a few pounds, but any profit we do have will go towards the fair.

"It was just about saying thank you to all those who have helped, to show off the community spirit that Malpas has and to obviously give notice of the summer fair."

The bake-off had four categories – under-six, junior, senior and adult – with a number entries per group.

Beverley admitted her top choice came from the senior's category.

She added: "There were some outstanding entries in the bake-off.

"My favourite cake on the day was from the winner of the senior's category, who submitted a chocolate cake with plenty of decoration all over it."

The under-six section was one by Toby Evans with Holly Probin coming in as runner-up. In the junior section, Evie Probin with Talluah Belle Woodward finishing runner-up while in the senior section, Aaron Williams took home the win while Melody and Elan Lumb finished second.

The overall adult winner was Catherine Bosley who pipped Eleanor Walley into second place.