The Boston College Baking Club is a new club on campus this year that has garnered a surprising amount interest from students.
The club was founded by a group of students who believed that there was nothing else like it on campus, who knew that the potential interest level would be high, and who felt that campus needed something fun and different.
The group had 550 sign-ups at the Student Involvement Fair in September and currently has approximately 350 actively involved students on its listserv.
“Our goal with the club is to hold events where students have a chance to take a break from work and either participate in the preparing and baking of food, or just come to hang out and spend time with friends while listening to music and eating delicious desserts,” said Courtney Roggekamp, BC Baking Club president and CSOM ’17.
The BC Baking Club differentiates itself from other clubs on campus through the casual social atmosphere it provides for its members.
“I love dessert and I love to bake, and my favorite experience with the BC Baking Club so far has been meeting people and spending time with people,” Roggekamp said.
Many members of the club already enjoy baking as a hobby, and the club gives members an opportunity to share a common experience with others.
Club leaders emphasize that members are not required to bake in order to come to meetings or events and are welcome to just come socialize and try new desserts.
However, members are able to participate in a variety of roles in the club, such as baking, preparing and organizing events, socializing, teaching recipes and skills, facilitating community outreach, and even just eating what other members have baked to share.
This semester the BC Baking Club has had two major events. One was a co-hosted open mic event with BC Wishmakers and BC Slam!, where members of the Baking Club were in charge of making pancakes for the event’s attendees.
The other event featured a “no bake” recipe and took place a few weeks ago.
“We’ve had one ‘no bake event’ where members were invited to stop by and make their own puppy chow [a treat made of Chex rice cereal squares, melted chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar] and caramel apples,” Roggenkamp said. “We were excited to have around 50 to 60 members come to the event.”
The group is event-centered, with one event happening every few months so far.
Club leaders are certain that once they are able to secure a permanent spot to meet and have more ovens to bake their goods in that they will be able to have more regular meetings.
“Right now, we bake at the Shaw House and in [upperclassmen] members’ personal kitchens, but we are hopeful to find a more permanent solution,” Roggenkamp said.
“We’ve run into some problems regarding a permanent location because there currently aren’t ovens we can use with a large enough space for more than a few members to participate in. Thus, we are doing what we can for now until this problem is solved.”
Its members believe that the BC Baking Club has a promising future, and the sophomore student leaders have many long-term ideas and goals for the future of the club.
“We have a bunch of different ideas we’d like to pursue, but some of them just aren’t plausible yet with the oven situation,” Roggekamp said.
Potential ideas for the future include a holiday cookie swap, a bake-off event with two teams and judges modeled after the television show Cupcake Wars on TLC, a culture event where students would bake desserts from different cultures and share them with the group, and having individual members teach the group how to make a specific recipe or how to do a specific skill, such as cake decorating.
Featured Image by BC Baking Club
