Tag: Cake

Sebastian Joseph-Day describes Chargers’ offseason process with cogent cake analogy

Sebastian Joseph-Day broke down his offseason preparation with an excellent cake analogy.

Sebastian Joseph-Day has been a rock-solid contributor for the Chargers since signing with the team last year. A space eater in the middle of Los Angeles’ defense, Joseph-Day might not be the most widely recognized member of the roster, but his veteran presence plays a key role in keeping opposing offenses at bay.

Joseph-Day spoke to the media on Tuesday after practice, expounding on his preparation for the 2023 season. He gave reporters the broad strokes about his approach to preparation, specifically responding to a question about whether he “itches” for reps at practice.

Though he was unsure, he broke down his thought process in what could prove to be the best quote of the Chargers’ offseason.

“I mean, yes and no. The offseason is kind of like baking a cake,” the 300-pound lineman explained, mouth surely watered. “I know it’s a weird analogy, but you can’t skip one step. Each phase, at least with me and my training, you need to do this — you have to get the eggs, you have to [break] the yolk.

“It’s step-by-step. You have to put the baking soda in, you can’t take the cake out too soon. It’s step-by-step. The way I approach it, yeah, it would obviously but fun, but I’m year six in now. I really have a good schedule. I feel like a lot of vet guys have a good feel of how they ramp themselves up to make sure they’re peaking come August and July.”

Asked if he bakes many cakes after the cogent analogy landed with the press, Joseph-Day replied in the negative.

“No, but you know what? It just popped in my mind. After practice, I’m a little hungry, if you know what I’m saying.”

It is unclear if Joseph-Day secured himself some delectable baked goods after practice, but his explanation is sure to stick with fans like the glaze on a gateau.

Now Trending: Cakes that Look Like Classic Works of Art

We round up cakes that look like paintings and sculptures from artists like Picasso, Warhol, and Van Gogh. Just look at #everythingiscake or #isitcake.

Cake inspired by art is having a moment.

True, it’s never been hard to find ambitious pastry projects on TikTok or Instagram, but these are more often than not confections shaped like familiar objects: a watermelon, a camera, a pot of pasta, a kettle. (All are represented in a single video at Tuba Geckil’s TikTok account, @redrosecake_tubageckil). But there seems to be a new focus in 2022 on cake as objet d’art.

The Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, for example, recently hosted its Great Blanton Bake-Off; 16 bakers recreated works of art found in the museum’s collection (21,000 works to choose from) in the hopes of winning gift cards from local pastry shops and Blanton membership packages — plus bragging rights, of course.

Blythe Johnson, the winner of the amateur category, re-created Mac Wells’ Untitled piece (see images below). Her cake had layers of blueberry almond sponge, lemon curd and whipped cream, according to Smithsonian Magazine. She made the joconde many times to find the perfect colors to match the artwork — stopping and starting over a two-week period — to complete the cake.

 

Georgia Chido, a 15-year old who won the under-18 division, reproduced a textile work by Venezuelan artist Luis Montiel (see actual item under the cake version below). She made the fondant on her own and then did all the color-matching to make sure that the cake’s hues were accurate. 

The top prize among pro bakers went to Hannah Erwin, founder of HC Confections and a business administration and marketing student at Texas A&M University. Her cakes looked exactly like six different works of art from the Blanton collections — including geometric, abstract and pop-art works (see actual items below at left and cake versions below at right).

 

When Cake Trompe L’Oeil Exploded

In March of 2022. ArtNet noted that “cakes really took off in July 2020, when Buzzfeed’s “Tasty” account posted a video showcasing the mindboggling sculptural cakes of Turkish baker and self-proclaimed cake artist Tuba Geçkil.”

This apparently kickstarted the meme #everythingiscake, which continues to thrive and has more than 12,000 examples. You might have also noticed that Netflix launched an engaging new show, Is It Cake? in March of this year based on the idea that good bakers can make cake look like anything. That hashtag — #isitcake — also has thousands of examples now.

The New York Times noticed the trend twice in 2021 with articles dedicated to trompe l’oeil cakes and whimsical cakes. Further research, however, confirms that people have been gawking at cakes as art for years, even decades. Bored Panda compiled some noteworthy works of edible art in 2020 and an article in the now-defunct Flavorwire is titled “Amazing Cakes Inspired by Art,” but none of the pictures come through (both their Instagram and website seemed to have come to a halt in 2019).

The blogger-baker-graphic designer at Sweet Fancy Cakes — Kristen from North Salt Lake, Utah — published a post with her rendition of a Mondrian in cake form in 2015 (it’s the Mondrian at the top of the article) but unlike the painting, it probably smelled and tasted as good as it looks. Earlier examples of cakes-that-look-like-art probably stretch all the way back to the 1600s — the era when round cakes were first baked in Europe, according to FoodTimeline.Org. But no one had TikTok back then….

 

Pinterest Boards of Art as Cake

Of course, there are always Pinterest boards dedicated to the topic as well as Instagram accounts by cake makers who could easily get into the forgery business — like this Russian company (Tortik Annushka) that has over a million followers.

Below are more snapshots of art as cake from Pinterest.

Mondrian Cake

Van Gogh Cake

Gustav Klimt Cake

Roy Lichtenstein Cake

Andy Warhol Cake

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1618549858264307/

Pablo Picasso Cake

Mona Lisa Cake

Keith Haring Cake

René Magritte Cake

And finally, if you want to see a demonstration of someone making a cake that looks like a painting (and frame!), check out Rosanna Pansino‘s “Cake or Fake / Painting on Cake” video below.  

Twitter has so many jokes about the new obsession over ordinary objects that are secretly cakes

Slicing into real objects to see if they’re cake is a thing now.

If your Twitter timeline is like mine, it’s been filled with nothing but things that look like real objects — shoes, White Claw cans, human hands! — that turn out to be cakes when you cut into them.

The video that’s blowing everyone’s minds — we’ll get to it — shows amazing cakes with fondant that turn your brain inside out. One second, you think you’re looking at a roll of toilet paper, the next a knife is cutting into a soft exterior to reveal the cake inside.

The reaction has been so many jokes about what is or isn’t a cake.

So let’s start with the video:

And some reaction:

[jwplayer HHyrnQan-q2aasYxh]