Sunday Sweets: Eastern Elegance
September 5, 2010 As you may know, Jen and I are at Dragon*Con this weekend, which means we are geeking out with the geekiest geeks in all of geekdom. Which is exactly why today's Sweets are the most elegant, Eastern-inspired cakes we could find. (See, I'm actually having nightmares about being chased through cavernous hotels by roving packs of storm troopers in kilts. Which is not only possible, but actually likely.)
So, onward and upward!
One of the things I most admire about Eastern tradition is the art of Henna, which works amazingly well on cake. Check it out:
By The Evil PlanktonI absolutely love the detail. And the elephants. (Which are edible.) But really, who doesn't love elephants? I mean, think about it. When is the last time you saw an elephant that wasn't doing something absolutely lovable? See? Never!
By HennaLounge
And for a little bit of structural goodness...
By I Dream of CakeYou can never go wrong with cobalt blue and gold. Beautiful.
Next, going a little further East for inspiration:
Some fabulous hand-painting:
And a fabulous fan:
A Kimono-inspired beauty:
And a tiara:
By Pink Cake BoxFinally, we were invited by the lovely folks at Highland Bakery to stop by while we're here in Atlanta, but I don't think we're gonna make it. Which is a shame, because they do stuff like this:
Well, there it is! Next week we may be fully recovered from geek overload, so we'll probably do something really geeky with, I don't know, gears or capes or something. Until then, please send your nominations and ideas to sundaysweets (at) cakewrecks.com. And Wreck On!
Reader Comments (75)
These cakes take my breath away. I mean every one made me gasp. So beautiful!
#5 So there is a non-suggestive way to do turrets. Who knew?
#6 Sorry, but I immediately saw a dorsal fin at the bottom, which led to musings about whether there is any way to connect 'man-eating monster' and 'cake' that makes some kind of sense. Sharks are so misunderstood -- their creative side has never been appreciated.
For a future Sunday, I think the characters from the Super Mario series should travel to the Star Wars universe. Or maybe 'Super Mario Visits Spaceship Earth.' Either of those ought to be 'new'. Moohahahahaha!
wv: irose. The first in Apple's new line of virtual plants. (Irose to the challenge of slipping in a geek/nerd reference!)
Some weird safety survey keeps popping up when I come visit the site, any clues why?
Wow, those are all amazing.
Mind you, you have inevitably invited the universe to produce a cake in which cobalt and gold do go wrong. I shudder to think what will come forth...
Wow. Not much else to say. Simply WoW.
~~Di
I completely agree, I don't know who would have the guts to cut into one of those gorgeous cakes! I think I would cry, but I would still eat it ;)
I work at the bakery and with the decorator that created the amazing cake with the elephants. Funny story, everyone loved the cake but the bride.
Wow so much hard work for such beautiful cakes.. other wreckerators should look at these cakes and be ashamed of themselves lol. These are truly amazing cakes and too pretty to even want to put a knife to. No eating these lol.
These are wrecks at all. They're AMAZING!!! Thank you so much for sharing these great finds!
I want to get married just so I can have that first cake.
These cakes make me want to cry at how untalented I am!
I loooove all things Eastern, and these are definately cake-takers. The hand-fans and the phoenix ones are pretty cool, but the first is probably the best. Go the artists.
Beautiful Ganesh Cake!
Although, don't appreciate the ingredient 'eggs' in it (Ganesh is a popular God in Hindu religion- Hindus are majorly veggies).
Geenalyn, its not a cartoon or a weird caricature, its a God in India.
And he looks quite beautiful, perhaps not so in cake.
Love these cakes!
And for the record- if there are roving packs of kilted storm troopers- we want pictures.
i love these cakes. please post more like these!!
Dear Wreckerators;
Look you can make castle turrets, even with roofs, and not have them look like penises.
Sincerely,
Cake Eaters Everywhere
Awesome collection, and I'm so tickled you featured my cake! Several friends alerted me to it. :)
@Lizzie, either term henna or mehndi is correct. "Mehndi" is the Hindi word, while "henna" is the Arabic word. There are other words and spellings as well including Mainjali, mehendi, mehandi, heena, hina, al khanna, and so on.
Oh man...I missed my chance. I found my favorite cake ever (seriously) last month on Flickr...and it would have gone PERFECTLY with this post.
It's an art nouveau styled cake with koi on it (you know, the Japanese fish)...and celtic knotwork.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27692829@N02/4437847175/in/faves-10397994@N03/
Isn't that gorgeous? And here's the coolest part. I noticed in some of the other pictures that the bride was Asian and the groom was caucasian (I'm presuming Irish). What a beautiful way to symbolize the two cultures of the bride and groom!
Lovely.
Is the Ganache Ganesh actually the god-statue from Digger? http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=78 Cause that would be so awesome.
See the little wombat at the bottom?
I think this is my favorite Sunday sweets yet! I love any Asian-inspired decoration and the first couple with the henna-like decoration are also insanely gorgeous!
Wow, those are gorgeous. I especially love the peacock one (white dots on smooth chocolate background). Amazing!
Stormimay - no the creator based it on some source material. What you see is a mouse, Ganesh's traditional mount.
and yes.. this is the cake my wife got me for my birthday. I was quite speechless. It had been a long running in joke, Ganache Ganesh, and he is one of my favorite deities.
Also, yes there was a bowl of peanuts to one side, based on another in joke, pre-Simpsons. :-)
Overall great cake, great flavor, and I did say a small prayer before I had to dismantle it.
Not everyone loves elephants so much. In Tennessee, they hang 'em.
http://www.blueridgecountry.com/archive/mary-the-elephant.html
I seriously JUST got a Ganesha tattoo Thursday. I just about died when I saw that cake. Gorgeous. They all are. I adore elephants so much (but got Ganesha for other reasons), so I loved the first one as well. They're all beautiful
Well, I'm truly inspired by what I would call a totally different level in cake art and cake decorating.
I've been making cakes for quite a while now but have never seen anything like these and most of all did not expect to find them at cakewrecks! of all places.
Fantastic blog you have here. Keep it up :)
They're all lovely, but that one by the Highland Bakery is absolutely ART! I'd like to have that in a more permanent medium.
And I have seen an unlovable elephant -- one went rogue when the circus was here in 1993 or 1994. Totally traumatizing.