Home

Previous Entry | Next Entry

Bayeaux Cake

  • Oct. 19th, 2009 at 9:23 PM
Smiley Faces
C.'s mother is an extraordinary cake decorator. For the birthday party we went to this past weekend, in honor of the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, she made a Bayeaux Tapestry Embroidery-themed cake. Behold.







Edited to add: I've passed all your lovely comments on to the cake maker!

Further edit: Now with photos of the whole cake. Note that I've edited out the name on the cake. (I'm not very practiced with image manipulation so I know it's a rather visible change on one of the photos. Sorry about that. I'm not happy posting names + precise birth dates of other people in public online so needed to change something.)



Tags:

Comments

( 46 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]sushidog wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:30 pm (UTC)
Wow! That's amazing!
| Reply | Thread
[info]rymenhild wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:31 pm (UTC)
!!!!!!!!! That is FABULOUS.
| Reply | Thread
[info]esmeraldus_neo wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:32 pm (UTC)
Whoa.
| Reply | Thread
[info]sioneva wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:33 pm (UTC)
VERY cool!!!
| Reply | Thread
[info]ladybird97 wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:39 pm (UTC)
Oh. My. Gosh. Most amazing cake EVER!
| Reply | Thread
[info]gylfinir wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:40 pm (UTC)
That's incredible! Bravo!
| Reply | Thread
[info]kukla_red wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:53 pm (UTC)
Wow. Amazing.
| Reply | Thread
[info]makyo wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 08:56 pm (UTC)
That's really pretty - thanks for posting the photographs.
| Reply | Thread
[info]desperance wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:07 pm (UTC)
Um, wow?
| Reply | Thread
[info]stagbeetle wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:25 pm (UTC)
Oh! That's just beautiful. (Over here at angevin2's recommendation, and so worth it.)
| Reply | Thread
[info]fuunsaiki wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:38 pm (UTC)
Also here from angevin2, also flabbergasted at the awesomeness. :D
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]writerwench wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 10:01 pm (UTC)
Moi aussi. I love the detail - the narrative being translated into English. Fantastic work!
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]dramaturgca wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:29 pm (UTC)
Awesome.
| Reply | Thread
[info]steepholm wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:40 pm (UTC)
Amazing! Did you dare eat it? Who got Halley's Comet?
| Reply | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 08:54 am (UTC)
We did eat it! No comet though. The invitation and her card for the birthday person were also themed around this, so perhaps there was an inedible one on one of them.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]mirabehn wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:42 pm (UTC)
WIN. :-)
| Reply | Thread
[info]sartorias wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:51 pm (UTC)
That is seriously cool!
| Reply | Thread
[info]gillo wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:58 pm (UTC)
That's a work of art. And you ate it? !!!
| Reply | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 08:55 am (UTC)
We ate it. A good thing too: I think it was the best fruitcake I've ever had, and that includes all the others she's made that I've eaten. Most fruitcakes are too dry for my taste. This was the perfect balance of alcohol to crumb and fruit.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]rosamicula wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 10:03 pm (UTC)
Did you really eat it?
| Reply | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 08:56 am (UTC)
It was delicious. The best fruitcake I've ever had (and that includes many that she's made in the past).
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]crustycurmudgeo wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 10:06 pm (UTC)
That is fantastic! I love the way she gets a 3D effect from the edging casting shadows into the translucent white frosting and the way she minutely changes the luminance of the coloring of the far side horse legs.
Well done. Bravo!
| Reply | Thread
[info]retsuko wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 10:36 pm (UTC)
That is simply wonderful! :D
| Reply | Thread
[info]medievalist wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 10:38 pm (UTC)
That is absolutely positively art--I wouldn't have the heart to eat it.
| Reply | Thread
[info]whatifoundthere wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 10:43 pm (UTC)
Marvellous. Cakewrecks has "non-wreck Sundays" on which they post beautiful cakes to remind you how it's done; I think this should be submitted.
| Reply | Thread
[info]rhiannon76 wrote:
Oct. 19th, 2009 11:23 pm (UTC)
I was going to say the same thing. This is fantastic! It put me in mind of a lecture by my Early English History prof at Smith-- he had a whole slideshow/lecture/dog-and-pony show worked out on the Bayeux tapestry, wherein he would get terribly excited about the bloody parts. It was quite entertaining.

