Friday, August 31, 2012

Do not eat the cake!

A friend sent me this photo because I love sewing and there was a time when I really played with cake decorating.  That was before the quilt bug bit me, however.  

Today my Wilton supplies are all neatly stored in their own special box, which I take out at least once yearly at Easter to use the food coloring on the eggs.

Have you taken a close look? This sewing basket is really an award winning novelty cake by Meg Davis who is a hospital chef at Northern Devon Healthcare in North Devon, England.  It took me a while to find the news post on the hospital website, but I really do like to give you the sense of where my information originates.

I'm posting about the cake because it's interesting, unbelievably realistic and all over Pinterest.  Besides, I've dabbled in cake decorating, so I have a tiny bit of an idea of the amount of work and talent that goes into making such a stunning cake.

I'd assume that the bits and bobs are all made of fondant, which molds easily, but there's no need for assumption since I read the article, which notes, "The cake is made of Madeira sponge and covered with sugar paste. All the contents of the box are individually made of sugar paste. The completed cake and decorations took some 30 hours to complete."

How difficult is it to make some of the items, I don't even want to guess.  Consider the needles.  From the looks of it, these needles have eyes.  And the tape measures have tiny lines and numbers.  A close look at the spools of thread?  There's writing on the edges.    

I don't know what is more amazing to me--that she was able to include such detail or that she stuck with it until all the items were complete.  Truth be told: I'd eat the mistakes (yes, there would be some) then I'd eat the pretty good items, then I'd give up finishing the cake and eat the really pretty items!  Maybe I'd have snapped a picture or two just to show that I'd made some progress but, really, how does one NOT eat the cake?

2 comments:

Carla said...

Can you imagine the work? It's lovely

jenclair said...

My gosh! That is fantastic!