LogFAQs > #949540956

LinkPizza posted...

Yeah. Ive seen in other topics where youve mentioned different substitutes and stuff for certain foods, and other things. I think thats creative.

Eh, yes and no. If it's a substitute that closely mimics the flavour of the original, that's not creativity so much as it is having knowledge of alternatives that will achieve the same goal, sort of like taking a side street because your usual route is backed up. If it's a substitute that introduces new flavours that work well with the rest of what's in there, though, that's more creative because you're creating something new. That's more like taking a different route for scenic purposes.

LinkPizza posted...

And while the look of the food doesnt always matter, it can be fun. Like Ive showed them before, but here are a few cakes my mom made. Only a few, but shes made a bunch of them...

Oh yeah, there's a ton of really cool stuff that can be done with cakes. Bonus points when it's actually done with cake instead of the 50% fondant/40% rice krispie square/8% plywood/2% cake "cakes" you see so often on crazy decorating shows. Sugar work in particular is really cool and fun as hell to do, and I really wish I could justify buying equipment to do it, but I just don't have any actual reason. Personally, though, making cakes that fancy isn't something I have a particular talent for, nor do I have enough interest to cultivate those skills. A little piping and maybe the occasional fun design, but anything past that just feels like unnecessary delays before I get to eat the cake.

Cake decorating is certainly a legitimate art form in and of itself, I just take issue with the excessive presentation focus in so much of "haute cuisine." Plated desserts in particular have a tendency to get downright stupid with how much unnecessary stuff goes into them, and the whole "you eat with your eyes" thing frequently turns into a pretentious circle-jerk instead of just acknowledging that people's food should look good. In a world where bread pudding (which is ugly as sin by any reasonable metric) exists and people get excited just seeing it, it should be obvious that you don't actually have to do much to convince people they're about to eat something tasty.

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