The University of Idaho Sustainability Center and Sodexo hosted “Cake Court” on Wednesday as a fun event for Earth Fest other than lectures about the earth’s condition, Sustainability Center Project Coordinator Wieteke Holthuijzen said.
Campus Dining Services | Courtesy
Alex Rhealt gets ready to decorate a cake at Cake Court, an event hosted by the University of Idaho Sustainability Center and Sodexo, at the University of Idaho Commons food court. Teams competed to decorate cakes with an environmental theme and students at the food court helped to vote for the winners.
“How it relates to Earth Fest — this is kind of like our fun event because we’re trying to raise awareness about eating local foods, so that’s why we have cakes with local ingredients in it,” Holthuijzen said.
Sodexo Marketing Coordinator Stephanie Payne said the purpose of “Cake Court” is also to encourage UI students to use local ingredients made by the local famers, which includes Shepherd’s Grain.
“We want to highlight Shepherd’s Grain and our local farmers that are organically growing wheat,” Payne said.
While Shepherd’s Grain provided the ingredients for the cakes, Sodexo and the Vandal Bakery baked the cakes and also provided cake decorations, Payne said.
There were three teams of three people and they were given 60 minutes to decorate a cake with an environmental theme. Students at the Idaho Commons were judges. Each winning team received T-shirts, reusable shopping bags, Vandal pouches and free Einstein’s lattes, Payne said.
The winning team decorated their cake with an ocean theme. They were three UI students from Delta Delta Delta Sorority.
“I thought it was fun, I liked it a lot,” said Melanie Martin, one of the winning members.
Katie Bisig, another team member, said they knew the event was cake decorating, but didn’t know it was a competition.
The winning cake was served as dessert for Green Lunches, another Earth Fest event on Wednesday.
Payne said overall “Cake Court” was successful.
“I can’t wait to do it next year. We had a good time,” Payne said. “I am going to continue to do it for sure — we had a blast and we made a lot of people participate.”
Nurainy Darono can be reached at [email protected]