Bake Your Research Competition 2025
Postgraduate Researchers were encouraged to express their research through homemade baked goods, crafted solely by themselves. Please take a moment to review the submissions and vote for your favourite!
Are we making urban wildlife sick?
Georgia Freer
School of Natural Sciences
The Research behind the bake:
My research aims to find out if urban animals (foxes and hedgehogs) are sicker than their rural counterparts, the potential factors underlying this, as well as the effect of sickness on an individual’s stress levels, boldness and optimism.
About the bake
A three tier vanilla sponge cake with buttercream (“grass”), raspberry jam filling, royal icing and fondant (fox and worms).
The Pet Love Paradox: Devotion and Harm in Human-Dog Relationships
Eilidh Gilbert
School of Natural Sciences
The Research behind the bake:
The majority of dog owners are kind and loving individuals who care deeply for their pets. However, many people also routinely use animal care and training practices that harm the animals. Therefore, there is an obvious difference between the love that people feel for their pets and the actions that they perform towards those pets. This is what I describe as the pet love paradox. Uncovering the reasons for this paradox is very relevant for improving companion animal welfare. To develop effective interventions to change how people behave toward their pets and encourage them to adopt positive animal care and training methods, we must build a better understanding of the reasons why people behave the way they do.
About the bake:
Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing and coconut, mint, sugar topping. Decorations:
Dog and Man = Rice Krispies treats covered in fondant
Frisbee & Rabbits = biscuits
Collar, Leash, Roses, Bees, Bowl, Bones & Cat = fondant
Bushes = marshmallows covered in coconut
Trees = ice cream cones covered in coconut
Hedge = Rice Krispies treat covered in coconut.
Obesity awareness and related health issues among female students
Zunaira Kalsoom
School of Health and Care Services
The Research behind the bake:
Obesity is significant health concern worldwide, with increasing prevalence among adolescents, particularly in females. Female students are often at risk due to poor dietary habits, limited physical activity and body image concern. The main objectives of research are:
– Assess the level of obesity and its associated health risks.
– To identify the relationship between awareness of obesity and its associated health risks.
– To investigate the dietary habits, physical activity level and body image perceptions in relation to obesity among female students.
– To recommend interventions based on findings to improve obesity-related awareness and promote healthier lifestyle.
Methodology of research: Cross-sectional descriptive study using qualitative and quantitative methods. The study will focus on collecting data via surveys, interviews and focus group to understand level of awareness. The target population will be female students aged 20-30. A sample size of 500 female students across different age group, socio-economic backgrounds and academic disciplines.
About the bake:
A wholemeal banana muffin, reduced in sugar and fat, decorated with a sugar-free glaze to reflect healthy eating choices in obesity awareness
The Library House: Landscape, Layers and the Local
Rebecca Kershaw
Lincoln School of Creative Arts
The Research behind the bake:
This is a creative practice as research project comprising a novel and an autoethnographic critical commentary. The research is based in the Isle of Axholme, an historically significant landscape but one where both the literary and cultural archives are thin and which is threatened by rising sea levels. The writing of the novel will accompany a parallel exploration of the landscape and its associated archive, examining through mixed methods how the natural and cultural landscapes fit together and how creative practice may serve them in the light of current threats. The Library House itself is a repository for books, maps, papers and ephemera and the novel captures the many lives of the house, its inhabitants and the surrounding landscape at a time of challenge and change.
About the bake:
A dark fruit cake with almond paste and fondant icing.
Museums, Young People and Education: A Historical Study
Megan Schlanker
Lincoln School of Humanities and Heritage
The Research behind the bake:
My research focuses on the development of museum education as a profession and the experiences of children in museums in the twentieth century. The biscuits are shaped and decorated based on commonly identified highlights from childhood trips to museums, and museum education practices including worksheets.
About the bake:
Iced biscuits
Content Warning: The following images contain visual references to nicotine, alcohol, condoms, pills, a pregnancy test, and tampons.
The RSHE paradox. Investigating the power paradigms in English relationships and sex education
Charlotte Shaw
Lincoln School of Education and Communication
The Research behind the bake:
My research is about the RSHE paradox whereby RSHE is the only statutory national curriculum subject that it is not possible to train as a specialist teacher in. The crumbling base of meringue is the fragile CPD and the space in-between represents the lack of ITT within RSHE. The cake is lemon drizzle to capture the heteronormativity of the statutory guidance. It is encased in vanilla buttercream, representing the teachers – literally the glue which hold together the cake (policy) atop of the meringue (lack of training). The cake is tied in ribbon with the colours of the trans flag – to position the cake within the complexities of the schools’ gender advice and guidance. It is adorned with artefacts representing curriculum content that RSHE teachers are currently expected to deliver. The cake is edible, yet not palatable. Designed to shock as a nod to queer theory’s disruptive methodological nature.
About the bake:
Lemon drizzle, on a meringue base with vanilla buttercream. Finished with a homemade blackberry jam and a cookies and cream edible lube.