Written by Mattie Powers // Photo by Lauren Simmons
The Student Association (SA) held a pie bake off March 14 in the Olen Hendrix Building to celebrate Pi Day.
Students signed up in teams to face off in a challenge that took place in the Olen Hendrix kitchen. The competition started at 6:30 p.m. Five teams signed up to test their skills in the kitchen, baking a variety of pies from a derby pie all the way to a pizza pie.
Teams were allowed to come to the competition with their pie crust already made, but the rest of the pie needed to be made at the bake off. One of the judges was family and consumer sciences assistant professor Megan Jones, who talked about how this competition impacts her department.
“I just love that this space is being used,” Jones said. “A lot of people don’t know about it, and they walk in, and they’re just surprised, and I just love it. I mean I teach the classes that we use in here, Food Science and a class called Family Resource Management, and I just love that people are coming in and using it and doing something that I love doing: cooking.”
The other judges for the competition consisted of assistant professor of business David Kee and both the male and female junior representatives from the SA, Ella Duryea and Max Guyer. Duryea talked about her favorite part of the bake off and what made it so special for everyone involved.
“My favorite part, honestly, is that I have never seen almost any of these people, but we’re all here together and having a good time,” Duryea said. “I think food is something that brings people together, and to get to enjoy it with people I’ve never met before is really sweet.”
One of the students competing in the competition was sophomore Ella Smith, and her team made a dark chocolate pecan pie with homemade whipped cream on top. Smith described what appealed to her about this competition.
“I like being with my friends doing this ‘cause usually when I’m baking it’s me by myself and all of my other friends are just doing whatever,” Smith said. “I’m just usually like, ‘I have free time; I’m just going to do this,’ but this is fun because I’m right here, and we’re literally just laughing the whole time,” Smith said.
The winners of the bake off were senior Ragan Edison, sophomore Lauren McDuffie and freshman Kiersten Mahan, and their prizes were baking supplies, a box of cookies and gummy bears.