Edited at 2009-10-19 11:23 pm (UTC)
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 08:57 am (UTC)
Even though I don't feel I can publicly post a photo of the entire cake? (The top is not thematically related: "Happy Birthday to [Person's Name]" and their age, all of which gives too much identifying information about him/her to post for all the world to see.)
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]kekhmet wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 10:50 am (UTC)
Perhaps a bit of work with photoshop or GIMP could be done to remove identifying details? It definitely is a cake deserving of wider acclaim!
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]drasecretcampus wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 12:42 am (UTC)
Don't forget the theory that it was embroidered in Canterbury rather than Bayeaux - and the Battle of Hastings wasn't in Hastings... My, it's a pedant's delight.

Incroyable! If that means what I hope it means. If not, incredible.

Edited at 2009-10-20 12:43 am (UTC)
| Reply | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 08:59 am (UTC)
It's bad enough that I am compelled to use "Bayeaux Embroidery" these days! But yes. It's true.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]a_d_medievalist wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 01:45 am (UTC)
that's fantastic!
| Reply | Thread
[info]olivia_circe wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 02:34 am (UTC)
OH MY GOD.
| Reply | Thread
[info]noncalorsedumor wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 05:02 am (UTC)
This is AMAZING. AMAZING.
| Reply | Thread
[info]innostrantsa wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 06:59 am (UTC)
Oh, wow! Wow.

Better than fabulous-- that's a cake for the ages! I doubt I'd have been able to cut into it. 8)
| Reply | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 09:00 am (UTC)
Fortunately, there was a ritual cake-cutting moment in the middle of the party, so at least its slicing was with due ceremony.

(There were also other desserts, however: lemon-kiwi cheesecake, trifle, chocolate cake. This being a fruitcake, plenty of people could take away slices for later.)
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]ms_cataclysm wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 07:48 am (UTC)
ooh ! ooh!
| Reply | Thread
[info]ellroy wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 08:00 am (UTC)
Fabulous! What a talented lady :-)
| Reply | Thread
[info]hungry_pixel wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 09:45 am (UTC)
While I echo everything above, I am amazed no-one has asked: HOW did she do it? What techniques did she use? Did she simply draw onto the cake, or did she make the shapes and stick them on? They seem to have a 3D aspect; how did she do that? What materials was she using? Has she been on courses and, if so, where does one sign up? :-)

| Reply | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 10:06 am (UTC)
I'll ask!
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]printperson wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 08:49 pm (UTC)
Oh good! I couldn't wait to see the pictures. This cake is extrordinary.
| Reply | Thread
[info]gleodream wrote:
Oct. 20th, 2009 10:42 pm (UTC)
You and this cake are officially (and rightly) famous: I just found a link back here in another blog!
| Reply | Thread
[info]llelwyn wrote:
Oct. 21st, 2009 05:19 am (UTC)
Please please tell me there's a picture of the whole cake?

~L
| Reply | Thread
[info]owlfish wrote:
Oct. 21st, 2009 09:31 am (UTC)
Thank you for the reminder! Now that I've spent all of two minutes editing out the name on the cake, I've posted two overall photos:

http://owlfish.livejournal.com/976735.html#cutid2

(There was no way I was going to post that much identifying information about someone else in public if I could avoid it.)
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]aztecknight wrote:
Nov. 12th, 2009 05:58 am (UTC)
Stunning
| Reply | Thread
(Anonymous) wrote:
Nov. 15th, 2009 04:27 am (UTC)
<open-mouthed>
Fantastic!
| Reply | Thread
(Anonymous) wrote:
Nov. 28th, 2009 06:24 pm (UTC)
AWESOME CAKE
Really great job on the cake!!!
| Reply | Thread
( 46 comments — Leave a comment )