Sweet Bait Motivates Class of 2028
Last year Katie Marie Blackwell-Martin suffered from baker-frustration syndrome when she couldn’t get the rock sugar she needed in time to create her planned masterpiece. She’d been too busy to come up with another design and scrambled to make something eye-catching and edible.
“I ended up doing a wild and crazy cake with lots of colors drizzled on it. Now looking back at it, I think I just took my frustrations out on that cake,” she said. “It looked like it landed in the middle of a paintball war.”
Such is the angst that can precede Davidson College’s Cake Race, an annual rite where first-year students run a 1.7-mile course to win the best confections, and bakers vie to create them.
Blackwell-Martin, a pastry chef for the college’s Dining Services, has spent 30 years perfecting her craft, which is indeed delicious art. And the geode design chocolate cake with salted caramel filling she’d envisioned last year came to life Wednesday for this year’s Cake Race.
“It was harder to carve out sections and anticipate the amount of space the rock sugar would fill than I originally thought,” she said. “The design did not come out exactly as I imagined, and I wish I had more time to finesse it. Overall though I was pleased with my first attempt at a geode cake.”
Her colleagues Jennie Duenas made a vegan cookie dough cake, and Angela Powell, a maple cake with spiced buttercream.
But it’s not just the pros offering their time and talent. Faculty, staff, alums, local schools and businesses show up big, with treats ranging from homemade and bakery cakes and cupcakes to ice cream cake gift cards.
This year’s offerings included a sheet cake featuring the new Wildcat mascot, complete with a QR code to vote on its name. A cake with a young woman in a kayak represented Olympian Evy Leibfarth ’25, who came home from the recent Paris games with a bronze medal in women’s canoe slalom.
And men’s tennis coach Drew Barrett, a recurring star Cake Race baker, got inspiration from Star Wars with his R2-D2 cake. First chooser Abby Smith ’28, a women’s cross country team member who won the women’s race, selected his cake.
Abby Smith ’28
Drew Barrett's R2-D2 cake
Jane Campbell and her spouse, Heather McKee, both scholar-athletes from Davidson’s class of 1987, baked prolifically for the event, with detectable offerings ranging from Funfetti cake with butter cream icing and Lemonheads to chocolate fudge brownies. Harry Carter ’28, a men’s cross country team member who won the men’s race, selected one of their many cakes as his prize.
Community Tradition
This beloved Davidson tradition began in 1930 when a track coach looking for talent came up with the idea to make first-year students race for cake. Faculty members’ wives made the cakes, and all freshmen on the then all-male campus had to run.
These days the race is voluntary, and track and cross-country runners typically finish first. Plenty of others run a respectable race and share their bounty with teammates and hallmates, flitting from floor to floor for cake tastings.
It may seem silly to outsiders, but this rite symbolizes much more than cake and racing. Bakers pour their hearts into letting newcomers know they’ve joined a caring, supportive community that’s invested in their wellbeing.
Bakers like Blackwell-Martin go to great efforts to make that point.
“I wanted to give a cake I would love to receive. Hopefully it was as appealing to this year’s runners as it was to me,” she said. “Purple and blue are my favorite colors. I have always loved amethyst both as geodes and cut stones in jewelry.
“Amethyst represents positivity and good vibes. It's just a way of me wishing the incoming class positive experiences and happiness at our school.”
Highlights from the 2024 Cake Race
Keep Reading
Academic Year Begins With Focus on 'Community of Trust'
Relive the moments of Davidson College welcoming its newest students to campus as the Class of 2028 and transfer students moved in, experienced Orientation and signed the historic Honor Code.
From around the world and country, meet the students who make up the incoming class.