Edible Books: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Baking

Competitive Update: Megan’s cake just won the “Taste of Mexico” Category at the 2010 UIUC Edible Books Festival.   Congratulations Megan!

Last Tuesday was the Edible Books festival at UIUC, and I entered a One Hundred Years of Solitude cake!

It was a really excellent experience, partly because it was a whole lot of fun to have a reason to make something so complicated, and mostly because I got to spend the morning hanging out with other people who have an unnatural interest in baking extravagant things.  And, I took home a prize (for reasons which are very flattering and sort of inexplicable) for the Taste of Mexico category.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves, but here’s a rundown of the cake:
– Marble cake with cream cheese icing
– Graham cracker and icing houses
– Red icing trail of blood
– Licorice train tracks
– Pretzel stick fence
– Runts bananas
– Animal cracker livestock
– Rock candy “ice”
– Pretzel stick, icing, and mint-leaf tree
– Mint leaf border
– Mini yellow swedish fish “gold fish”
– Orange peel “baby tail”
– Brown sprinkle “ants”
– Lots and lots and lots of icing color

Ta-da!

The banana company railroad yard.

The first of the line is tied to a tree...

... and the last is being eaten by the ants.