Cake Art

Cake shops are a huge weakness of mine! Blame the sweet tooth I say! Passing through Oxford's Covered market over the weekend, we came upon this sweet little cake shop with a stunning display. Everyone who passed it, stopped and Ooh-ed and Ahh-ed before moving on.

It was hard to believe that everything we saw was, in fact, wholly edible!

Food Art is not new, especially when it comes to desserts. Lavish spreads with complex structures have existed for ages. Most well known probably being, the celebrated patisserie architect Antonin Careme, known for his pieces montees. His books have sketches of his complex and delectable towers of petit fours and macarons as he turned the 'third course' into a magical event. His creations were inspired by historic architecture of temples, churches, palaces, etc. No wonder he was favoured by the royalty in Paris and is recognised as an exponent of Haute Cuisine

However, the Cake Art we see in today's times is more modern and even amusing at times. Adding that extra special sparkle to a wedding or other special occasion. What I liked about this display was the ingenuity and  personalisation of the creations. Almost too good to eat, I wonder if like Careme's, these modern creations taste as good as they look? They sure do raise your expectations of what lies beneath. I would rather admire them than eat them....I mean who would want to eat such a lovely centrepiece?

Have a peep and tell me what you think....

I love this one!

My hour

What's your favourite part of the day? Mine is Dusk, when light creates the most beautiful artistic hues in the sky. Time almost seems to standstill and you can feel the immense expanse of the universe. As the light slowly slips away, a few early stars shimmer in the blue hour. Birds twitter their goodnites to each other, probably doing a head count of their flock as everything changes into silky, inky silhouettes.

I love it not just coz it's so surreal but because it signals the end of the day, a time to unwind and reflect.  A time to take a few moments to stop, breathe deeply and take in the beauty of this world we live in. On another note, I'm not a morning person so dawn is a rare sight for me and missed while sneezing and snoozing before I'm fully awake.

My husband once wrote me a lore and it ended thus,

When twilight draws it's curtain and pins in with a star,
remember there's someone who loves you, wherever you are.....

Any wonder why I'm all serenely mellow and dreamy when the sky begins to melt into darkness?

Happiness shining through...

Don't you just love it when bang in the middle of a cold grey wintry spell, you have one of those fabulous golden days when the sun comes out bright and beautiful, the sky is baby blue with a few wisps of clouds, a mild breeze blows, the birds are singing and the world is happy again!It feels like you've been gifted something really luxurious and rare! Like all is right with the world and nothing can ever go wrong ....I wish I could hold on to this feeling forever....

 

To celebrate today, I made cheesecake. I used a bigger spring-form tin than I should have and ended up with cheesecake looking like thin crust pizza but soooo yummy anyhow! The golden sunshine makes even flat cheesecake look so pleasing :) ummm blisss.

Such a gorgeous gorgeous day!!!!Even my pricey lil Robin came and posed for a pic :) I almost feel like putting up a hammock and settling down with a book, taking time to look up in between to watch the world go by and take a bite of my yummy dessert..... hmm..dreamy-licious.

Winter Romance

I wrote this a month ago...wonder why I didn't post it....

As winter knocks at my doorstep, people seem to sulk more but I am happy to experience it all, the dreadfully dull days, the cold wind and rain, the snow, the Christmas shopping crowds, the tube rush hour...

Yesterday, while walking down a quiet London Street I couldn't help but feel merry despite the cold and grey weather. It was so romantic and for a few moments time almost stood still. It was a very cold dark evening. The delicious crunch of golden autumn leaves beneath my feet drowned the din of traffic in the distance. The street looked like a maple carpet with shades of gold, red and amber.

The university clock chimed 6 O'clock. Wrapped up in my woollens, bracing the wind, I passed by a small square strewn with autumn leaves. It had a lonely gazebo in the centre. The street lights cast a warm golden glow on the quite street.  I stopped and took a deep breath to cherish the moment before walking on into the darkness.

Stroke of Light

This is a picture that I took almost by mistake. To me it proves that effects are not just for fancy SLR wielding photographers(read hubby who’s quite awesome with his and spends loads of time and money on it ). In fact creativity just requires some simple thinking and playing around with your instrument of choice. The beauty of this snapshot is that it just happened. 

It was towards the end of a longish day at the Thames Festival when I was juggling shopping, handbag, umbrella, food and my humble but very reliable point and shoot, in my hands while trying to capture the fairy lights that had just come on giving a lovely warm and festive feel to the Southbank. As I fumbled with my camera and stuff around my shoulder, arm, palm and fingers, (it’s amazing how much stuff you can manage to carry if you make good use of space) I saw this effect on the LCD screen as the camera moved and thought, “ hey that looks good!” I could create this effect as I click to get a dissolve or what I like to call “the twirl or even swirl” effect! Well, I nearly dropped all my things in the excitement of this unexpected discovery and went on to click a couple of shots.

This one here, is my favourite, goes to show that creativity can happen in the most unlikely circumstances. How do you achieve this? While clicking just rotate your camera… and lo and behold! You can change exposure to create different strokes of light. Now, how cool is that?