20.05.12

Baking and cake decorating have become spectator sports in recent years, making the transition from professional kitchens to the pages of cookbooks and food magazines all the way to cable television and into our homes. What started with Julia Child baking with famous pastry chefs and lifestyle maven Martha Stewart providing countless hours of arts & crafts instruction has now morphed into a cable television pastry case filled with such delectable selections as Food Network Challenge, Cupcake Wars, Ace of Cakes, Top Chef: Just Desserts, Unique Sweets, CakeLove, Baking With the Cake Boss, Bama Glamma , and Sweet Genius , just to name a few. All that television exposure has inspired home bakers around the country to try their hands at stacking and sculpting cake layers; fashioning dainty flowers from gum paste; making animals, fruits, and people out of tinted fondant; and creating elaborate design elements from poured and pulled sugar or carefully tempered chocolate. Nowhere is evidence of this burgeoning trend more apparent than here in Austin. Capital Con­fec­tioners is an organization of about 125 local cake artists who host That Takes the Cake, the largest annual cake and sugar art show in the country. Now in its eighth year, this weekend's Austin show has steadily outgrown a series of local venues and will need every bit of the 60,000 square feet of space available at the North Austin Event Center (10601 N. Lamar) to accommodate competition cake displays, vendor booths, and educational classes.

Source: Austin Chronicle