Winning by going off my scone

As any women's magazine or people- watching trip to Westfield Mall will tell you, you will eventually become your mother. Even if you're a boy.

I am becoming an undeniable ball of DNA. One look at the family bum/thigh area will confirm the theory but I'm growing new sprouts from my family tree every week.

I'm getting obsessed with gardening, just like mum. And now, it turns out, I'm a great baker, just like Grandma - although she'd never have the arrogance to issue such a wild claim. I'm not sure who gifted me with that trait. Perhaps misguided self-importance is a recessive gene?

If you are a reader of The Press food and fashion section Zest you may have already seen the news that I won an office scone competition.

I think the last thing I won was six squares of Cadbury's plain milk chocolate on the chocolate wheel at the Caroline Bay Carnival in 1982, so forgive me for lording it up.

Keep this to yourself, but I should never have won. So many things went wrong with the making of those scones but my colleagues went ahead and voted them No 1 anyway. I'm not sure whether that says more about my superior baking skills or the crude taste buds of reporters.

The Scone Off was scheduled for Friday. The night before, I'd arrived home late from a yoga class and I can confirm that peace, love and mung beans do not contribute to right headspace for making the perfect scone.

It seemed most reporters were baking late on the Thursday night. There was a lot of fighting talk over our text machines. It must have been while replying to one of those threatening texts that I reached for the cayenne and chucked a whole lot of paprika in the mix instead. It was the same colour spice. What's the big deal, I thought, and added more cayenne.

By the time the next text came through - again, quite nasty - it put me off and I forgot to add the cheese.

This is a problem when you're making cheese scones.

So I bunged a whole lot of cheese on the tops for cosmetic purposes and when it came time for the taste test on Friday, I made sure I buttered and served only the top halves.

Sure, I tricked my colleagues. Sure I felt like the GlaxoSmithKline of the newsroom, who once misled the public with their vitamin C-less Ribena. And here I was with my cheese-less cheese scones, but winning was on the line. When the results were announced, I probably over- reacted.

If you've ever watched the final of American Idol or some other reality show, you'll get a feel for my level of unwarranted excitement.

There was jumping and air punching, and even that 1990s move where you pull your fist down towards your hip and strongly whisper: "Yes!".

So, perhaps I was slightly over-the-top, but I was off my scone and drunk on pride.

I'm still riding high on the success. Next month, we are holding a reporters' Muffin Off.

I'm not sure muffins are a strong point in my repertoire, so I've started gearing up now. I've already made my friend email her mum for a recipe. He mother was a home economics teacher, which is really just a fancy title for muffin expert, so I'm confident of retaining my title.

I think something awful has begun. The Edmonds cooking book has created its own Frankenstein.

If all goes well, my little cookbook of mistakes will be published in the new year.

- © Fairfax NZ News