Let them Eat (Mondrian) Cake!



Image :http://www.designspongeonline.com. Cake by Caitlin Williams for SFMOMA





When I was researching designs for my wedding cake, I envisioned a Mondrian painting of draped fondant covering three consecutive rectangular tiers.

"Surely," I thought, "somebody has done this before and documented it."

 I should find it with a simple Google search, right? Wrong. Apparently, not many brides have shared my idea, and the ones who did just weren't capturing what I sought. I was getting discouraged about the possibilities of such a wedding cake. However, I did come across a decidedly different cakey interpretation of Mondrian.  

SFMOMA's roof-top cafe offers one fantastically edible slant on the De Stiijl master's paintings. I was in love when I saw it, and have put a slice on my bucket list - which shouldn't be too hard, right? Isn't a flight from San Diego to San Francisco about and hour?

 So, cut to me watching The Food Network last weekend and catching an episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate. On this show chefs recount the best pizza or steak or ice cream, etc. they ever enjoyed. This episode focused on best cakes, and one chef's fave happened to be the SFMOMA Mondrian cake. Apparently, this thing isn't simply a feast for the eyes, but the palette as well!

The desert masterpiece is constructed out of classic yellow cakes, some with food coloring, cut into long rectangular strips of varying sizes. The strips are coated with a thin layer of chocolate ganache on the outside, imitating the black lines separating the color fields of Mondrian's paintings. The strips are  then pressed together to make a long, rectangular loaf and a very thick layer of ganache is applied to the outside to hold everything in place. After a chill, the cake loaf is then sliced revealing perfect, individual, edible artworks. So, do yourself a favor and have one of the best looking, and, apparently, best tasting cakes of all time when you visit San Francisco. Oh yeah, get there early - the chef only makes one cake per day and it's reputation is getting around!


Later,
Beth