The Shocking Truth Behind the HUDS Birthday Cake: Important Investigative Journalism

Are you a Harvard student craving gritty, breaking news that exposes the dark underbelly of this institution? Are you a seeker of truth and lover of justice yearning for someone to expose the school’s hidden secrets?

Have no fear. Harvardians from the Yard to the Quad know the one source that delivers all this and more: Fifteen Minutes (and its team of hard-headed Woodward and Bernstein-esque reporters).

Today, you’re in luck—FM has been investigating a truly gripping mystery.

What is the deal with HUDS Birthday Cake???

Every few weeks, we students forego the oatmeal raisin cookies or Triple Berry Tea Bread (a mystery for another day), and instead eat actual dessert: “Happy Birthday Cake.” But questions remain. Who bakes these cakes? And whose birthday are we celebrating anyway?

On FM’s behalf, I volunteered to take a closer look.

My investigation was scheduled to begin at the crack of dawn, but after sleeping through three alarms and my Psychology section, I finally roll into the dining hall around 1:15 p.m. I quickly scan the desserts on offer that day: Sugar Cookies and something called Autumn Harvest Treats. No Happy Birthday Cake in sight.

My attempts to learn the origin of the cake prove unsuccessful, and I leave Annenberg with no further information. Either this mystery is way more complex than I thought, or there’s something they aren’t telling us.

Clearly, I need to take my search to the next level; I decide that my best bet is probably the Internet. My first Google hit: the HUDS website. Could the answer have been here, right under my nose, the whole time?

It appears that I’ve struck gold: on the website, I manage to track down a detailed description of Happy Birthday Cake. HUDS prominently displays the lengthy list of ingredients they use to bake the dessert. And I mean lengthy: This is no “eggs, butter, sugar, flour” recipe. HUDS is calling for everything from propylene glycol to soybean oil and xantham gum. Yum.

At the bottom of the webpage, a small asterisked note catches my eye, and I succeed in making one last, shocking discovery: Happy Birthday Cake is vegan.

What?!