Boston University put its sweet tooth to the test in a Disney-themed cake decorating competition on Thursday.
About 24 students, divided into eight teams, competed in Boston University’s Culinary Arts and Kitchen Entertainment’s cake decorating extravaganza at the George Sherman Union.
Groups had two hours to make the best Disney-themed cake.
“We had two cooking competitions [last year], so this year we wanted to have a baking competition, so we decided to have a cake decorating competition and the club itself got to vote on what the theme was going to be,” said C.A.K.E. co-founder and co-president Michelle Rappoli, a senior in the School of Hospitality Administration.
Rappoli, who has a degree in baking from the Culinary Institute of America, said the Disney theme won by a landslide against the proposed Halloween and Harry Potter themes.
The club’s following has increased from 80 to 446 members this year, 40 percent of whom are freshman, said club co-founder and co-president Lyndsay Maggin, a senior in the School of Management.
Since many people from the club wanted to participate in the competition, the club had to pick competitors at random in order to form eight teams consisting of no more than three members, Rappoli said.
Judges included Maggin, two members of C.A.K.E. selected at random and a chef from Dining Services.
“We’re mostly going to be judging based on creativity and how they present their Disney theme in the cake, because we know they’re not professionals, it’s a very amateur kind of a thing but we want them to have fun with it and see what they can do,” Rappoli said. “So we’re not going to be very technical with details and stuff as long as they got their idea across and it ends up looking good and has good colors.”
Once time was up, all eight cakes were set on a table and the judges announced the “Hakuna Matata” cake as the winner and the “Jungle Book” cake as the people’s choice.
School of Education freshman Deanna Abbondola, who said she has her own catering business at home, helped design the first place Hakuna Matata-themed cake, taken from the Disney movie “The Lion King”.
“It’s a scene from Hakuna Matata, so it is the rain forest kind of area with Simba and the log with all the bugs,” she said.
“It’s [cake decoration] fun, creative and yummy,” said College of Arts and Sciences freshman Amanda Durocher, whose team designed the “Jungle Book”-themed cake with character Baloo floating in a river with Mowgli on his stomach.
Other participants were equally as creative in their Disney designs.
CAS freshman Manasi Gaje and her team made a three-layer “Little Mermaid” cake, featuring characters Ariel and Eric sitting at the top.
“It’s the moment before Ariel and Eric kiss,” she said.
She said watching the Food Network and baking with her mother helped fuel her love of cake decoration.
Overall participants said the cake contest was fun and delicious.
“Who doesn’t like cake?” said College of General Studies freshman Jeremy Lowe. “I love cake, so when I saw it I said, “I want to go decorate a cake’ …I don’t want to do homework, I want to decorate a cake and then eat it.”
“Cake makes everything better,” added CAS freshman Emily Mann, who worked on the “Winnie the Pooh” cake.
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