Custom designed cakes have become extremely popular nowadays and at the first sight the only reaction seems to be a kind of reverent admiration for the talent of the artists (I find hard to call them cooks) who can produce veritable edible sculptures which represent with an amazing hyperrealism all kind of things.
All kinds of things. Let’s stop for a moment on these words….I have seen cakes which looked exactly like cameras, others which were detailed reproduction of a football field with all the players and also suitcases, pieces of furniture, animals…whatever.
At the beginning all was so unusual, surprising original… Now I cannot stand these masterpieces anymore. I don’t want to eat a heap of cushion with their tassels for dessert: I want to have a slice of cake, without any make up.
Like in everything else I think it’s a little worrying when the form becomes suddenly more important than substance and maybe also these so perfect and so artificial cakes are just a metaphor of our preference for what is flashy and superficially impressive rather than for contents.
The real thing, the cake in this case, is hidden under a coat of brightly coloured “fondant”, as this sugar paste is called. It reminds me melancholy of the plasticine or modelling clay I played with as a child. I also remember the name of the brand “ Pongo”. My mother always told me to not eat my Pongo sculpture and to not put any piece of them in my mouth. Maybe my disliking for these elaborate cakes has its roots in this remote experience of play.
I don’t know. I think a good cake must be gently imperfect, to give the real impression that it was home-made, and it must let its smell come out without being imprisoned under a layer of fluorescent fondants.
Cakes are cakes and plasticine sculptures are plasticine sculptures.
I know, I know I’m a troglodyte.
I make my cakes and sweet in a totally old fashioned-way and I decorate them with real fruits or real pieces of chocolate, which maybe don’t remain perfectly fixed on place and slip away giving a twisted appearance to my rough decoration.
I don’t feel any appeal for those melancholy roses of sugar, which are edible, theoretically, but so little tasty after all.
All kinds of things. Let’s stop for a moment on these words….I have seen cakes which looked exactly like cameras, others which were detailed reproduction of a football field with all the players and also suitcases, pieces of furniture, animals…whatever.
At the beginning all was so unusual, surprising original… Now I cannot stand these masterpieces anymore. I don’t want to eat a heap of cushion with their tassels for dessert: I want to have a slice of cake, without any make up.
Like in everything else I think it’s a little worrying when the form becomes suddenly more important than substance and maybe also these so perfect and so artificial cakes are just a metaphor of our preference for what is flashy and superficially impressive rather than for contents.
The real thing, the cake in this case, is hidden under a coat of brightly coloured “fondant”, as this sugar paste is called. It reminds me melancholy of the plasticine or modelling clay I played with as a child. I also remember the name of the brand “ Pongo”. My mother always told me to not eat my Pongo sculpture and to not put any piece of them in my mouth. Maybe my disliking for these elaborate cakes has its roots in this remote experience of play.
I don’t know. I think a good cake must be gently imperfect, to give the real impression that it was home-made, and it must let its smell come out without being imprisoned under a layer of fluorescent fondants.
Cakes are cakes and plasticine sculptures are plasticine sculptures.
I know, I know I’m a troglodyte.
I make my cakes and sweet in a totally old fashioned-way and I decorate them with real fruits or real pieces of chocolate, which maybe don’t remain perfectly fixed on place and slip away giving a twisted appearance to my rough decoration.
I don’t feel any appeal for those melancholy roses of sugar, which are edible, theoretically, but so little tasty after all.
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