Not a piece of cake!

I thought this project would be a piece of cake (pun completely intended). I follow theartofplating.com, love color, consider myself a proficient designer and thought I could rock this project no problem! Little did I know that no amount of carefully planned sketches guarantee a well executed 3D product. 

+ pages of stencilcentric design

The inspiration for my approach came from a baked good I created years ago. I successfully dusted cocoa powder through a stencil onto cookies with great results and the idea of using a stencil for this plating project got burned into my brain.The majority of my sketches involved negative and positive forms. I came up with a myriad of ideas that revolved around incorporating a stencil. I considered using an orange and brown (chocolate) color palette, a yellow and brown pallet and a purple and brown color palette and in the end decided to use pink and brown and incorporate raspberry and rose flavors.

I found an awesome stencil on amazon and started dreaming about
how I'd use it while I waited for the package to arrive on my doorstep. Once it was in my hands, I was sort of shocked at how small it was and foresaw its size causing problems for my envisioned my technique. However, I pressed on and began amassing goods to use in experimenting. 

I acquired a bunch of materials which included:

• two types of yogurt
• two varieties of fruit leather
• raspberries
• chocolate covered sunflower seeds
• raspberry jam
• chocolate chips
• a rectangular plate
• stencil dauber
• chocolate sauce

I also made a raspberry sauce, rose gelatin and chocolate "sheet".

Stencil experimentation

I experimented with different methods of cutting and applying the materials with the stencil. I created powders from: freeze dried raspberries, dried rose petals, chocolate covered sunflower seeds, and pink Himalayan salt. When using these powders with the stencil I applied a clearish "adhesive" (honey or corn syrup) within the stencil negative and dabbed the powder on top of the sticky substance. For the most part this worked. However, often removal of the stencil deposited powder in unintended areas.

The sauce I applied with a small paint dauber. The sauce had a tendency to bleed out under the stencil. 

I also used the stencil as a guide for cutting pieces out of a number of materials (fruit leather, gelatin, frozen chocolate sauce sheet).The most successful cutting involved fruit leather. 

After a lot trial and error I concluded that the stencil I had chosen was just too small and intricate for the methods I was attempting. Because the shapes within the stencil were so small and the spaces in between the shapes so slight, I was unable to devise a way to prevent powders and sauces from intermingling. I decided to switch gears slightly and determined that the only way I could work with a stencil was to select one with larger negative areas. Being that I was using rose as one of my flavors, I thought using a rose stencil would compliment the taste of the dish well. 

I found the Mackintosh rose and thought its dimensions
and proportions were perfect for a stencil! I cut out the negative shapes and began exploring this new composition. Below are two iterations. The one on the left is composed of all cut cake shapes powdered with raspberry dust with sauce resting under the cake. On the right the cut cake shapes comprise only a portion of the overall rose shape with the other shapes made from cocoa powder (representing the variety of powders I concocted and would use in the final). 

I felt the design that combined both

The final product

the "stenciled" cake shapes and the "stenciled" powders appeared crisper and cleaner. However, I think the with further tweaking the design implementing mostly cake shapes has a lot of potential. Overall, I think the downfall of my process was assuming that my ideas and 2D sketches would translate well through 3D materials. I attempted to exert too much control over unruly materials within a rigid structure.