As the end of the semester approaches, a brand-new club is baking up a fun new way to escape everyday stress while making new friends, memories and recipes.
Roommates Danica Cutler, a freshman studying biology and Mackenzie Riemer, a freshman studying pre-nursing, enjoyed making different dessert recipes together in the Towers Hall kitchen to decompress after a long week.
When the pair was looking for a club to join, they struggled to find one that felt like a good fit. Instead, they had the idea to start something entirely new.
“Some clubs are really specific, and some of them don’t meet very often,” Cutler said. “So, we were like, ‘How about a Baking Club? That sounds like something people would like to do.”
Cutler and Riemer thought other students could benefit from the stress relief of baking, just like they did.
The roommates felt baking was the perfect activity to bring people together, with Riemer describing baking as “very inclusive”.
“There are no skills you already need to know,” she said. “Whether [students are] just looking at a recipe card or have a lot of prior knowledge, everybody can be included in it, because there’s no skill set that’s already required for it.”
Riemer also said learning new recipes is a great learning experience. Getting the opportunity to experiment and practice through the club will be especially beneficial to college students who might not have access to a kitchen.
“In college, we have such limited space for ingredients and things,” she said. “This is a perfect way to make use of what we have around.”
The club had its first meeting on Monday, April 6. Cutler and Riemer said 12 students attended.
“I’m so excited about it,” Riemer said about the turnout. “I honestly was not expecting a really great outcome because it was kind of random, and nobody really knows who we are. Everyone was super into it and really excited about the opportunity to bake with other people.”
While the first meeting was all about planning what’s next for the club, the attendees’ excitement stood out to Cutler and Riemer.
“We talked about what we wanted out of the club, what recipes we wanted to make, when we wanted to meet, fundraisers we wanted to do and we showed the kitchen off,” Cutler said, adding that while they initially planned to meet once every other week, the excited club members wanted to meet weekly to make the most of the remainder of the semester.
The club is open to all students and will hold meetings at 5:15 p.m. on Mondays in the Towers Hall kitchen for the remainder of the semester. Those interested in joining can learn more on the club’s Instagram, @bakingclubboisestate, or on the club’s CampusGroups website.
