Sunday Sweets: An Ostentation of Peacock
October 3, 2010 I recently stumbled across a gaggle of peacock cakes... Gaggle? No, that's not right. {Googling...}
I recently stumbled across a muster of peacock cakes that were too beautiful not to share with the world. I also learned that there are a lot of interesting words that mean "a lot." Lets explore both, shall we?
This peafowl has quite the colony of tail feathers:
This cluster of tail feathers is much more classical:
I really love the bushel of...uh...talent on display here:
The parcel of hand-drawn lines on this modern design is so intricate:
I want to throw this into an episode of Mad Men where they do a commercial for NBC.
This wedding cake doesn't have the skein of feathers that the other cakes do...
The plethora of mosaic tiles here really sets this bird apart...
By Kake Bakery
This trio of cakes showcases some stunning Mehndi designs:
I'm totally in love with this wedding cake:
And finally, just wait until you see the coterie of tiers this next cake has to offer:
That's a blown-sugar peacock on top. Let's take a closer look:
By Schmish
So frilly and delicate, it's more beautiful than a kaleidoscope of butterflies. (Yes, that's really what you call a group of butterflies. Awesome, right?)
Have a Sweet to suggest? Then e-mail it to us at Sunday Sweets [at] Cake Wrecks [dot] com.
Reader Comments (103)
Amazing! I had no idea there were so many gorgeous peacock cakes out there (okay, to be honest, I never really thought there were _any_ peacock cakes out there, eye candy or not). Thanks for filling my Sunday with such beauty!
And to add a bit of geekery, that white peacock cake reminded me of the albino peacock at the Malfoy estate in the last Harry Potter book.
OMG that white one looked like porcelin. They were all beautiful.
They're all pretty awesome but the second one is O. M. G.
check out a series of books by Ruth Heller - one is called A Cache of Jewels and it shows all kinds of collective nouns - some are really strange! (first time poster, but I have followed you from the beginning and am eagerly awaiting your second book, thanks for the smiles!!)
I didn't know that "pulchritude" was a word that could be used to mean "a lot." Maybe it means "a lot of pretty things"?
At any rate, those cakes certainly are all very pulchritudinous. Pulchritudinous Peacock Pastries.
A kaleidoscope of butterflies! That's so vivid! Words are awesome, y'all.
I'm not a fan of peacocks... or birds in general. But these cakes absolutely blew me out of the water. Especially the second one. That is just unreal.
I had that same thought about the white one being like the Malfoy's albino peacock...
And I always thought cakes came in bunches, who knew.
I am totally blown away by my favorite animal in cake form! Thank you for making my day!!
These are astounding. How did anyone actually cut into these to eat them?? And your commentary was wonderful as well.
Thanks to Kristin for mentioned "A Cache of Jewels" which I'll have to look for now. I want to recommend James Lipton's classic book "An Exaltation of Larks" which is another collection of, er, collections.
"Would you say that I have a plethora of pinatas?"
"A what?"
"A plethora."
*big pause* "....Oh yes, you have a plethora."
Senora, you certainly have presented a plethora of pulchritudinous pastries in your post. Plaudits to you!
;)
Carmen, the Un-Stalker
Wow. These are incredibly beautiful. Thank you for posting them--I'm going to share this with my friends.
According to my research, the proper collective noun for feathers is a "tickle of feathers". Which is just adorably cute when you think about it.
I didn't show the post to my four year old until the last one and she knew it was a peacock right away! I've never been a big fan of peacocks (to many bad childhood memories of being chased by angry ones) but these are beautiful.
These are all so beautiful!
Tickle of feathers, Kaliedoscope of butterflies!! I love collective nouns and I LOVE these cakes. It is a sin against art to cut into them!
wv: voloidi Cake wrecks are hilarious but voloidi-ting them
I had no idea there was even such a thing as blown sugar! Beautiful!
I tend to agree that the 2nd one is eye-poppingly beautiful , and I'm thoroughly excited to see other harry potter people lol. That last one though, the blown sugar? just ... well for lack of a better term right now, it blew my mind.
Oh wow! That glass-blown one reminded me of, um, the Loch Ness Monster in "Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" haha. They are all beautiful!
I love your blog but I do have to say (I might be berated for this but I have my opinions) There were one or two peacocks on these cakes I was not too impressed by, the rest were gorgeous however. And one correction you called the first cake a peafowl however given the blues used in it and the amount of tail feathers it cant be a peafowl. The females are usually gray to brown in color and dont have extensive tails.
Mamakitty 1978,
Nobody's gonna berate you for that. You're all nice and well-spoken and stuff and you are entitled to your opinion. I do, however, have to take issue with your correction. The term "Peafowl" is used to describe the type of bird as a whole. Peacock is the male and Peahen is the female. I think you might have meant that the first one is not a Peahen, which is true.
