Since we have passed the stage of eating for survival and are now in a stage of eating for luxury, food made for the purpose of art rather than taste has become quite common – especially with desserts like cake. Since cake is a celebratory dessert and a large portion of its success is dependent on appearance, there is more leeway to be creative with it. It has gotten to the point where making artistic cakes have become a competition.
This Steampunk cake is no exception. It was made, not surprisingly, for a Steampunk cake competition. The cake itself definitely fits in its genre. Steampunk is devoted to the time when everything was steam-powered. It has a very metallic and clockwork feel to it, which this cake effectively portrays. It’s so effective that the cake doesn’t even look like cake!
The cake looks as if it is not edible. It has a real metallic feel to it, as if it was made of plastic that was painted with a metallic color. However, the outer part of the cake is made entirely of sugar or fondant (for those of you that are unfamiliar with baking, fondant is a cream confection that is often used for covering cakes).
There is a lot of attention put into detail. The baker slightly elevated the base of the cake to make it seem as if the wheels are actually supporting the cake itself. The designs in the wood parts have been carved with a light naturalistic style which is put in contrast with the carvings made into the metal parts.
Elizabeth Marek spent a lot of time making sure that each part of the cake looks like the material that it represents.
Clearly much time and effort have been put into this cake, almost shamefully so. It is always sad to see such breathtaking work made to last temporarily. Ice sculptures are meant to melt, and cakes are meant to be eaten! Regardless, this is still an amazing piece of work.
Here are more images of the cake:
To look at other delicious pieces of art check out this Star Wars Death Star and R2D2.
