On Thursday the 28th of November, alongside the CHS society (Combined Honours), the baking society partnered up and created an intersocial baking event to raise money for charity, filling the NUSU History room with eager cake decorators, excitement and festive music.
Baking is more than just a way to bake delicious sweet and savoury treats, it’s relaxing, enjoyable and allows your creativity to spread far between designs, scents and flavours. Nothing beats the smell of freshly made bread or soft and warm chocolate chip cookies.
Now for university students, baking can be a fun, cheap activity to input into your weekly schedule, become closer with flatmates or even just spend quality time with yourself.
As through Newcastle University’s extra-curriculars, anyone is warmly welcome to join the baking society, where they invite their attendees to take part in weekly bakes and social events such as trying out café all around Newcastle.
I had the opportunity to chat with both the President of the baking society, Anastasia Decoster, and the Head of the CHS, Myca Lockhart where I was able to discover the ins and outs of this cake filled, charity raising party.
Myca spoke about how the two societies ‘hadn’t collaborated before’ but when they had their first conversation at the freshers’ fair, ‘they were really friendly, which made it an easy process’ to work together.
The charities were chosen by voting on the day.
The four charities chosen were ‘Guide Dogs Uk’, ‘Royal National Lifeboat Institution’, ‘Mind’ and ‘Feeding Families’.
The organisers of this events felt these were ‘nice charities to help out’ as for example student mental health with ‘Mind’ or the struggle of weekly food shops with ‘Feeding Families’.
Myca explained how the opportunity to do charity support best works well with food events as they ‘do well’, who doesn’t love some cake decorating and sweet treats?
With lots of cakes to decorate and toppings to choose from this sweet afternoon was a great way to chill out, chat with friends whilst giving something back. During decorating a few bits myself, I was able to chat to Anastasia a little more about the baking society specifically.
She explained how the society uses ‘simple bakes’ to welcome a wide range of attendees from avid bakers to newcomers, creating this inclusive and friendly environment.
Similarly, to further this inclusivity, the Instagram page is regularly uploaded with ‘polls’ to decide which bakes are next on the agenda.
For example, Anastasia added how popular the ‘gingerbread cookies’ were.
Whilst baking events are the what the baking society is all about, other events such as café socials are up on the list with previous meet up at the Dog and Scone café near Bigg Market.
Anastasia also mentioned they are hoping to ‘try and do a bake off’ so keep a look out for that over on their Instagram page!
Overall, the charity voted was ‘Feeding Families’. Keep a look out for further events each of these societies do over on their Instagram accounts.
Head over to my social media page to check out all the Newcastle foodie information you need and whether you love to bake or love to eat baked goods, don’t forget to comment your favourite sweet and savoury treat. Look at my previous foodie stories also.
Megan Davis
Great post Megan!!
This looks like a great event! Very informative read 🙂