I think.
But what do I know?
Wreck On!
john
I like the top one best. :)
BEAUTIFUL cakes, but I looked up "pulchritude" and it says it means "beauty"--not "a lot". Does it have two meanings???
Anyway, in non-nitpicky comments, my favorites were the first one, the white/gold one, and the mosaic!
Mamakitty1978, in an attempt to be pedantic you have confused the word 'peafowl' with the word 'peahen'. Oh, the horror.
Clearly your bedroom friezes were not as educational as mine!
"Goodnight peacock. Goodnight peahen. Goodnight peachicks. Goodnight peafowl.
"Goodnight cob. Goodnight pen. Goodnight cygnets. Goodnight swans."
Etc.
Those aren't posies! They're daisies. :D
Lovely! Although Cake number one has some unfortunate initials on it. D&V... on a cake? really? lol
I really loved all the cakes. Birds have never really been my thing, but the peacocks brought some beautiful treasures. And of course, my mind went the opposite direction and started to imagine how easy it would be to wreck these cakes.
And confession: I thought misread "muster of peacocks" as "munster" Which made me thing of The Munsters. Cue theme song.
I'm planning my wedding to be themed around peacock feathers...this post just boosted my morale about it. A couple people I've mentioned my ideas to have said it's a nice idea that won't actually work. But now I'm determined to have a cake as beautiful as these at my peacock wedding!
Beautiful cakes, but I'm fairly certain that a good number of the vocabulary words in this post were used incorrectly.
Yes I was mistaken, and correctly corrected. I did confuse peafowl and peahen.
I love the mehndi design peacock cake and it's companion cakes. The piping is so intricate and beautiful. That is so difficult to do and do well. Kudos to the designer.
How cool! When I saw the pictures of the first peacock cake, I thought, "I should send in the picture of my peacock cake". Then, there it was...Kristopher Sillers cake from Kake Bakery. This design was learned in a cake decorating class Oct. 2009 in Tulsa, OK right after the Sugar Art Show. The class was held by Food Network Cake Challengers James Rosselle, Joshua John Russell, and Jason Ellis. It was called The 3 J's. 51 people took the class and only about 3 men decorators were there.
The design is a mosaic pattern and James Rosselle taught us how to do the flowers and cut leaves for the feathers. Joshua did the intricate piping.
It was an awesome opportunity to spend time with these 3 talented cake decorators. I learned a lot in their class, and they are very warm, caring people, just like you see on Food Network.
On top of that, Kerry Vincent (Sugar Art Queen) dropped in to see how we were doing.
Sharon's Edible Art
Although I've been a fan for years I have never posted before, but that first cake is so beautiful I just had to sing it's praises.
BEAUTIFUL! That sugar peacock is amazing.
We actually spent a rainy vacation day this past summer looking up the names for groups of animals.
These are REALLY AMAZING!!!!!!
Those are so beautiful! Thank you for sharing!
Wow, wow, wow. This makes me want to hang up my decorating bags and go home (I won't, but wow). Stunning.
These are gorgeous! Plus, I didn't know that blown sugar even existed or that a group of peafowl was called a muster. Thanks CW!(everyday reader, first time poster btw)
I catered the wedding that the fourth cake was made for! It was even more amazing in person. It was also VERY tasty....
Ummm...Wow. I'm speechless. And drooling.
Usually the Sunday Sweets is full of cakes that are beautifully made. I can always appreciate the talent, imagination, etc. but wouldn't necessarily want but maybe one or two of the cakes for my wedding/anniversary/whatever. Not so this week! I would be ecstatic to have any one of these beauties. I can't possibly even pick a favorite. They're all so unique. And to think I could have gone my whole like and never seen them. I wouldn't have known what I was missing. This and Epbot are the two best blogs ever. You rock!
wow... those are amazing. i love the very modern "drawn" design and that blown sugar peacock -- like a dale chihuly glass sculpture.
You might have gone with a "myriad of mosaic tiles" (for alliteration's sake) vs a "plethora," but still an awesome collection of collectives!
I personally hate peacocks (noisy nasty birds) but those cakes are amazing!
"This profusion of posies makes the perfect perch for a pretty peacock"
alliteration makes me all gooey inside.
posy [ˈpəʊzɪ]
n pl -sies
1. a small bunch of flowers or a single flower; nosegay
So yup, even though they are daisies, Queen Julien, they are also posies. :)
Becky,
You have to be more specific with your gauntlet.
john
Many thanks for these excellent images as well as stretching language into less used modifiers. ~ Lyza
WOW!!
Those belong in an art gallery, not a reception hall...Absolutely, incomprehensibly beautiful...