A few weeks ago, we set you a challenge. With Easter on the way, and a blog post about Silurian Death Assemblage cupcakes proving popular, we gave birth to the Great Geobakeoff. Nearly 100 entries later, what have we learned?

Well, mostly, we’ve learned that cake and geology go really, really well together.

Before we announce the results, here’s a run down of the entrants – sincere apologies if we’ve left anyone out. By the end of this, we couldn’t really move for pictures of cake.

*warning: the following blog post contains multiple images of cakes. If you don’t have any cake near you, you may not wish to continue.

10 points: Sandstone layer cake

We asked for uninspiring, flat yellowy cakes, and you did not let us down.

Starting off small for the #geobakeoff with a golden Australian Hawkesbury Sandstone Banana Cake. pic.twitter.com/OYxzBAezFP

— Karina Judd (@bucketscientist) April 13, 2014

Some of you went above and beyond, introducing a variety of colours and some interesting stratigraphy…

We also received two Grand Canyon entries, which we were slightly confused by, until we realised you were simply taking a more interesting spin on the whole sandstone layer concept, and promptly awarded you both 10 points.

20 points: Graptolite cake

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given our description, we didn’t receive a huge number of graptolite cakes. There was one stand out example:

@geolsoc #geobakeoff day 1 first completion: spiraliform graptolites from 2002 paper Jones, Zalasiewic & Richards pic.twitter.com/kh3vq4N6mA

— Liz Laycock (@longrat) April 23, 2014

An impressive number of you took the initiative and exploited our graptolite loophole, courtesy of Flo: ‘if you’re going to make a fossil cake it could at least be interesting.’ So we’ve decided you all get graptolite points too, for creatively interpreting the brief.

 

30 points: Hutton’s unconformity cake

Again, not a hugely popular choice, everyone’s favourite unconformity is not everyone’s favourite baking challenge. * Applause * for our one intrepid unconformity baker. (And we’re reliably informed they’re not cereal bars, but home made chocolate rice crispy cakes.)

Well done to @longrat, the only person to take on Hutton’s Unconformity. Are those cereal bars? #geobakeoff pic.twitter.com/FXCQ0ZnsSA — Geological Society (@geolsoc) May 9, 2014

40 points: Mid Atlantic Ridge cake

Again, a solitary entry for this slightly obscure of bakeoff challenges, but what an entry!*

*At this point, you might be noticing a pattern – yes, all the solitary entries so far have come from one entrant, who heroically baked her way through the entire list. * rapturous applause *

50 points: Sinkhole cake

Some beautiful recreations of the Great Blue Hole, the example we posted, including creative use of jelly!

Some of you took the motif further…

@geolsoc One of my #geobakeoff entries – presenting: the sinkhole cake 😀 with a hammer for scale! pic.twitter.com/74QeXaceas — Rehemat (@livelovesurf24) April 21, 2014

Particular applause here for the use of monopoly houses, and the callous looking playmobile onlookers. Fabulous.

60 points: Pacific ring of fire cake

It’s all getting a bit serious now. Ring of fire was a tricky challenge – we had some volcanoes, some globes, some edible maps, and some subducting sponge layers. You all get 60 points for not copping out and just icing ‘Ring of fire’ onto a sponge.

 

70 points: Durdle Door cake:

A construction nightmare, but some of you pulled it off!

@geolsoc my entry for the #geobakeoff, edible revision is the future! pic.twitter.com/Yo6G96aFKo — Haydn Orme (@cahaydn) April 18, 2014

Without ever forgetting the point of all this, of course…

Durdle door cake suffering coastal erosion #GeoBakeOff @geolsoc (thanks for photo, Jo!) pic.twitter.com/gULzmcDFKa — Liz Laycock (@longrat) April 28, 2014

 

80 points: Giant’s causeway cake

Some delightfully creative attempts to solve this particular baking conundrum. We particularly enjoyed panecotta Giant’s Causeway:

@geolsoc #GeoBakeOff attempt at chocolate panna cotta giants causeway. pic.twitter.com/Y3miKbsPU1 — Liz Laycock (@longrat) April 25, 2014

and, by the same author, even more ingenious biscuit Giant’s Causeway:

@geolsoc #GeoBakeOff Day 3. Giant’s Causeway mark 2. Much better in biscuit than panna cotta! #happy pic.twitter.com/IEkvubeaI3 — Liz Laycock (@longrat) April 25, 2014

 

 

Meanwhile, others went down the slightly more traditional cake-based route:

90 points: Globe cake

Some truly sterling efforts here, from all around the solar system. Particular standouts – the Marzipan Rover… 

…and the incredibly accurate (though if you’ve never seen Enceladus, slightly confusing looking) Enceladus cake:

And a round of applause to the good people at GeoBus, who managed to bake their entire logo along with quite a few entries, including a rather fetching globe cake:

#geobakeoff After a weekend of baking we have a few entries, starting with the GeoBus logo in cake form! pic.twitter.com/OEM2PzQIrs — GeoBus (@GeoBus_StA) April 29, 2014

So many amazing globe cakes. High fives and 90 points to you all!

100 points: Juarassic Park hatching velociraptor cake

What could we post, we asked ourselves, for 100 points, that would be so ridiculous, so utterly unbakable, that no one but the most committed of geobakers would take it on? The answer was simple. The results were unexpected.

Hatching velocipraptor bakers, we salute you all, for your geobaking prowess,  your vision, and for the fact that there is now a file on the Geological Society’s servers entitled ‘hatching velociraptor cake montage.’ Cue theme tune:

 

The winners

And so to our winners, and to the all important question of who is to become the proud owner of our much coveted rock hammer USB sticks.

On 100 points for some fabulous velociraptor baking, Hannah Moss-Davies (@Hannah_MD24) and Rachel (@Rachisaurus)

130 points and tied sixth place to Catherine Kenny (only fitting, as her blog inspired the geobakeoff phenomenon), Leanne Roden (@leanneroden90) and Dheyna (@dheyna_x) for hatching velociraptors with added USB sticks!

Fifth place with 140 points to Rehemat (@livelovesurf24) for a brilliant Ring of Fire cake and that playmobile sinkhole cake.

Fourth place and 160 points to St Andrews’ GeoBus project (@Geobus_StA), who not only completed three challenges, but baked their entire logo in the process. Bravo!

In third place, with 310 points, Gwenno Talfryn who baked four of the ten challenges…

Second place to Carrie Soderman (@carriesoderman) for completing an impressive six of the challenges…

But the undisputed Queen of the bakeoff, with 580 points, is Liz Laycock (@longrat), who baked every single one!

Congratulations to all our winners, and to everyone who took part! If you haven’t had enough geology cake, all the entries are on our Flickr page for your perusal..