When I first heard about this Edible Art Project, I was still in rural France on holidays with very sporadic Wifi access (McDonald's is great for that). I just couldn't and wouldn't miss out on this and sent Niamh a message that 'yes, I'm on for it' and 'please, please bear with me should I be off the grid'.
The summer went by, looking for the right picture to turn into our 'royal' masterpiece made of 50 individual cakes. A charity, as in the Dublin Simon Community, was chosen to receive the cake afterwards (we all hated the thought of all those yummy chocolate biscuit cakes and rice crispy treats going to waste).
The picture by Simone Walsh that was finally chosen is a wonderful and bright take on Dublin and its monuments, perfect for the occasion of Culture Night 2013. It does however present quite a challenge to the Cake Queens, with all its details and lines that needed to match up as best as possible between the individual pieces. Much more difficult than the swirls in Van Gogh's Night sky emulated in the Starry Night Bakers Project. (Personally I worried about this... a lot. Needlessly I must say after seeing Niamh's preview of the first assembly stages last night).
My work started when I received my piece in the mail... 3C.
Awwwhhh, would you look at all that black! Black of all colours, grrrrr. My mind started to work immediately on how to make this least favourite colour of mine more bearable ;-) And this was the result:
SPRINKLES!!!
I wanted to incorporate loads of textures and 3D effects into my piece, so I worked with sugarpaste applique, royal icing, sugarpaste ribbons and ruffles and last but not least made the lanterns pop by modelling them 3D.
The most difficult task was to keep to the exact measurements and those perfectly straight edges. I used a pate terrine to form my chocolate biscuit cake, which was a bit smaller than the required block and filled in the gaps with lots of chocolate ganache, with the help of my trusted mitre square. The outside turned out a bit marbled because I ran out of dark ganache and instead of making another batch I used up some white ganache, I had left in the fridge.
A big, big 'thank you' to Niamh and Geraldine for instigating this fabulous collaboration!!! I am extremely honoured and happy to be 1/50 of the Cake Queens.
I can't wait till Friday night to see our finished masterpiece in its entirety at the Doorways Gallery.
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