Men at Greenwood Park Retirement Village are doing their bit to help other men in New Zealand living with prostate cancer.

To support Prostate Cancer New Zealand, residents at the village have hosted a men's bake off competition.

The competition has been completely organised and led by residents at the village and involved nine men, who each contributed either a cake or a plate of biscuits to the competition to be raffled off for charity.

Men's cake winner and resident Tony Powell says he has had good fun in the competition, but he entered first and foremost for the cause behind it.

'I don't get involved with a lot of things in the village but this one appealed to me so I thought, why not give it a go.

'It's not exactly Master Chef, but we gave it a good go.”

He says he's not much of a baking man, but he does have a love for cooking. And he says full credit for the recipe is due to no other than Nigella Lawson.

'The first thing I thought of going into it was what would be a good taste, I come up with coffee and walnut.

'I ended up looking up some recipes based on that flavour and picked one of Nigella's because it looked straightforward and simple.”

Tony says it was trial and error, but he takes full credit for baking the masterpiece.

'I'm a bit funny about it, if anyone else comes in the kitchen you sort of don't want them to interfere because you're working through something.

'It was pretty straightforward but decorating it was a bit of a challenge.

'I actually broke the rules a bit and made another cake before the final version I entered into the competition – we wanted to try it and make sure it was okay. But it didn't get as much time or love as the one that got decorated and went on the cake stand to be raffled off.”

He says it was good fun to be a part of.

'I think all of the cakes that were entered were all delicious and it was a good competition to be part of.

'There was also a biscuit category but I didn't do too well at that. That's going to be my goal for next year.”

Sarah Al-Amar, another resident at the village says it's been fantastic to be a part of it.

'We ran the bake off last year which called on all men in the village to participate. It was really successful, but we lacked a charity to back.

'This year round we thought what better way than to have men baking for a men's charity.”

The winning baking was determined by guest judges from Papamoa Beach village, in what Sarah describes as being a fierce competition.

'They had the enviable task of judging and tasting which they did in our meeting room. They even locked the doors and it was all taken very seriously.

'People were literally pacing outside the doors.”

She agrees with Tony in that the cause behind the competition is the most important thing of all.

More than 3000 New Zealand men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year. Of those, about 600 men will die from the disease.

'It's the most diagnosed cancer in men,” says Sarah. 'The thing is it touches everyone and we wanted to do our bit. Every family and everyone has been affected in some way.”

'It actually kills more men, than women who die of breast cancer,” says Tony. 'Eileen, my wife and I, we drive a shuttle for the Cancer Society taking patients to appointments and it's great to meet people who are going through their battles with cancer and yet seeing how brave they are.”

The bake-off is just one of many community-based initiatives which are run by residents at the village.