When ordinary food becomes a part of art | Dinara Kasko | TEDxWHU

Dinara Kasko is a Ukrainian "architectural pastry chef." She creates highly artistic, edible cakes using 3D printers. Dinara explains how her art and career shifted from architecture to the baking industry, resulting in a combination of both fields. Moreover, her professional career and the choices she made show that due to the emergence of new technologies, people get the possibility to tap into completely new fields either in their personal life or in their work life. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Thank you.

So, good day to everyone.

I would like you to imagine a cake.

Just a cake, OK?

It can be your favorite cake,

made by you or by your mom,

or some cake from
the nearest pastry shop -

just ordinary favorite cake.

Of course, I have my ideas
about how a perfect cake looks like,

and you have your ideas.

So let's compare our ideas.

My cake can look like this -

and it has some fillings inside -

or like this

or like this.

That's why I'm here today,

and I would like to talk about my concept
and about my creations.

So, people have been consuming
sweets for ages,

and if you try to find some information
about the first sweets -

for example, ice cream was invented
more than 4,000 years ago,

and people just mixed ice
with fruit and berries

and ate it like ice cream.

But for many years in the past,
sugar was a true luxury item

and only rich people
could buy sweet things.

But in the 19th century,
everything changed,

and sugar became accessible
almost to everyone

because sugar production increased.

At the same time, in Europe,

the tradition to finish a meal
with some sweet dessert was born,

and this tradition still exists nowadays.

So me, my family and I,
we are not an exception,

and we also usually eat some sweets,
some cakes after a meal.

Of course, there are some people
who don't want to eat any sweets,

but I'm not among them.

I really want to eat cakes
and croissants, ice cream -

I like it -

and this is one of the reasons
why I became a pastry chef.

Because I wanted to cook it
and I wanted to eat it.

So when I was 15,
I decided to be an architect.

I decided I want to be an architect.

Of course, I had no idea
that objects of my design would be cake.

I graduated from the University
of Architecture and Design,

and I worked as an interior
designer for a few years,

but then something happened,
and I starting baking and cooking.

Of course, I cook
for me and for my family.

For me, it was very important

when a dish, when a meal

was beautifully presented
and beautifully served.

And what can be
more beautiful than a cake?

So, I don't know - for me, it's a cake.

So I started baking,

and in general,

I saw, for the first time in my life,
I saw a mousse-glazed cake,

maybe six years ago.

And I was totally shocked,
and for me it was like a miracle.

Oh my God, it was so shiny,
so bright, so unusual for me.

And it was something very new.

And modern cake for me and for people,

it's not just sponge cake
with cream and sugar and berries.

It's something bigger,

and it's a real art,
and it's real science.

Modern pastry chefs

are not just ordinary people
who make the same things day by day.

They compete with each other,

they need to make some creative things,

they need to make pieces of art.

I would like to show you
a modern pastry world from that side

to show that it can be real art.

I started baking, and, of course,
I had my social networks,

and I wanted to share
my passion, my hobby,

with my followers, with my friends,

and I started posting pictures
on my Instagram.

Then I noted that some creative objects

usually attracted much more attention

and got more likes, for example.

And I started to think about
my own moulds, own designs.

But unfortunately,

it was almost impossible
to make some special objects

using just ordinary moulds
from mass production,

because everybody had the same moulds,
so I could make only the same things.

So I started to think about my own moulds,
and I started to think about a 3D printer.

And to be honest, at that time,
I knew nothing about 3D printing -

okay, so there is some 3D printer -

but now I work with it a lot,

and for me, it's just an ordinary tool,
like a standard mixer on my kitchen.

So I work with it almost every day.

3D printing was invented
maybe 30 or 40 years ago,

and with a 3D printer,

we can print very tiny,
small objects, like for jewelry,

or big objects, like a house.

And it's possible.

Can you imagine a big printed house,

400 square meters?

It's possible.

However, I work
with [more] modest objects,

just my moulds,

and I work with plastic.

My first mould, I printed
a couple of years ago,

and it was the cake from this mould.

I wanted to make some special cake,

and this cake has
a very aggressive design,

with sharp edges and strict lines

and with provocative colors,

and for me, it was important to make
something different to surprise people.

So we made this cake,

and then this experiment was successful,

and I realized that, okay,
now I can do anything I want.

Almost everything.

I would like to talk
about the 3D printing process.

What you have to do, it's a small lesson.

You need to make a 3D model.

You can use any software.

For example, I work with 3ds Max,
Grasshopper, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD,

Houdini, and different software.

Then you have to print this mould,
and you have a printed mould.

I call it prototype.

Then you have a printed mould,

and you have to pour silicone on the top
and wait a few hours,

and you will have just some silicon mould.

And inside, you have to put
some ingredients, some recipe.

It's a very important part for me
to create a very good recipe.

Because the recipe is very important.

We need to have very good textures inside
and very good flavors inside.

Otherwise, people
won't buy it a second time.

You see, they were different layers,
and it was a cake.

