I learned from the Wellcome Collection (a
museum which aims to share "science, medicine, life and art") that
February was once the month of cakes.
so let's talk about cakes as science-art and science communication shall we?
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| ATLAS detector cake (credit: Katharine Leney via Symmetry) |
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| Universe cake (credit: David Morse and Katharine Leney via Symmetry) |
Particle physicists Katy Grimm and
Katharine Leney who work on the ATLAS collaboration at CERN, discovered
they also share a mutual love of baking.
Symmetry magazine
covers their delightful cakes (and other baked goods) which do
everything from directly illustrating the ATLAS particle detector, to
equations, diagrams and other data visualizations to metaphorically
communicating the structure of protons according to the Standard Model
or communicating through the medium of the cosmos cake, the proportions
of regular matter, dark matter and dark energy. You'll find more via
PhysicsCakes on Twitter.
In
the wonderful world of science cakes, Earth and planetary science and
amazingly well represented. Australian zoologist Rhiannon has posted
several wonderful examples, including
tutorials for nested spherical cakes on her blog
Cakecrumbs.
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| This
wonder Earth cake shows oceans and continents on the blue icing layer,
orange mantle and yellow inner and outer core layers. (via Cakecrumbs) |
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| The
beautiful Jupiter cake likewise has three concentric layers to
represent rocky and icy core, a middle liquid metal hydrogen layer and
an outer molecular hydrogen layer. She says the famous giant anticyclone
storm, the Great Red Spot was what attracted her. She recreated the
patterns in the atmosphere with "ivory marshmallow fondant, then dry
brushing a combination of ivory, brown and maroon edible ink." (via Cakecrumbs) |
You can find space cakes bedecked or embedded with the planets of the solar system! Consider this tutorial for
Mirror Glaze Galaxy Cake from the Also the Crumbs Please blog, the Astronomy themed groom's cake or the award-winning portrait of Galileo Galilei!
The
mirror glaze is also just the thing for anyone creating cakes
representing marble, many minerals or geode cakes. Geodes in fact, have
been a real trend in wedding cakes and there is an astonishing array of
geode inspired cakes in every imaginable colours.
Natural history cakes don't stop with
mineral specimens! Flora and fauna are popular too. There's a long
history of using actual edible flowers, or sculpting flowers or leaves,
often cast directly from actual plants - but those that convincingly
recreate lifeforms with cake, icing, chocolate, fondant and other edibles
are my favourites.
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| Lifelike deer cake by legendary Grand Dame of the cake decorating world, Sylvia Weinstock |
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| This
beauty hits on both natural history and the history of science as it's
inspired by the hyper-realistic botanical still-life paintings of Dutch
artist Rachel Ruysch (1685 to 1750). This cake is deocrated with
custom-made sugar flowers, created by Amy DeGiulio of Sugar Flower Cake Shop in New York City, and placed in a gold urn to complete the look. (via Martha Stewart Weddings) |
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Jakarta-based pastry chef Iven Kawi who runs the Iven Oven where she makes these wonderful terrarium inspired cakes which hit the succulent trend (via Colossal)
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My son requested a dinosaur-shaped cake, capped with a
Cretaceous scene
with volcano and smaller dinosaurs for his 5th birthday, so I assure
you, this is but a tiny peek at what is out there. I haven't even
touched on paleontological cakes, or the gothic world of anatomy cakes.
There's a whole world of yummy cake-based science art/communication out
there for you to explore and, better yet, eat.
(Hat-tip to my friend
Faunalia, who has been sharing images of amazing cakes with me for years! You can find some of our favourite images
here.).
