Once again, Penn State has been challenged to a Bake Off and we need your help!
Monash University has engaged us in a friendly competition and the university with the most entries wins the Grand Champion Trophy.
Channel your inner chef and help Penn State win The Great Rare Books Bake Off!
GET INVOLVED
- Choose any recipe (at right) from either Penn State or Monash that you’d like to bake
- Bake the recipe and take a photo or video of your finished product (baking fails welcome!)
- Submit your entries by posting to Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, including the hashtag #TheGreatRareBooksBakeOff and either #BakeMonash or #BakePennState to show which university you baked for. Make sure your account is set to public to be included in the competition. If you don’t use social media, you can submit your entry via this form.
- The competition begins on 30 September 2023 and closes on 8 October 2023, so make sure you post during those dates and use the hashtags to make it count. Follow @psu_scl (Instagram) and @psu_scl (Twitter) during those dates for regular updates.
Our “resident” bakers, Associate Professor of Renaissance Literature, Marissa Nicosia (Penn State Abington) and Curator of Special Collections, Anne Holloway (Monash), are leading the charge by demonstrating their baking prowess to inspire us. Follow along on Instagram @psu_scl, Twitter @psu_scl, and Facebook @psulibs and on Professor Nicosia’s Cooking in the Archives project site or @rarecooking for updates and recipe insights.
THE PRIZE
The University Library with the most participants in The Great Rare Books Bake Off will win possession of The Grand Champion Trophy to proudly display in their spaces. This handsomely engraved trophy, known to most as The Kudos Plate, is a vintage pie tin purchased from Apple Hill Antiques in State College, Pennsylvania on June 26th, 2020.
The pie tin was created in the early 1930s for the Mrs. Smith’s Delicious Home Made Pies Company, a business founded by Amanda Smith in Pottstown, Pennsylvania in 1925. Scholars generally agree that at some point between the tin’s initial creation in the early 1930s and the tin’s purchase in June of 2020, the pie which originally filled the tin was eaten by 1 or more unknown Pennsylvanians. While not verifiable, rumors persist that after that initial pie was fully consumed, the tin was used by its owners to create a number of their own homemade pies, many of which were likely also consumed before the tin’s acquisition by Apple Hill Antiques.
2020 Winner: Penn State
2021 Winner: Monash
2022 Winner: Monash
2023 Winner: Penn State