(Laughter)

So, when you have your recipe,
you put inside some ingredients,

and you need to freeze it,

and after, you just need to finish it
with glazing or spraying,

and you have your cake.

It's not the end.

My last step is making photos and videos,

and it's a big, separate part for me,

and usually I try to make
very good visual content

because it's very important for me.

Just a few people can eat my cakes.

I don't have any mass production;
I don't have any shop now.

But everybody can see
my cakes, my creations.

So I want to share good pictures,
and I want to surprise people.

And this is my next step and my next goal.

I want to surprise and inspire people.

Because when you see my cake,
if you see it for the first time,

you can't understand what it is,

whether it is, I don't know,
some piece of furniture,

some tray or weighs
or something, plastic toy.

But if you cut it, you have inside
a lot of different layers.

They can be crunchy or fluffy, gentle,

with chocolate, with different fruits.

It's a real cake.

I want to inspire people,

and some people write me,

like "You are my inspiration,
and I started to bake.

I want to be a pastry chef;
I changed my career,"

and I'm very happy about it

because I want to share my passion also.

And once,

Malevich worked with his students
on some manufacturing,

and they were making
some design for a teapot.

And when the director of this [factory],
he came and saw this teapot,

and he said, "It's a good idea,

but it's not very convenient,

this teapot."

And sometimes, my cake,
it's not just a cake.

It's the idea of a cake.

And Malevich answered him,

"It's not a teapot;
it's an idea of a teapot."

So I try to just make some ideas
and to share them.

For example, here, a lot of people
think that it's glass, but it's sugar.

This is a sugar box.

And my next step -

I wanted to explain
my project a little bit.

So it's a cherry cake.

We used 3ds Max to make this mould,

and we just made a 3D-modeled cherry,

and we put inside,
inside an invisible box,

a lot of cherries,

and then we hide this box.

And at the end, we had
just a lot of cherries stuck together.

You see this process?

Just a lot of cherries.

Then, of course,
I finished it with my hand,

and, also, I can show dismould.

It was demoulded.

Then we made a silicon mould,
and, of course, we made a cake,

and after you cover it with glaze,

it looks like real cherries
just stuck together.

Of course, if you cut it,
you have different layers inside.

This is the cherry cake,
of course with cherry taste,

and with dark chocolate and cherry.

And by the way, this video
got more than nine million views,

and for me, it was
a very big surprise also.

(Music)

Yeah, so it's eatable.

Yeah.

So my next cake, I call it cluster cake.

Using a Voronoi diagram,
we split this shape.

We tried to make a stone effect,
so, like, we have a lot of stones.

Then, we just broke off some of them,

and we have this stone cake mould.

It looks very nice.

This is work of a Venezuelan artist,
and his name is Jose Margulis,

and he works with 3D sculptures
and compositions.

He works usually with plastic,
metal, and acrylic sheets,

but he sent me his drawings,
and I made this.

But I made it of chocolate,

so they were just chocolate sheets.

And of course, we made a video.

Every time, we try to make
photos and videos.

Here, we're using also a milling machine.

This was a yogurt cake,
by the way, with berry.

We use a milling machine
to cut these chocolate sheets.

I just prepared a lot of sheets
with colorful chocolate,

and we made it in my city
in some laboratory.

This guy created, also,
this milling machine by himself.

Here we tried to show
how we can collaborate.

How different people
from different professions

can make some
interesting project together.

We were three people -
artist, engineer, and pastry chef -

and we created such a collection.

We called it Kinetic Tarts,

and [in total], we made
four different tarts.

Here is a picture of ferrofluid.

Ferrofluid is some liquid
that can be strongly magnetized

in presence of magnetic fields.

It was a big inspiration for me.

I dreamed about this shape,
and finally I made it like a cake.

We made it just two months ago.

Specially, this shape I made
for a collaboration

with a Spanish pastry chef.

His name is Jordi Bordas,
and he's the world champion.

And here, my second main goal,

I want to explain to you

that modern cakes, they can be healthy.

So here, for example,
is a totally vegan cake.

There is no cream,
no butter, no flour, and no eggs.

But it's still a mousse cake
with airy textures inside.

Instead of this, we have inside
mango, lychee, passion fruit, strawberry,

and even cactus flower.

This cake was very tasty,

and it was quite complex to create
this recipe without these ingredients,

even without gelatin or cream,

it's not easy.

You have to be smart,

you have to know a lot

about chemical processes,
physical processes

to create such a recipe.

I would like to [say] that modern cakes,

it's not just sugar with berries,
with butter, mixed together.

They can be healthy.

We can keep all vitamins inside.

We can have strong flavor
without any special attention.

It's also very important for me

to share that we can make
very good and tasty cakes

low in sugar and low in fat.

So my main message -

if we eat this cake
just a few times during a year,

maybe for some celebration,
for a birthday, for some holiday,

try to find your perfect,
tasty, beautiful cake, like I did.

Okay, thank you.

(Applause)