Looking Delicious

Since the first time I saw an episode of Ace of Cakes on the Food Network, I'd been amazed with the creativity that fondant made p0ssible. Before the use of fondant in cake design, there was the constraint of what would be able to hold up in what size and for how long. This new sturdier material allowed for a new way of thinking, to create a new kind of cake.

The people who work at Charm City Cakes, who are the stars of the television show, are masters of creating art using edible food materials. Their cakes have such intricate detail and realness that I almost don't want to cut it up to eat because it would be like destroying someone's art. I feel like the greatest appeal to these cakes, such as the ones listed under "shaped" on Charm City Cakes gallery on their website, is that if a person wasn't informed that it was a cake, they probably wouldn't make that their first guess. My favorite example, is the crayon box cake because everything from the images on the signature green and yellow box to the shape of the crayons is so accurate in the replication.

Crayon box birthday cake. Photo courtesy of Charm City Cakes.

This idea of creating something that changes the look of the material people expect is really interesting. It's like the food shaped erasers I find in Japanese $1 stores. They look so much like shrunken foods, but at the touch we know it is a bouncy eraser.

Food shaped erasers. Photo courtesy of Vat 19.

We can also see this is in food being transformed into fashion pieces. Sweets, such as sugar and chocolate, were used by Japanese patissier Koutatsu Kanda during the Tokyo Sweets Collection in Tokyo. Models wore extravagant masks, hair pieces, and hats made from sweets. Looking at some of the photos, I wouldn't be able to tell that the material being used to make these pieces were edible. To me, they looked like dramatic costume pieces with no hint that they were food, except for the one cake shaped hat.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo News.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo News.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo News.

I find this to be an interesting new way of designing. It is a new way of thinking, and adds extra interest to the final piece when the audience finds out what it really is that they are looking at. The piece becomes more dynamic as it can be viewed as what it appears to be, and also as the material which is what it really is in essence.