The winner of Edible Book Festival 2023: Field of Sweets' Viola Davis cake

This past Saturday, the University Library hosted the Edible Book Festival at Martinelli’s Market in Champaign. The festival has been a staple Champaign-Urbana foodie event for 16 years.

Winning both Best Visual Presentation and People’s Choice for the 2023 festival, this two-tiered cake by Tiara Winfield of Field of Sweets was inspired the novel Finding Me by Viola Davis.

In the novel, Davis mentioned her wedding cake, and Winfield baked this cake with the same flavors: triple berry cake with whipped icing. The talented cake artist (who has only been making cakes for two years!) expertly sculpted a life-size Viola Davis out of chocolate with a lemon blueberry cake with cream cheese icing filling. Even the excerpts from the book were printed on edible paper with edible ink. Check out Field of Sweets on Instagram or on Facebook for more of her work.

There were four other entries in the 2023 Edible Book Festival.

Made by last year’s People’s Choice winner Adelaide Kota, this heart cake was entered with the novel Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber.

This creation was The Berenstain Breads by Sana Saboowala.

These cakepops were inspired by the book called Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker.

Inspired by the novel Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell, this Chex Mix and red wine pairing entry by Jill Blandinelli was titled Chex and the City.

Follow the University Library on Facebook for updates about next year’s Edible Book Festival.

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