Edible Food Festival

If I had the interwebs at home, I would probably update this blog more! One day folks, one day...

What have I been up to since my last post in February? Mostly I've been working and adjusting to my new job, playing with my now 1 year old cats, and also playing in the snow that ceases to end (seriously, it snowed yesterday- albeit, it didn't stick to anything).

One of my bosses, in another department ( I work for two departments), accidentally sends color prints to my printer all the time (apparently she has to manually put in which printer she wants to send it to when color is detected- but she forgets). This usually results in me being startled because the printer directly behind me begins printing out of the blue. However, the random printouts turned out to be a blessing in disguise! One of the printouts was for a Johns Hopkins event (my employer)- the first ever Edible Book Festival hosted by the Sheridan Libraries!

The adorable flyer that popped magically out of my work printer

After staring at the flyer for several minutes then spending an hour afterward doing crazy deliberation in my head, I decided, why the heck not, and signed up for the cake contest! The main rules for the cake itself are simple: it has to be edible and it has to be inspired by a book.

My book of choice: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Specifically, I wanted to recreate the 1972 book cover by David Pelham. The colors really popped and the design is very stylized. I didn't want to choose a book that might be too obscure. (Random fact: did you know that the book was first published 52 years ago?)

1972 David Pelham book cover of A Clockwork Orange by
Anothony Burgess

I started out making two, 8-inch square, layers of a basic white cake with rose water. The filling was buttercream with a layer of thinly sliced strawberries. I wanted to use fondant for the cake design, because 1) I've never used fondant before and thought it would be fun (and it was- it's kind of like Play-Doh), 2) I thought it would be easier to make the design than to try to do so with frosting, and 3) I really wanted bold colors so that it would stand out and match the book cover. For fondant to adhere, it's best for there to be a thin layer of something sticky over the entire cake. It can be a thin layer of buttercream frosting or melted jam. I opted for a thin layer of melted strawberry jam.

My psychedelic Clockwork Orange cake

The event was a lot of fun and a ton of people came (I mean there were like 20 cakes to eat and for free at that). At the end of the festival, I left on a sugar high and with $50 worth of gift certificates in my pocket because I won "Best Dessert that could be mistaken for a book!"

Check out the Tumblr link earlier in this post for more pictures of the cake submissions (the Silence of the Lambs cake is AMAZING)!