Adventures in Cake
For my birthday this weekend I tried to make a Zoetrope cake. I was inspired by Alexandre Dubosc, whose cakes you should definitely look at after this one, because mine does not benefit from the comparison. Warning that the gif below may be a bit of a migraine or seizure trigger.
I have learned some valuable lessons about zoetrope cakes which I will now share with you. First! However lovely the idea of a “winter landscape at night” sounds, the gentle fall of snow and the waxing and waning of the moon will not give you enough movement to get a good zoetrope effect. Next time I’ll go with a classic like a fox jumping over a fence or someone’s head falling off. Second: producing a zoetrope effect in person and on video are two different things. I was so focused on making the zoetrope effect work for my guests, using an efficient Susan* and a strobe app, that I didn’t think about what I needed for the gif. In retrospect, I should have just taken a series of pictures - they wouldn’t have movement blur, and they’d be higher resolution.
Despite these flaws, I am proud of my zoetrope cake. And hey, at least it was tasty.
- “Lazy Susan” is so dismissive. Why should Susan have to always be reaching for things?