Modern Art Desserts

Have your cake and wear it too.

by Leah Rosenberg

This week is fashion week in New York City.   Although it may appear that our inspirations lie solely in art, it should be known that our second muse has forever been fashion.  So, if you are reading this Yohji Yamanot,  we dream of donning your ensembles while attempting to create desserts equally exquisite to accompany them. And Charlotte Olympia!  Should you one day release your own take on a kitchen clog, we would bake you a pair of cakes that would knock your socks off!  So while we continue to dream of sweets based on shoes and desserts based on dresses, we wanted to share one of a few fashion-inspired cakes that we have made.

For the first issue of the new magazine, Cherry Bombe (released April 2013) which focused on the merging of art and fashion, Caitlin was asked to make something based on the fashion collections for Spring 2013. Cherry Bombe is a unique publication for the way it embraces the fashion and food worlds with equal fervor. Caitlin designed this cake as a tribute to the Dries van Noten Spring 2013 collection.  It was photographed by Aya Brackett, (who is Such. A. Talent!) and coincidentally photographed the very first Thiebaud cakes for the opening of the SFMOMA Blue Bottle Rooftop Cafe.  Although we have been more consumed with cakewalks over catwalks in the last several years,  Caitlin put her knowledge of haute cuisine and couture into action last spring when creating a cake that looked good enough to wear.  And here is how she did it…

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Kerry Diamond, one of the geniuses behind Cherry Bombe suggested a few looks from the show that seemed pastry-worthy to her. One skirt, in particular, reminded me of a type of gum paste flower I had learned in a class taught by Wendy Kromer-Schell.

I hatched a plan to make a two-layer wedding cake, and when the top layer was cut, it would reveal a plaid pattern, just like the one in the shirt. Now, we’re no strangers to making gridded cakes, but this one needed to be circular, rather than our usual loaf style. Which presented a pretty tricky dilemma.

I studied the semi-hoakey checkerboard cake to figure out how make the pattern. From there, I sketched ideas, modifying the two color checkerboard idea into a four color plaid pattern.

I baked cakes in (what I thought were) similar colors to the outfit, cut them into concentric circles, re-assembled them like strategic bulls-eyes, then stacked alternating layers of the bulls eye patterns.

Since this one was a first draft, I didn’t want to waste a bunch of white chocolate ganache, so I just squeezed it all together, hoping it would hold. I cut a big chunk out of it, and discovered that my patterning worked, even if it was falling apart and the colors were horrific.

I opted not to do the outside blue layer (it was too fragile), and I toned down the colors for the photo shoot cake. Without being able to check on how it looked (which would require cutting), I covered the cake with chartreuse fondant and crossed my fingers.

 The flowers were relatively easy to pull together. Made with gum paste and colored with lustre and petal dusts, I attached to the side of the cake using gum paste glue, and held them steady with toothpicks.

The morning of the photo shoot, I assembled the two layers and set them out for the photographer before cutting into the top layer. Nervous that the colors weren’t right, or the pattern hadn’t turned out, I plunged the knife into the cake, knowing there was no sense stressing out over what was going to happen.

photo by Aya Brackett

Removing the large slice, I worried that the pattern was now too subtle. But, looking back at the original image, I realized it was just about as perfect as I could have possibly made it!

photo credits:  all images courtesy of Caitlin Freeman aside from the last one which is by Aya Brakcett.