An Autobiography Of A Cake, 2022
Food: Chocolate Cake, Coffee Cake, Lemon Sesame Cake, Peanut butter and Chocolate Cake
Dietary/ allergy information: Contains dairy
An Autobiography Of A Cake, is a food performance intervention based on the reading Spirituality: Divine Love; All About Love by Bell Hooks.
The performance invites the viewer through a reading, asking them to consume the delish and in return carry a piece of a cake (sculpture) with them. Each piece of the sculpture is signed and carries the title with a unique code. It was an attempt to highlight the production centered commodity culture [1], alternatively making people believe they are what they possess.
I am interested in acquiring a kind of data through my public intervention using food as a tool. I intend to create and hold spaces for conversation of micro narratives through my performance. The act is also an attempt to archive the transition of esculent, prepared in Ahmedabad in my mother’s kitchen; that traveled to Delhi for the performance and furthered its journey beyond the performance – making itself a part of a birthday celebration and carried by people, perhaps for their loved ones.
The performance carried four cakes, my mother’s cake recipes, four platters, four spatulas, paper plates, tissue paper, the sculpture – cut as pieces and the essay by Bell Hooks.
[1]. Spirituality: Divine Love, All About Love, Bell Hooks
½ cup sugar
1 cup maida
¼ cup oil
½ tea spoon baking soda
1 tea spoon baking powder
½ cup dahi
½ tea spoon vanilla essence
2 to 3 tbsp spoon cocoa powder
¼ cup milk
- Mix all dry ingredients
- Mix oil, curd, milk, essence
- Mix all the wet ingredients in the dry ingredients
- Beat the batter until it is a smooth thick paste
- Pre heat the oven at 180 for 10 mins.
- Bake for 25 to 30 mins
- The cake is born.
½ cup sugar
1 cup maida
¼ cup oil
½ tea spoon baking soda
1 tea spoon baking powder
½ cup dahi
½ tea spoon vanilla essence
4 tea spoon coffee and cinnamon (add as per the flavor)
¼ cup milk
- Mix all dry ingredients
- Mix oil, curd, milk, essence
- Mix all the wet ingredients in the dry ingredients
- Beat the batter until it is a smooth thick paste
- Pre heat the oven at 180 for 10 mins.
- Bake for 25 to 30 mins
- The cake is born.
½ cup sugar
1 cup maida
¼ cup oil
½ tea spoon baking soda
1 tea spoon baking powder
½ cup dahi
2 tbsp lemon juice and lemon jest
2 tbsp lemon essence and yellow color
¼ cup milk
- Mix all dry ingredients
- Mix oil, curd, milk, essence and color
- Mix all the wet ingredients in the dry ingredients
- Beat the batter until it is a smooth thick paste
- Pre heat the oven at 180 for 10 mins.
- Sprinkle the white sesame on the mold before adding the batter
- Bake for 25 to 30 mins
- The cake is born.
½ cup sugar
1 cup maida
¼ cup oil
½ tea spoon baking soda
1 tea spoon baking powder
½ cup dahi
½ tea spoon vanilla essence
4 tea spoon cocoa powder
¼ cup milk
- Mix all dry ingredients
- Mix oil, curd, milk, essence
- Mix all the wet ingredients in the dry ingredients
- Beat the batter until it is a smooth thick paste
- Roast the peanuts and clean them
- Grind the peanut like a powder and keep some as crushed seeds
- Add the powder in batter
- Sprinkle the crushed seeds in the mold while adding the batter
- Pre heat the oven at 180 for 10 mins.
- Bake for 25 to 30 mins
- The cake is born.
