A Cake Seventy Years in the Making

Students wait to receive the last slices of the Kirby Student Center cake. Photo credit: Joshua Waller

Kirby Student Center celebrated its 70th anniversary Thursday, Oct. 1, with a cake that was, by nearly every measurement, enormous.

Kirby Student Center has been the heart of campus life since it first opened for use on Oct. 1, 1956. This also marked the first day of the academic quarter and school year for the 1956-1957 school year. Back then, the academic year was split into quarters instead of semesters.

To celebrate this historic milestone, Kirby partnered with Dining Services to mark the occasion with a 4-by-6-foot cake made from nine sheet cakes, each weighing 24 pounds. The cake took about 20 hours of labor to prepare and required approximately 130 pounds of icing. 

Once assembled, the finished cake covered 24 square feet and was cut into more than 900 slices.

Jeni Eltink, Kirby Student Center Director, said, “The idea for this cake was inspired by Kirby’s thirtieth anniversary. In 1986, a 4-by-6-foot sheet cake was made, and we thought that it was a great tradition to bring back for this occasion.” This year, Eltink contacted Dining Services to begin planning to make sure this event could happen.

“This couldn’t have been done without Amanda,” Eltink said.

Amanda Bergstedt, the Sous Chef of UMD Dining Services, was in charge of making this monstrous cake. For Bergstedt, the project was the largest of her career.

“It’s been a huge project that has been in the works since the summer,” Bergstedt said. “This was really important to be a part of. It was awesome to be included. I’m happy it went off without a hitch.”

The cake was scheduled to be served beginning at 11 a.m. after a word from Eltink to celebrate this occasion and continue to be served until 3 p.m.

Students and Staff wait in line to get the last few slices of cake.

It did not make it that far.

By 12:15 p.m., every slice had been handed out and devoured.

“We were a cake serving machine,” Eltink joked as they began cleaning up.

With how fast the cake disappeared, maybe Kirby should start preparing to make a replica of the building out of cake for its 75th anniversary.

Keep an eye out for other events celebrating Kirby’s anniversary around campus. Here’s to another 70 years of “Creating community at the heart of campus.”