The Perfectionist Confectionist: Bring it on.

So, the lovely Karri Katastrophe is a fan of our work. Fan of how our work tastes to be precise and has secured us quite a bit of work over the past couple years (whoohoo on the engagement by the way), so much of a fan is she that, when a friend of hers was talking of an Edible Art Exhibition, she said 'Niamh'. I, in turn, said 'what??'. The exhibition is in conjunction with the Dublin Night of Culture that happens every year. You can read all about that here. The exhibition itself takes place at the Doorway Gallery.

So I sat down and had a think about it. A long think.

Earlier this year a group of cakers (that's officially a noun in our house and can be used in both happy and narky ways "ooh, she's a wonderful caker" "cakers are a pain in the cake hole") got together to collaborate on celebrating Van Gogh's 150th birthday by recreating one of his famous paintings, starry night. I loved that project. Still do. Was blown away by the work and how 50 people could make something so beautiful. Beautiful and edible.

With this in mind I started scouring the lovely world of the Internet to find an image about Dublin that spoke to me. I found one or two. Then, like a gobshite, I opened it up to the initial 29 cakers I had on board and the images started flying in. The majority of them were wonderful, a lot of them were nigh on impossible to think of recreating and one kept coming in over and over. That was, thankfully, the one I had in my head so I made an executive decision and said "I know we were going to vote on our favourite image but er, no, I'm going to pick the final image as my head is melted and . . tadaaaah!!! I pick this one.

Source:

The painting is by a wonderful Irish artist called Simone Walsh. I have loved her stuff for years and this painting spoke volumes to me as I have lived and worked that stretch of coast since I was born and I do love the stacks. As for the DART, sure didn't myself and himself do most of our courting on it? What with him being a northsider and me being a southsider.

I digress. I now had 35 cakers and we all agreed this was the one. We hunted down an additional 15 and we were complete . . until we lost one to "I can't, I'm worried, please don't make me" and the other to "Whoohoo I'm pregnant . . but on bed rest". The last two came on board this week and we're good to go. Oh, and I had Simone's permission too.

The brief: You will be sent, by Geraldine Arnold, an image. You are to replicate this image exactly. If your image has been cut slightly askew . . make your cake slightly askew (hard cutting a huge picture into 50 bits). Your cake is to be made either from cbc or rct (business lingo, cackle) and to be exactly 7.5cm high. You will get finished cake to me two days before the exhibition so myself , Ger and Bernie (and whomever else is free) can meet in my house, take over the kitchen, and assemble the piece. On the night of the exhibition we shall all meet up, eat, drink and be very happy because, come what may, we rock.

There you go, and here we go! Pictures will follow but here's what I have to date. Firstly, a HUMUNGOUS thank you to my lovely friends in the cake world who have come on board with me. Wouldn't do it without you. Not going to post all your names now but I will!