theorising cake

OK, upfront, I don't do kitsch. Or chintz, or pretty-pretty, or pastel, or girly, or practically anything to which can be applied the adjective "bridal" ¹. All and any of the above are productive of aversion and departure or, if forced on me in an enclosed space with no exits, flinching, sneers and, in extreme cases, simulated retching. I also can't claim to possess much in the way of manual dexterity or artistic ability which, coupled with the patience of a hyperactive stoat, means I have no interest whatsoever in cake-decorating, marzipan sculpture, needlepoint, papercraft or macrame. (The knitting thing is a complete aberration and I still stoutly maintain that I only do it because I'm occasionally abducted by aliens).

Given this, it's a bit odd that I have an addiction to cake blogs. There is no student melt-down so torrid that it cannot be soothed by the application of a cup of Earl Grey and twenty minutes with Cakelava, or the CakeWrecks Sunday Sweets. This is, frankly, weird. I don't go for these elaborate occasions, I got all that out of my system with the SCA. I don't want to get married. I don't even eat a lot of cake. But I love looking at them. Mature analytic reflection suggests this might be about the following:

1. Sheer craft. Ye gods, these people do some beautiful work: not only the meticulous detailed production of these sculptures, but the frequent artistry of their conception. I have a particular addiction to the kind of modernist, minimalist cake that seems to be currently fashionable, all square angles and solid colours with understated detail, not fussy or chintzy at all. Also, the crazy non-Euclidian angles ones amuse me no end.
   
   
   
   
2. Sheer illusion. This is food pretending to be something else. I love that. I wouldn't wear ruffles if you paid me, but a cake can wear them in sugar and make me simply happy. It's photo-real leaves or flowers or beetles or baseballs, aping the real in the medium of food. Basically they're modern-day subtleties, the equivalent of a medieval cockatrice or gingerbread castle: a trickery, a happy game of let's-pretend. (This one's from JustCake).
   
   
   
   
3. Sheer profligate impermanence. I think this is the deal-clincher, the thing which for me differentiates cake sculpture from twee porcelain knick-knacks, about which I will set with a baseball bat given half a chance. After all these days and hours of loving, painstaking, polished craftsmanship, someone will dig a knife into these creations and demolish them utterly, and that's the whole point. They're all the more attractive because they're transient, because their beauty and craft are real, concrete and fleeting, lovingly crafted for a moment of splendid, celebratory recognition and then inevitable destruction. Tasty destruction.

I like cake blogs, because cake decorating is about food and splendid craft in one happy package, which I will contemplate with pleasure as long as no-one actually expects me to make the bloody things. Spectator sport. Gosh, wow. You go. I'll just watch, and marvel contentedly that such excessive and unnecessary excellence exists in its own fleeting and self-sufficient pocket of time.

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¹ I might, for example, have a sneaking attraction to the phrase "bridal massacre", or possibly "bridal zombies".