Georgetown University’s Lauinger Library featured edible artwork inspired by literature at its fourth annual edible book festival April 7. 

Over 150 people attended the festival, which showcased cakes, bread and crepe sculptures reflecting the titles, themes and plots of various books. The judging panel and event attendees voted on their favorite cakes based on aesthetic appeal and taste, with entries ranging from a replica of the arena in “Hunger Games: Catching Fire” to a standing Tower of Babel inspired by the cover of “Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence”. 

Madison Cheng (CAS ’26) designed the winning cake — of both the judges’ and the people’s choice awards — to look like a bowl of noodles being pulled apart by a pair of chopsticks, inspired by the cover of Michelle Zauner’s novel, “Crying in H Mart.” 

Toni-Lee Sangastiano, an associate professor in the department of art and art history who was on the panel of judges, said the shape of the cake and the specificity of the design earned the first overall title.

“It was super creative,” Sangastiano told The Hoya. “And even just the little tiny scallions in there — the attention to detail I think was really spectacular.” 

Kimberly MacVaugh (GRD ’12), the librarian who organized the event, said the book festival merges diverse parts of Georgetown’s community. 

“I love this outreach event because it is a fun and tasty way to celebrate literacy and the joy of reading, and it incorporates creative arts like baking and decorating,” MacVaugh wrote to The Hoya. “It also brings the whole campus community into Lau.”

“We have had entries from faculty and staff across the university, even the Medical Center and Law Center, and from undergraduate and graduate students,” she added. 

MacVaugh said contestants’ creativity and willingness to push the bounds of design is evident in each cake. 

“Participants are very creative — they go all out with their ingredients, materials, inspiration — it’s like any other art project,” MacVaugh wrote to The Hoya. 

“We’ve had some very interesting entries with a gross-factor, like Miss Havisham’s Wedding Cake and Lord of the Flies cake where the design was very unappetizing (featuring edible flies),” she added.

In Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” Miss Havisham’s wedding cake sits rotting in a room covered with flies and spiders, as a symbol of decay. “Lord of the Flies” is a 1954 novel by William Golding about a group of boys who become stranded on an island which explores themes of human nature, competition, and violence. 

Sangastiano also said she enjoyed seeing how contestants’ cakes had multiple layers of interpretation. 

“Actually cutting the cakes open and seeing what the inside is, like the use of red velvet for the ‘Mockingjay,’ or even for the Aeneid, the yuzu is a roll, so it was like the roll form of the cake then formed the circle of the tree rings — that was cool,” Sangastiano said. 

A carrot cake inspired by Peter Rabbit’s garden, which featured cabbages, carrots and pumpkins in a cookie-crumble bed of dirt, took home the people’s choice award for taste. 

Beatriz de Arístegui (SFS ’26), who baked the garden-themed cake alongside Jessie Traxler (CAS ’26), Kelsey Olmen (CAS ’26), and Janie Boom (CAS ’28), said her team benefitted from working together to design the cake. 

“We sort of crowdsourced ideas of what kind of frosting we wanted to do, how we wanted to do the decorations,” Arístegui told The Hoya. 

Daphne Dresner (CAS ’28), who attended the festival, said she was impressed by participants’ creativity. 

“My friends were really, really excited about this event and it seemed really intriguing,” Dresner said. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I was really surprised — I think people were really creative.” 

Dresner said she appreciated the variety of interpretations and stories represented throughout the baked goods. 

“I like seeing people’s interpretations of different books’ stories,” Dresner told The Hoya. “I love baking at home and I love that intersection between art and baking, so it was just nice to see which stories were inspirational for different people and how they were able to turn that into something pretty.” 

Sangastiano said she enjoyed seeing the variety among all the cakes, from the physical designs to the literary inspirations they drew on. 

“Certainly the shapes of the cakes were very creative,” Sangastiano said. “I think the taste and the interpretation of each of the books was really beautiful to see.”