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It often happens that, when reading celebrated music blog Said the Gramophone, I will have my brain slightly wrinkled by the image chosen to accompany the post. It might be Leonard Nimoy-in-costume-as-Spock leaning against a late-model Chevy. It might be a cake that looks exactly like a piece of furniture:

Ceci n'est pas un sofa

The occasion was an art show/tasting put on by the Tate (London) and Kreemart, “an organization that lets artists explore desserts as a medium” (according to Cakehead Loves Evil).

Sweeeeeet

Demolition

You can see lots more photos from the event at ArtInfo (NB: you will also see boobies, so keep that in mind before you click).

What makes this creation so fascinating is that it is simultaneously realistic (I mean, looking at the first picture, would you guess it were a cake without being told?) AND absolutely scrumptious-looking. Look at the photo above and tell me you don’t want those people to cut you a slice. I enjoy watching Ace of Cakes and those other cake-design shows on food TV networks, or the lovely works in the Sunday Sweets feature at Cake Wrecks. The cakes you see there are definitely beautiful and amazing, but they don’t look particularly edible. Looking at this sofa-cake, I have a deep desire to plunge face-first into it.

Speaking of cake, Jezebel is a women’s interest blog, but it doesn’t really do recipes. But yesterday, contributing editor Sadie Stein posted a family recipe of hers (on the occasion of American Thanksgiving) for something called Wine Cake (the photo at left accompanied the post; I’m not sure if it’s an actual photo of Wine Cake or simply a Wine Cake-like cake).

Like many of the best mid-20th-century recipes, this one has only five (well, six) ingredients: yellow cake mix, vanilla pudding, oil, eggs and cooking sherry (the additional ingredient, icing sugar, is combined with sherry for the glaze).

Now, “cake mix” doesn’t exactly count as an “ingredient” by today’s epicurian standards — and often rightfully so. For instance, last year I made a couple batches of Bakerella’s Cake Balls for festive use and, on the recipe’s suggestion, used pre-pepared mixes and frosting. The result was something that people praised but in which I was disappointed. Prepared foods always have that inescapable chemical aftertaste, you know? This year, I plan to make the Cake Balls with from-scratch cake and icing. And I might make it gluten-free, too. I think the Wine Cake would lend itself to gluten-freeing as well — vanilla pudding is often found in GF baking for its binding and texture-enchancing qualities.

This morning I came across a new-to-me blog called Pictures of Cake. As you might be able to tell, it is relevant to my interests. The most recent post might also be relevant to Sadie Stein’s — it included this image:

Too bad we missed the big day!