Things are getting real
Texas baker puts artistic talent to work making cakes that look like actual everyday objects
The viral flavor of the week is cake. Is that a Croc shoe in that photo? Nope, it’s a cake. What about this cute pup? It’s a cake! Everything is a cake.
Photos and videos of cakes masquerading as other objects have been circulating on social media. The masses watch with horror as a knife cuts through one inanimate object after another, revealing sponge and buttercream layers.
This trend is not new, though. Austin-based cake artist Natalie Sideserf, owner of Sideserf Cake Studio, launched her business in 2012 with her husband, Dave Sideserf. He bakes the cakes, she creates the magic around them. We spoke to Natalie about her art and how this viral moment provides much-needed comic relief.
Q: This cake trend blew up last week, but you’ve been doing this for a while.
A: I have a bachelor’s degree in fine art from Ohio State University. After I graduated, a friend of mine asked me to make a cow skull cake for another friend’s birthday. She was like: “You know how to sculpt, so just sculpt a cake!” Having the art background, I treated cake just like I would any other traditional art media. I was very comfortable using clay and plaster and wire. I can use cake in a similar way, I can experiment with it, try to find new ways to make things look super realistic.
I ended up moving to Austin with my now-husband in 2011. I started working in a bakery; that’s where I learned baking, decorating, how to make buttercream, fillings and all the cake stuff. In 2012, I entered a cake
competition in Austin called That Takes the Cake. I made a bust cake of Willie Nelson. My brother put it on Reddit and it was viewed by millions of people. I recognized that I was onto something. I started Sideserf Cake Studio and I have been working on realistic cakes ever since.
Q: What do you make of these cakes going viral last week?
A: I think it’s part-impressive and part-frustrating when you see a cake and you think: “I was just tricked! I really thought that was the object and really it was just a cake.” I love that people love it or hate it. I think it’s great that people have opinions that are on opposite ends. If everybody just loved my cakes, I would find that a little boring.
I love that everybody is kind of freaking out about it. There’s a lot of stuff going on and a lot of it is negative, so I think it’s nice to have a little break from that and just laugh at cake.
Q: What flavors and textures do you work with, and how do you get the cakes so realistic?
A: Being an art major, in college, they teach you to really dive into the material and experiment. I treat cake the same way. These cakes that are vegetables or fruits, I call them still-life cakes. It’s a way for me to experiment with new materials. A great example of that is the onion cake I made. It has wafer paper on the outside. A lot of people thought that I just made a cake and covered it with onion skin, which would be gross. I wanted to try and capture onion skin. So I went with wafer paper, I let it dry, and I made these shell molds. It really looked like onion skin, and when you cut into it, it all flakes. It’s so cool to experiment.
My husband has an awesome time coming up with really cool flavors. Sometimes the flavor will complement the design, so if I’m making a lemon cake, maybe it’s a lemon-flavored cake. But sometimes we like to switch it up and make a pickle that’s chocolate. We do all kinds of flavors.
Q: Tell us about that Whataburger cake you made. Have you made any other Texas-themed ones?
A: I went with red velvet and cream cheese icing because it’s a traditional Southern flavor, everybody likes red velvet. That cake was a lot of fun. I’ve made a bust cake of Ray Benson, I’ve made a 4-foot longhorn cake, I’ve made a cow skull cake. Steak cakes in the shape of Texas. We did a cake for Broken Spoke (a honky-tonk in Austin) of a cow skull that we literally hung on the wall, and nobody knew it was a cake until they cut it, which was really cool. We love making Texas stuff.