cakes4sport Makes Fairy Food

I'd wholeheartedly believe you if you told me that these cakes came straight off of a fairy's picnic table.

Meet Alli, who makes exquisite sculptural cakes for sport.

How did you foster a love for baking?

I grew up baking with my mom and grandma. They’re very creative and crafty so a lot of our free time when I was young was spent sewing, baking, and drawing. Baking is something I’ve always enjoyed and I love how accessible it is; it requires little special equipment and basic ingredients are generally affordable. I also have a huge sweet tooth which has always made baking especially appealing!

Do you bake your cakes from scratch? Do you create your own recipes?

I bake all of my cakes from scratch, but most recipes I use are a patchwork of ones I find online. Even then, I’m often adjusting or improvising depending on what I have on hand. The visual and structural possibilities are a big part of why I chose to work with cake. However, it’s important to me that if I’m using food as my medium, it’s something that will taste good and not be put to waste. I usually start with an ingredient I want to use, something I have too much of in my fridge, or something I saw at the store that I can’t stop thinking about. I’ll sift through a bunch of recipes to learn about flavor pairings, consult a few cookbooks, or take an Internet free fall. Eventually, I emerge with a plan for all of the components I want to create. I have some baseline knowledge of baking techniques, but I don’t have any culinary background and have always had a strange relationship with food, so this research part is key.

Cakes are essentially made to be cut into and enjoyed. How do you feel about the ephemeral nature of your work?

This is actually what appeals to me the most and why I started using cake as a medium for my art. I have been working in ceramics for the past several years and I just kept getting hung up on how wasteful it felt at times. I kept thinking a lot about how we are still unearthing pottery from years BC and the idea that I was making something so permanent compounded with how expensive it is to create. It was bumming me out. As is so often suggested when you’re frustrated with your art practice, going back to your own version of “the basics” can bring new confidence and spark different ways of thinking. Cake felt so right because of its temporality and I already had the foundation in home baking so I could really dive in. With cake, I can incorporate many of the sculptural and textural aspects that inform my ceramic work, but the fact that it is meant to be actually ingested really accentuates the brevity of the piece. You have to destroy it to enjoy it and something about this serving as an endpoint feels like making peace with creating.

Your affinity for nature is apparent in your body of work — you often adorn your cakes with dried leaves, flowers, and fresh berries. Describe your relationship to the natural world and how it plays into your creative process.

I’m originally from California and have always had proximity to nature; it’s endlessly inspiring! The tactile and visual elements of plans and produce resonate with me, but when it comes to my practice, it’s oftentimes a more practical approach. I’m trying to utilize what I have on hand to add texture, color, and elements of height. While my work is maximalist, I don’t like excess consumption so I try to be as resourceful as possible. I like to explore the many different ways I can transform a raspberry or where I can add some green or red that will make the palette. These natural elements have come to be the pieces that tie it all together.

Your cakes are intricately and elaborately decorated, rich in various colors and shapes and textures. Can you share the method behind the (beautiful) madness of cake decoration?

It is chaos by design. I spent my formative years training to become a ballet dancer and my mind is pretty programmed to obsess over perfection and control so it’s important for me to let it flow and accept what happens. It’s almost a therapeutic exercise and a visualization of how chaotic it feels in my head sometimes. It’s freeing to make something that is so candid and unexpected. In my pieces, I like to lean into what feels right for the material I’m using. I like to highlight the properties and behaviors of the ingredients, especially honing in on the way they move. And, at the end of the day, there’s something that’s just so funny to me about a cake that looks deranged.

If you could bake a cake for anyone in the world, who would it be?

This is a great question! More than any one specific person, I wish I had the capacity to bake a cake for everyone who wants one!

What advice do you have for budding creatives?

There’s no right way to create! There’s always room to learn, but the hardest part is getting past your inner critic and feeling comfortable in ambiguity. Accept yourself and go for it, even if it’s not clear to you what you’re doing yet!

What’s next for you and cakes4sport?

This is still brewing in my mind at the moment, but collaborating with others has been a highlight so far! I’m looking forward to finding new ways to do so.

Originally published March 7, 2021