Fitzbillies wins Cambridge BID Christmas Window Competition

Fitzbillies in Trumpington Street – the bakery business’ flagship store – has won this year’s Cambridge BID Christmas Window Competition with a display featuring a novel use of its famous Chelsea buns.

After a week of internal judging, the top 10 window displays were selected.

The competition, supported again this year by the Cambridge Independent, then went to an online vote – via the Love Cambridge Instagram and Facebook pages – where the public were given the chance to choose their favourite.

More than 500 votes were received across these social media channels, and Fitzbillies garnered an impressive 215 votes. The runner-up, the University Museum Gift Shop, came very close with 194 votes.

Kirsty Chapman, cake shop manager at Fitzbillies, came up with the concept for the window display.

Kirsty has been working for the company for 21 years, taking on a number of roles, but before that was a window dresser for, among other places, Simpsons of Piccadilly and Liberty in Regent Street.

She says of her award-winning effort at Fitzbillies: “We wanted to do something a little bit different this year – not your traditional red, gold Christmas tree, so we decided to go for a pink arch, a pink Christmas tree, and we made all of our own decorations.

“We twice baked Chelsea buns, waited till they got really hard, varnished them, sprayed them with gold and made them into Christmas decorations.

“We also made mini gingerbread men and mini Christmas puddings, so used the things that we do in the bakery at Christmas.

“We wanted it to be very bright and colourful – sort of an Alice in Wonderland theme, but more Wonderland than Alice! We just wanted it to stand out.”

Kirsty was helped by Fitzbillies’ operations director, Michelle Correia, Anna Gacek, operations manager, and Katy Hammond, head barrista.

Kirsty says the idea of the pink arch was that people would stop to take a photograph in front of it.

“As soon as it went up, we didn’t even have to tell anyone, there were people standing there taking pictures,” says Kirsty, who notes that it took a day to do the window.

“We had quite a bit of prep time, with making and ordering things. We ordered the floor from Poland as we couldn’t get the right type.”

Michelle adds: “There was about two weeks of prep time, discussing the theme, and then a full day to install.”

She adds that “so many people” have come in wanting to buy the Chelsea bun Christmas decorations, and that Fitzbillies may make more and sell them next year.

“We didn’t know how popular they would be,” admits Kirsty. “I didn’t know that people would want them!”

How did it feel when Kirsty found out that her design had won?

“It was so exciting,” she replies. “We were obviously checking the votes every day and we could see it was us and the Museum Shop…

“We were ahead all week and then Tuesday night they had a big surge of votes, so we were quite panicky on Wednesday morning!”

Kirsty, who says she’s already started thinking about next year’s window, adds: “We enter every year but haven’t ever seemed to get anywhere, so we really went for it this year.”

Kirsty and the team have won a £100 Love Cambridge gift card and £100 to be donated to their chosen charity, which is Something To Look Forward To – the Cambridge-based charity for people with cancer, and their families, to access a variety of gifts and experiences.

A bona-fide Cambridge institution, Fitzbillies is most famous for its Chelsea buns, though Kirsty and Michelle reveal that their biggest-selling product at this time of year is mince pies.

Visit fitzbillies.com.