To think this was completely out of order

[2quidfalafels]

We're having our own version of GBBO at work, with me and three other colleagues baking cookies yesterday evening for a small panel judges (fellow colleagues). We agreed to meet at 1:30 with our cookies plated - but one of the contestants (let's call them Tupperware) was 15 minutes late.

Tupperware turned up with shop bought cookies from the very posh deli/cafe owned by an internationally famous chef down the round. Me and the other two who baked from scratch at home immediately protested, saying that she shouldn't be in the competition. Everyone else made out that we were making a huge fuss and hers were placed in the competition anyway.

Tupperware's cookies came first, with me and another chap tying for joint second and the other guy coming last. Our homemade cookies were all genuinely delicious and in my opinion tastier than the shop bought ones - but that doesn't matter, it's the principle of her being in the competition at all that really bugs me. AIBU to think she shouldn't have been allowed to enter?!

The judges knew they were shop bought beforehand and decided they didn't see a reason why she shouldn't still be in the competition.

But it was a baking competition. The winner did not bake anything.

Like having a photography competition and giving the prize to someone for printing an image off the Internet.

OP when I was a teenager my friend and I entered a fishing competition in the village we were staying in and came second.

That the winner wasn’t disqualified when it was discovered her fish was still frozen in the middle still pisses me off to this day! Only mildly right enough, but at the time I was fucking raging!

Tupperware is a twat.

Just bring in cake if you want to show off baking skills, why make a song & dance about it. It's work, not hobby time.

I hope Tupperware didn't actually win a prize (because we know if you were second you won really).

That's weird. If it's a bake off you need to bake your own. Eat the cookies, raise money using them, but don't put them in the competition.
We do a bake off at work and it's good fun. You choose to enter and if you can't on the day then we're just a cake down.

Update on Tupperware: one of the lads who works in her team had a word and she said that she thought the competition was about "who could source the best baked product".

Despite the fact that it was called The Office Bake Off. Bake. Off. Not Buy Off. Not Source Off. Bake.

So it's a voluntary baking competition? I can understand being underhand if it's a forced thing, but if you're only doing it because you want to then it's just silly to enter s baking competition and not bake.
YANBU.

That really does take the biscuit

Late AND cheating?? Of course YANBU!

If it's a bake sale or compulsory competition where everyone has to enter then it's fine to buy shop bought. If it's a voluntary competition then no of course you can't just buy them - what's the point of even entering?