Many students may not think about what their professors do outside of their classes, but some have surprising lives like teaching pop star themed cookie decorating classes.
Tina Bhargava is more than a Kent State Public Health professor: she is the owner of Just Add Cookies. A small Kent business centered around sugar cookies that are handmade and decorated.
The cookie classes are held in Bell Tower Brewing Co. and consist of max 16 students per class. Lined-up tables with all the supplies an attendee would need from the cookies and icing to scrapers, scribes and sprinkles sit in the brewery’s sunny church-like room.
One of her most recent classes, the “Are You Ready For It” class consisted of a snake, cardigan, heart, friendship bracelet and bodysuit shaped cookies for everyone to decorate.
Though she does much more than music star themes, her April classes focused largely on Taylor Swift, just in time for her “The Tortured Poet’s Department” album release.
Custom cookies, a cookie club, classes and events are all aspects of her business she does in addition to teaching and advancing her individual research. One of her main research areas is mental bandwidth, which she describes as how much space we use within our brain to do activities and have the capacity for them. Certain things drain or refresh mental bandwidths.
“The reason I started doing cookies is it refreshes my bandwidth,” Bhargava says. “In terms of my research area, I like having a creative outlet for me, a good bandwidth refresher.I like teaching the cookie classes because it gives other people a chance to take a break and do something fun and creative.”
She does exactly that according to one repeat veteran of the classes.
Sara Mulcahy, a double-time attendee of the Just Add Cookies classes with her friends, loves the classes but loves the cookies and glitter even more.
“The class is very well planned out,” Mulcahy says. “Tina is very informative, the cookies are adorable and you get to use edible glitter.”
Other than making the cookies and icing, attendees also get to decorate them from start to finish.
The whole point of the class is to reduce the stress of baking. Bhargava wants the only thing on a student’s mind is to have fun. She prepares everything they needed and details each step to guarantee they only had to worry about the actual experience.
Throughout the class, she constantly reiterates how students should get rid of perfectionism and just have fun.
“We’re not going to try to make perfect cookies,” Bhargava said. “One of the fun things about hand-decorated cookies is that they’re all different from each other, we are not machines replicating it each time.”
