London Array 'It's a trifle!'

The theme for the month is... desserts!

This is a dessert, with a theme - renewable energy. I've cheated because I volunteered to enter a bake-off at work in honour of the company's 10th anniversary so I had a creative dessert in the pipeline already.

London Array, the world's largest consented offshore wind farm, is the inspiration for the trifle. The recipe is tasty but pretty standard - Stephanie Alexander's Genoese Sponge sprinkled with apricot brandy, followed by peach slices then powdered custard to create the geotechnical strata that wind farm is built on. Finally elderflower jelly + blue food colouring for the water. The yellow monopile foundations are banana cable sweets and the fish are... gummi fish :)

London Array inspired trifles

Parts of the wind farm sit in water c. 20m deep but in other places it is much shallower, even exposed at low tide. 175 wind turbines are in the first phase of the wind farm, which is still under construction. Once finished (early 2013) it will have a capacity of 630MW - enough to power over 450,000 British homes. The second phase would bring capacity up to 1GW and is still being deliberated. Energy nerds can get more info here: www.londonarray.com.

'Aerial' view of wind farm trifles

My initial ambitions plans to create a massive array of trifles were quickly abandoned for a more manageable 5 x 5 array. Competition was ferocious and my trifles came second to a hydroelectric dam.

Installation of a foundation at London Array (image source www.londonarray.com) The likeness is unmistakeable!