Piece of cake: auction before Thanksgiving showcases bakers’ talents
Cakes of all shapes and sizes and designs awe-inspiring, funny, and also disgusting lined tables in the cafeteria. Students and staff walked by oohing and aahing, trying to decide on how much to bid on the cake they wanted to take home.
This was the annual ARHS Cake Auction, held the day before Thanksgiving break this year, as is typical. The winners were announced by the end of the day on November 27, and all proceeds from the sale went to the senior class.
According to observers, this year’s winners baked some spectacular-looking cakes. The first-place cake, Chocolate Fruit Cake (a chocolate frosted cake topped with raspberries), went to ninth graders Sophie Bergan and Clare Fortin. It sold for $60 and was bought by Superintendent Xiomara Herman.
The second place cake, an Apple Cider and Vanilla Icing Cake, was baked by senior Iris Liu. It was topped with apples that formed a rose design and was sold for $51 to senior Miles Jeffries.
The third place cake, a flat rectangular cake with frosting painted to replicate the famous Starry Night painting by Vincent Van Gogh (also called Starry Night) was won by Raquel Mazur and purchased by math teacher Geoff Friedman for $35.
The winners were all excited to share the process of making their cakes. In describing their winning cake, Bergan said her cake was coated in “chocolate buttercream, a chocolate ganache, and [had] fruit on top. It took maybe two hours to make.”
Bergan worked with Fortin to produce it. “I’ve made a bunch of things similar to it, but nothing exactly like it. Claire convinced me to enter,” she said.
The second-place cake winner Liu described her cake with the key flavors as “apple cider, cinnamon, and vanilla icing with wetted apricot jam, on the sliced apples,” Liu said. “It took me a whole two days to make it.” Liu had previous experiences baking for special occasions, her specialty being pineapple cake tarts but she said she tried “something new: with her apple cider cake.
Raquel Mazur, who won third overall made the ‘Starry Night’ chocolate cake, topped with buttercream frosting.“The key flavor was chocolate, but the more important part was the decoration on top which was an imitation of the famous Starry Night,” said Mazur.
The process of baking can be arduous, taking hours to complete but it is entirely worth the work to Mazur. “I have been going through phases of baking ever since I can remember,” she said. “I enjoy both the process and the product, as it is time to relax and then allows you to enjoy something with others.”
Mazur worked on her cake as an assignment in AP World History. Students in teacher Christopher Gould’s class were encouraged to bake a cake based on “a moment between the 1200s and now, reflecting any area of the world outside of the US.” Though many members of the class entered the competition, Mazur was the only winner among them.
Gould said he was happy to see such enthusiastic approaches to the assignment, with students creating cakes on Renaissance art, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, Da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, and more. “They’re all winners in my class,” said Gould.
All proceeds from the Cake Auction, “between 500 and 600 dollars,” will go to the senior Class Council, said Counseling Office Administrative Assistant Wilnelia Melendez.
