DPL teens kick off Summer Reading with a Cake Off!
- Sammy The Snail
- Jun 4
- 3 min read
Hey all, Sammy here to report on this week's DPLteens!
It was crushed cookies and colorful candy chaos in the newly renovated library kitchen on Tuesday. Teens who had attended the Cake Off Take Over TAB meeting at the end of May reconvened to decorate cakes Miss Sacha had baked for them using random cake pans from our collection. We had six total cakes with 4 teams and 2 individuals who entered the competition:
This amazing edible art was created after Miss Sacha taught teens how to create their desired color of frosting and about the importance of a crumb coat. Miss Sacha also worked in some color theory knowledge, and at least some of this information must have sunk in to produce these colorful creations!
Oddly enough, there were exactly 6 categories these cakes were competing in, along with two awards for individual decorators. After a lot of mixing, crushing, sprinkling, and a lot of noise, the judges (Jessica and Makiah) examined each creation and heard from each decorating team about their vision. And after much deliberation and careful thought, the awards were as follows:
Most Ambitious Cake went to 🎵Butterfly in the Sky🎶 (you have to sing it) by The Last Olympians (Charlotte; Simon; Kainan, who isn't pictured; & Emma, who could only make it to the planning session). Their goals for this strawberry cake may not have been achieved, but they included a song in their presentation to the judges. Charlotte also got the Messiest Decorator award due to all the green icing left in her wake.
Most Chaotic Cake was awarded to Bryce's Unicorn Dreams. Named for the decorations applied and not the shape of the pan used. Because Unicorn dreams are probably beautifully overwhelming and chaotic! Bryce went abstract with his use of colorful candies, sprinkles, and cookies on his dark chocolate and mint swirled cake!
Most Creative Use of Candy went to the Pirates of the Cake-i-bbean (Lorelei, Emeline, & Joel, who could only make it for the planning session) for creating various candy sea monsters, ships, treasure, and an edible Sammy the Snail (IT'S A LITTLE CANDY ME!) on their lemon-flavored treasure map adventure! Lorelei was also our Cleanest Decorator, having no icing or crumbs on herself or her apron at the end of the event!
Our Most Efficient Cake went to Zoë for her precise use of candy and icing on her Rainbow Brite cake. She had a very colorful and neat cake asking us all to have a Rainbow Day with her M&M star and rainbow-sprinkled Chocolate cake! Check out that perfectly piped outline!
Best Adapted Cake Pan went to sisters Hannah and Abi, the team who had randomly drawn an Old World Santa cake pan and turned it into Beach Bum Santa, complete with a bomb pop, Hawaiian shirt, and a last-minute but excellent pink flamingo on a Strawberry cake!
Last but certainly not least, our Best Decorated Cake went to Magical Sunflower by The Twins, Kinlee and Reagen! Their red velvet cake had a variety of yellow candies to make the flower's petals, with a mini chocolate chip center and swirly green icing leaves. The entire cake shimmered with edible glitter, I mean "Magic!"
Congratulations to all of our Teen Cake Off winners and to library staff who now have all kinds of cake to eat for the foreseeable future!
We also thank the FOL, Library Board members, and all who supported the renovation for ensuring we had an amazing new kitchen and appliances for food programs like this!
Be on the lookout for future food events, and we'll see you again at next Summer Reading's Teen Cake Off because we are totally doing this again next year!
Your favorite pink snail,
