Being a Cake Queen. ‘Twas wonderful….
I remember seeing the first
pictures of the ‘Starry Night’ collaboration on the internet and I was blown
away by it. Such a beautiful piece of
artwork transformed into an edible art piece by 50 of the most talented cakers
around the globe. While never physically
constructed together due to geographical logistics, I just loved the idea of a work of art being taken apart
and 50 individuals putting their own stamp on their piece in edible format. While each section was made up of varying
techniques, when it came together in digital format, the result was beautiful
and each piece merged perfectly into the next.
It didn’t matter that colours didn’t match, techniques didn’t match, it
was instantly recognisable and I loved the fact that each piece was so
individual to each artist.
I remember talking about it with
my very good friend Niamh, our Queen Bee of the Cake Queens and originator of
our Edible Art project and we oohed and aahed and said to each other, ‘Wouldn't
it be fantastic to be involved in something like that’. For me, the dreamer, I just continued to
dream about such things. I’m a person
‘who does’ rather than being a go-getter.
Give me a task and I’ll do it to the very best of my ability but while I
might have big dreams, I’m not the type of person to actually act upon them
always. Thankfully while Niamh is a
dreamer too, she is, more importantly, a go-getter. I should have known, when I heard strange
whirring noises around the time of our Starry Night conversation, that Niamh’s
brain had gone into overdrive and was already thinking about how we could do something
similar in Ireland.
Niamh rang me at the start of the
summer:
Niamh: Hiya, I’ve got a bit of an idea.
Me: Yeah? (there’s always a bit of apprehension/excitement in my
voice when Niamh tells me she has an idea because you never know what she is
going to say. One of my favourite things
about her, incidentally)
Niamh: Eh, what do you think of doing our own cake collaboration
here in Ireland?
Me: Oh God, YES, YES, YES (a
little like Sally from ‘When Harry met Sally’ – I think I may have banged the
table too!)
Niamh: Really?
Me: YES! Ger is on board, I presume?
Niamh: Absolutely.
Good, I thought, as long as we
have Ger, (who has the enviable quality of being able to instantly calm Niamh
down in times of stress, by just saying the word ‘Breathe’), we’re going to be
ok. This could really work. And there was the start of a beautiful
project.
As you know by now from the other
blog posts, the image chosen was the glorious "Croke Park to Aviva" painting by the very
talented Simone Walsh. I loved the
painting, such detail, such vibrant colours.
Could 50 of us produce this in cake?
Yep, I had no doubts. Of course,
we had the added pressure of this being made entirely in cake and each piece
fitting beautifully into the next piece and then being on display in front of
the general public in an art gallery in Dublin.
Sizing, exact dimensions, 50 variants could equal disaster but …..nope
we got there. Each person received their
section by post. It was like a child
waiting for Christmas to come, the excitement!
What piece was I going to get?
Each person posted up their piece on our Edible Art web page as they
received them. I particularly loved the
ones with the brightly coloured houses and the ones containing those fab
fish. Mine arrived. Top edge piece with the plane and part of
Croke Park. Ooh, I thought, I’m happy
with that.
The first
task was to cut out a sheet of florist paste to the exact dimensions of the picture. Ok so far.
I’d deal with the cake later.
I
used my airbrush to create the beginnings of the sky.
I rang Niamh at this point and said, ‘I’d
like to do something a little different with my piece’. Niamh said, straight off the bat, ‘Make the
plane 3D’. I’m not sure if she was half
joking but a little lightbulb went off in my head and I thought, yes, that is
exactly what I will do. It would have to
be pretty small but those of you who know me, know I love making little
miniature things in sugar. At this stage
my florist paste was already drying out and I thought, oh oh, I need to make a
hole in this to accommodate a flower pick.
I needed a section of florist wire to hold up my 3D plane and you can’t insert
wire directly into a cake. You insert a
flower pick into the cake which then holds the wire so the wire never touches
the cake. I had images of Scrat from ‘Ice
Age’ where he pulls his acorn out of the ice and the whole thing starts to
crack. If I pushed a flower pick into my
already hardening florist paste, would it crack just like the ice? Just had to go for it. I didn’t breathe as I was pushing it through. Thankfully, it didn’t crack. I then traced the outline of Croke Park and the roundabout with spire at Dublin airport.
I chose to
add depth to the sky with edible dusts rather than use the airbrush again. The blue was not going to be an exact match
to the original painting but having seen the variances with the blues in the Starry
Night collaboration and how beautiful it turned out, I wasn’t too worried.
I painted
with edible paints on the remainder of the piece but used another section of
florist paste to make my part of Croke Park with extruded
piped sugarpaste for the gold accents.
While it was only an itsy bitsy section of Croke Park, it was detailed
enough in the colours and depth.
Finally I made my little plane. Was
smiling all the way through making it. I wanted to mount the plane in such a way that if you looked at it from a bird's eye view, you wouldn't be able to tell that is was 3D. I curled the florist wire, attached my little sugarpaste plane to the florist wire and mounted it into the flower pick. I stood back to
look and grinned from ear to ear.
Final stage was making the cake,
3 inches high and to the exact dimensions of the section we had received. I love the mathematics behind cake making, so
this was a part I enjoyed. Sad….I
know!
I was involved with the huge task
of fitting all the edible sections together.
Between Ger, Agatha and myself, we slowly saw the picture coming to
life. We were in awe and hugged each
other and were so proud of everyone. It
was a wonderful moment when we inserted the very last piece.
I cannot tell you how much I
enjoyed being part of this wonderful collaboration. A dream come true for me. Thanks so much to my brilliant creative
friend Niamh and Geraldine who was such an integral part of this project – her organisational
skills are unsurpassed and she kept everyone’s level of sanity at an even
keel. Can’t wait for the next project! Roll on….and quickly!
No comments:
Post a Comment