The Mondrian Cake
Ingredients
Red, Yellow, Blue food colouring Classic Pound Cake Recipe x4 Chocolate or Ganache Frosting
DIrections
Make a quick sketch of your Mondrian pattern, to use as a guide with arranging the cake (simple is better)
Divide the batter into 4 equal parts, and put each into a seperate bowl Tint the batter for each color; be extra generous with the colouring to get rich colors Now, unless you have several long cake tins, you’ll need to bake each separately Leave to cool in the baking tin, before taking out and placing on a cooling rack Once completely cool, trim the edges of the colored cakes with a long serrated knife Reference your sketch to trim strips of cake that align with your pattern. Some may be long but smaller square-shaped. Others, long rectangles. Put these strips next to each other, and stack them - so you can match the pattern. Using a spatula, spread the chocolate frosting (or ganache) over the cake pieces to adhere them to each other - layer by layer. Once your mold has been formed, spread the chocolate over the entire cake. Leave to set in the fridge for a few hours.
Slice in, and enjoy!
The Mondrian Cake - Simplified, and Baked by Hipstamatic
inspired by renowned pastry artist caitlin freeman and her legendary mondrian cake above, we decided to take the art issue to the kitchen and create a simplified version. we still highly recommend grabbing Freeman’s cookbook, Modern Art Desserts for the original and other recipes. -Rheanna Martinez
We asked caitlin freeman about what led her to the medium and technique of choice?
“I was a photography student and I first saw Wayne Thiebaud’s cake painting, “Display Cakes” at the SFMOMA. I fell in love with it, and started working at a bakery in Santa Cruz just to be around cakes. After graduating, I moved to San Francisco, and left art behind for a while. In 1999(ish), I went to a retrospective of Thiebaud’s work at the Legion of Honor, and declared that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I decided to learn to make cakes. Which ended up with me co-owning a cake shop called Miette for many years. I sold Miette in 2008, just before my husband (who owns Blue Bottle Coffee) was asked to open a cafe at the SFMOMA. I had the idea to make Thiebaud cakes inside the museum where I first fell in love with his art, and that’s turned into this big project: food based on art on display in the museum.”
