CAKE GARNISHING
Cakes are used as a metaphor for a project or concept, with ingredients representing aspects for success. The activity entails participants decorating cakes in accordance with a concept such as trust-building, where the ingredients resemble aspects, activities or values for success.
Cake decorating can be held in workshops or at stalls. People are invited to decorate cakes according to the concept being explored. They are then invited to share and discuss what different ingredients they have used and what they each represent.
It encourages communication and idea generation through a fun and engaging activity, whilst also bringing together participants that may not usually interact.
Overview of the Engagement Tool/Innovation:
In this engagement tool cakes are used as a metaphor for a project or concept with the ‘ingredients’ for success being discussed. Cakes are used as ‘communicative artefacts’. The activity involves decorating pre-made cakes in a workshop. Examples where this engagement tool has been used include a case study where cake-decorating was used to facilitate co-design to address material inequity and poverty and explore the idea of trust and trust-building (Clarke et al 2018). Participants were asked to decorate cakes as imagined gifts for service users they might engage with. They wrote words on postcards which represented the ‘ingredients’ needed to build trust. This encouraged discussion about trust-building and partnerships. This form of engagement can be used where budgets are constrained. It can also encourage people to get involved that might not usually engage.
Role in decision-making:
This method can be used at an early stage of decision-making such as agenda-setting or strategic direction, because it can be designed to elicit participants’ ideas on less tangible aspects of a project. It can be used to highlight important qualities in a project or organisation, including values. There are ideas below for incorporating this method into later stages of planning by using cakes as a more literal representation of a park or other space.
Engaging: it can facilitate exploration of concepts and what is needed to be successful in a fun and engaging way.
Suitable for:
It is an inclusive method on the whole, but care should be taken to minimise risk for those with allergies etc. If your organisation prioritises healthy eating, it might be helpful to make lots of fruit and vegetables available as snacks alongside the cakes which are made. This method could work with any age group, and if someone lacks the dexterity to decorate a cake, they could give input while someone else does the physical work. If someone might struggle with spoken word, they could use an AAC device of their choosing. It’s worth noting that similar techniques have been used to facilitate communication with people who might struggle with communication, alongside those from different community groups. This could include autistic people and people who do not speak English as a first language. Because hospitality and sharing food can be ways to cross cultural barriers, it can help involve people from marginalised cultural backgrounds.
Resources needed:
Facilitators are needed to organise and run workshops. Good facilitation skills are useful, as it’s important to open up conversations and acknowledge contributions. Ingredients and cake decorating tools and equipment are needed, alongside pre-made cakes and cleaning materials.
Advantages:
- Can help open-up discussion of abstract concepts.
- Relatively low cost.
- It will likely appeal to a range of people, including children, as it is fun and engaging.
- It allows people to be creative and for the facilitator to engage the participant in discussion while they design the cake – which gives them an opportunity to make notes.
Challenges:
- It requires in-person workshops or stations.
- Dietary requirements need to be accommodated and risk managed.
Sources, good practice and case studies:
Rachel Elizabeth Clarke, Jo Briggs, Andrea Armstrong, Alistair MacDonald, John Vines, Emma Flynn & Karen Salt (2021) Socio-materiality of trust: co-design with a resource limited community organisation, CoDesign, 17:3, 258-277, DOI:10.1080/15710882.2019.1631349 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15710882.2019.1631349
This paper explains how the idea was used in community groups.