It's cake — really! 12 mind-boggling cakes that look nothing like cake
When we stumbled upon San Francisco baker Debbie Goard's cakes, we couldn't believe our eyes. A platter of delicious sushi... that's actually cake. Her creations are so realistic looking, it's hard to believe they're not the real thing.
Incredibly, Goard has no formal training as a baker or decorator. Her career started when the cake decorator at the deli/bakery where she was working retired and Goard was asked to take over, even though she had made one cake before in her life — in Grade 5! She learned from other sculpted-cake bakers, and through trial and error.
Most cakes take Goard a full day or two to create. Her most time-consuming to date took 57 hours — a metre-high replica of a bank for a company's 100th anniversary. Her prices start at US$250 plus delivery — steep, yes, but remember, her smallest cakes still take a minimum of four hours to decorate.
All of Goard's cakes are completely edible. Instead of fondant, she uses modelling chocolate — a type of candy clay she describes as tasting like a "high-end Tootsie Roll" — along with candy, cookies and gummies that she makes herself.
One of her specialties is cake that looks like food (that isn't cake). We picked some of our favourites:
Debbie Does Cakes
Everything bagel with lox cake
Each “poppy seed” was painstakingly rolled and cut by hand.
Subway sub cake
The lettuce is a trade secret, Goard says, but is 100 percent edible.
Christmas ham cake
The ham is actually a vanilla cake with salted-caramel buttercream. The fruit took almost an entire day to make.
Crab boil cake
Between the life-sized pot and all the fillings, this was one heavy cake. It took several days to create.
Chilli Pan Mee Cake
The green onions are made from airbrushed wafer paper.
Tonkotsu ramen cake
Yes, even the spoon and chopsticks are edible.
Pho ga cake
The chopsticks and noodles are suspended in mid-air, thanks to a hidden structure attached to the base of the cake.
Garden salad
The red onions are made from fondant that was painstakingly airbrushed. The croutons are actually cookies.
Burger and fries
Made for a kid’s ninth birthday, this burger is a chocolate cake filled with milk chocolate buttercream.
Macaroni and cheese cake
Each piece of macaroni was made by hand, using white chocolate. The cheese sauce is actually ganache, and the napkin and utensils are edible, too.
TV dinner cake
This cake was made for the opening night of a history museum’s exhibit on TV culture. It was part of a larger tableau that also featured edible TV Guides. The coating on the drumsticks was made from corn flakes.
Dim sum cake
Each cake was a different flavour. One was a vanilla pound cake, and the others were a rich chocolate and a decadent red velvet.
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