'illusion' cakes - what's the point?

[redsummershoes]

such a waste of cake

Illusion cake? Like a cake that doesn't look like a cake?

You can still eat it right?

No, it's a cake that looks like a cake, but you can't actually eat it.

yes, looks like something else.
only possible by stacking boring sponge cake and rice crispies and covering with a fuckton of sugar paste and colourings.

Am I missing something glaringly obvious here? Why can't you eat it?

But, look at this gorgeous masterpiece which looks exactly like Harry and Meghan (if you have really bad eyesight). And you can eat them. How can cake get better than that?

www.newidea.com.au/prince-harry-meghan-markle-lifesize-cake

Beautiful!!

you can eat it if you like boring construction grade sponge and an inch thick layer of sugar paste.

I'm on my mobile in a low signal area. I looked at that H&M pic and thought fucking he'll that looks EXACTLY like them!

I have often seen them and thought I bet it tastes crap. Give a nicely baked iced sandwich cake, cupcake or loaf cake in an interesting flavour any day.

It’s like the chocolate people sell around xmas where it looks like anything and every thing else — lovely to look at, awful to eat.

I agree. And such a lot of effort for a not very nice cake. And they can’t surely eat the cakes anyway? I often wonder why these cake makers don’t just create these masterpieces out of modelling clay. It would be the same outcome appearance wise.

I make birthday cakes a bit like this - modelled as something, and always edible, but the effort has definitely gone into how it looks rather than how it tastes.

I do it because the dc love it and because they will only lick the icing off and reject the cake anyway.

I went to cake international on Sunday. I loved looking at the cakes!

Those cakes are great to look at but I refuse to buy any chocolate biscuit cake with sugar paste icing. Simple as that. Cakes should be eaten for taste, not admired from a distance. In that case a photo is enough.

I had a cake made that looked just like my OH's running trainers for his 30th. They looked amazing - all the staff at the restaurant we had his bday dinner at were taking photos before it was even out on the table!

It felt a bit wrong cutting into it though... kinda like destroying a masterpiece. Luckily it tasted great too (and I got to eat all the liquorice laces )

That Harry and Meghan one is next level!

The Simpsons called it

Well, at least they are edible. All the sugar paste decoration might not be to everyone's taste, but there is an actual cake in there (somewhere). Also there's nothing to say that the cake itself that forms the majority part isn't tasty. So at least you can actually admire the cake and then eat it.

It's not like a crocheted cake, or a paper-machier cake. Those things I really do find odd.

and totally off-topic but I find paper crafts (the sort where people put in 50 hours to turn out one paper mushroom or whatever) completely pointless, as paper is so flimsy and short lived for a decorative item that took hours to make.
Glad I've got that off my chest

I'm totally with you on the paper decorations!

It's art innit.

I've just googled this as I wasn't sure what they were. This Guardian piece is interesting - but don't look if you are squeamish!

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2017/aug/31/another-slice-of-severed-head-anyone-illusion-cakes-in-pictures

Steel Magnolias