Manhole Covers and Public Sugar Art

I decided it’s time to share some amusing and inspiring cake adventure related things that I’ve come across … even if I wasn’t involved in the creation … only in the photographing. 

Let’s start with my most recent find. I’m not sure if it’s still the politically correct name, but my hometown has some unusual manhole covers.  What does that have to do with cake? you ask.  Let me show you …

I’ve been doing some online research and while it was unveiled in 2002, the design is based on an advertisement from the 1955 Yellow Pages.  It causes me some glee that when the artists were deciding what would make an interesting design, they picked a cake shop.  I love how they have tried to capture the fine detail of piping on a wedding cake in cast iron creation.  

Apparently there are two other unique covers in the area … not cake related … but I may have to go find them and take a look.  I love finding public art in unexpected places.

Photos of the next find have been sitting on my smartphone since the end of March, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them.  The thing is they need to be shared with people who will appreciate the effort that went into creating a very ephemeral piece of public sugar art.

If  you think you’re looking at something made from ceramic tiles, you’d be incorrect.  Created during a residency at Open Space Gallery in Victoria, BC, the artist, Shelley Miller, made the work entirely from sugar.  There’s a great photo and lots of additional information about the artistic process on the gallery’s website. 

I was so intrigued by the idea that I did go back several times to see how the piece had changed. March and April tend to include a significant quantity of rain when you live on the west coast.  The first day I saw it, the icing that had been piped directly on the wall looked like it was still wet.  I did resist the urge to poke at it with my finger just to see how solid it was, but apparently others didn’t exercise the same restraint.

Despite the rain that had already caused the colours to bleed and run, the texture and depth to the ornamental work is a great example of what can be created with patience and sugar. 

Then there is the humour in having the bottom motif depict the harvesting of sugar cane. I almost forgot to mention how much I love the variation in colour used to create the sea.

My last visit to see how it was changing made me think that the creation had received some help to achieve the level of deterioration that had been achieved.  It did make me sad, but at the same time, I was amazed by how well the rest of the sugar art was surviving.  I know the panic I’ve felt when transporting cakes in the rain.  That terror that the smallest amount of water is going to ruin everything.  And yet, there is still something beautiful even as the art begins to disintegrate.

I’ve often been asked how I can watch people cut into and eat one of the cakes I’ve made.  It’s true, there’s a moment, just before the knife makes the first cut, when I agree with them.  There is a bittersweet feeling.  You’ve just seen the joy inspired by hours of creation, and now it’s about to disappear in matter of minutes.  I consider it a sign that I’ve been "successful” in my cake adventure when no one want to make the first cut.  At the same time, I know that the cake inside tastes just as delicious as it looks on  the outside and I don’t want anyone to miss out on that part either.  So I encourage them to cut and eat.  It’s why I made the cake.  The eating is an equal part of its enjoyment. 

For me there is a freedom in creating a piece of art so impermanent.  It makes it easier for me to let go of perfectionism and just enjoy the adventure of what I can create.  It allows me to focus on what’s most important to me … celebrating the people I love.

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!

As might be obvious from my recent cake adventures, there has been a lot of staff changes in the office where I work.  This month is no exception.  There are two more staff leaving at the end of the month.  With the cakes so far, I’ve managed to come up with something personalized for each one, but these two people are so different.  Their jobs in our office are really different, the jobs they’re going to are really different, and their personalities are also really different.  It was easy to come up with ideas for one of them, but I was completely stuck for the other.  I really didn’t want the cake to feel like the one was an afterthought so I went with something completely unrelated to either one.

Our office can be a bit of a zoo at times.  The workflow is always busy and the office is full of people with big personalities who like to have a lot of fun while they work hard.  It’s a good place to work but it can be a little crazy at times.  I got inspired by Wilton’s Silly Critters baking cups and decided to go with a zoo idea.  The thing was I didn’t want animals that large.  I thought about making fondant animals to stand on the cake, but decided I really only wanted animal faces. 

The challenge was how to make animal faces that I liked.  I looked online to find some generic cartoon animals that I could use as a pattern, but didn’t find any that seemed to be the right fit.  My options were getting limited and the time was passing on, so I decided to try drawing my own. My pencil drawing skills are really best for stick figures, so I made the animal face equivalent to give me at least the right shape to work with.

Some piping and a little painting with food colouring for some extra details and I had royal icing animal faces ready to go.  That sort of thing really should have more time to dry, so I left them overnight with a fan blowing on them, with my fingers crossed that they’d be dry enough to put on the cake in the morning without falling apart.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture of them still on their wax paper, just in case they didn’t make it.

Some careful use of an offset spatula while peeling the wax paper and the animals made it safely to the background of leaves and vines that I’d piped the night before.

Drawing with a pencil may not be my thing, but drawing with icing, that’s a lot more fun in my books!