Shaped Cakes, or, Obsession Breeds Specificity
Monday, October 27, 2008 at 07:00AM A few years ago, I was looking to use up my pretty but aimless supply of origami paper by turning it into greeting cards. I went online to look for a pretty "Happy Birthday" rubber stamp and accidentally stumbled into the Rubber Stamp Subculture, the general feel of which (from my admittedly only cursory toe-dipping) can be summed up well by the name and logo for one of the stamping sites:
I was a little freaked out by it. I just couldn't imagine living a life where I needed to spend $8.30 for a stamp that says "Housework can't kill you...but why take the chance?" How many times could I possibly need to express that sentiment to a) need a rubber stamp to do it for me and b) make the ROI worth it?
But, of course, every subculture can look batshit crazy to an outsider. That's what makes them so adorable/scary.
The more time you spend thinking about one subject, the more specific you have to get about it. You can't be vaguely obsessed or generally obsessed, the mind just doesn't work like that. It's inevitable that if you spend a big part of your waking days thinking about one certain thing, you're going to get very very detailed about it in a way that is baffling to an outsider or a more casual participant.
So I should not have been surprised this past Sunday morning, as I idly shopped for a mini-bundt pan whilst sipping my morning coffee, when I stumbled onto the hints of a baking subculture that I might be eventually joining: the shaped cake community.
There are some obvious ones (stars, flowers, basic holiday shapes). But if you keep searching you find a few highly-specific cake pans that I realize are for kid's birthday cakes but are still a little baffling in their specificity...
Trucks, footballs, ships, I can get, but tractors, stadiums and octopi? Is the market really crying out for those (at around $30/pop)? (Although I must admit there is something aesthetically satisfying about the stadium...it's a good shape for a baked good.)
Amazon gives users the cool option of uploading a picture related to its products, so users have for finished product made with some of the cake pans on offer. There were, however, no pictures of user-created cakes for those three pans. Draw your own conclusion.
And then there are the less obscure ones that nevertheless are still designed for the obsessive. Because no one who is not completely and utterly batshit for baking is going to even attempt the likely heartbreak of trying to make a 3-D Santa...
or mini-castle set.
Regarding the Santa - it's hard enough to draw the likeness of a human face with a sharp pencil, but a pastry bag? OMG, why not just kill yourself now? It'll end in tears, I tell you!
And for the mini-castle, I look at all those little details and miniature turrets and all I see is the inevitable agonizing failure of the cake breaking off or never coming out of the tiny corners in the pan.
But of course as I write this, I know the likelihood is I will someday be up at 2:00 AM trying to make some perfect cake for some event...maybe a bunch of pineapple-shaped mini-pineapple upside down cakes, since I'm on a quest to find the best one ever...
(Although I would draw the line at this pineapple Bundt cake pan.
Now that is just a bridge too far. Plus what is the point of a pineapple-shaped cake pan that would be structurally incapable of supporting a pineapple upside-down cake? You serve this at a party, you're going to have a lot of confused guests.)
To be completely honest here, I actually do already own a silicone rosebud-shaped cake mold that was an impulse buy when at a discount store. I bought it in a shopping fog about a year ago and still haven't used it. But I guess whenever I am ready to fully tumble down the slippery slope into serious crazytime baking, I am already equipped for the trip.
I could probably go on and on, but will end now with this Zen koan of a cake pan. A cake pan...shaped like a cupcake. It's a cake pan designed to look like another form of cake. I think the universe just folded onto itself.
Reader Comments (1)
Well if you did the castle mold and the tops didn't come out all neat, you could insead make it a "ruined" castle. Which is mucho more authentic anyway because only faux castles look perfect.
Now I know what to get you for the next b-day. ;)