This past week Horizon Honors culinary class participated in a cupcake competition against the other groups in their class. It was a fun and exciting day for teams to make a cupcake of their choice – from scratch – that they had chosen weeks before. It was a very stressful and intense 50 minutes for many, but still an enjoyable experience.

Each group had to find a creative recipe and come up with a cute presentation. The variety of cupcakes ranged from pancakes to Harry Potter-themed Butterbeer. The judges for the competition were a variety of staff members who responded to an email that was sent out by Tamara Heinrich. There were a different set of teachers for every class. These couple of teachers got to take a few minutes out of their day and enjoy four or five delicious cupcakes.  

The Horizon Sun: What gave you the idea to do “Cupcake Wars”?

Tamara Heinrich: I got the idea because I love watching “Cupcake Wars” on TV. It is a cute challenge.

The Horizon Sun: How long have you been doing this in your class?

TH: From the beginning of when I started teaching, so this is our fourth year.

The Horizon Sun: What is your favorite part?

TH: My favorite part is watching the students work together. In very stressful situations like that, where you have a time limit, a lot of times they can get really impatient with each other or frustrated but the opposite happens in my classes. Everyone starts to work together as a team and they are all surprised by how well they do. I think that is really cool.

The Horizon Sun: Are there any other challenges that you do throughout the year?

TH: Yes, we do a Chopped challenge as well, which is a lot of fun.

This was a fun and interesting way to learn how to work with others under difficult time limits. The students had to divide and conquer in order to get the job done which is crucial to know for future life tasks.