CECIL ESTEVES FREIRE, ESJ/HUMANISTIC STUDIES, 2027
Hello… I like food and funny things. I also bake a lot.
Project Overview
For this project, I wanted to play on cake-related ideas I had previously explored in another project. During that project I sliced and served the cake while we discussed and critiqued the project, so that eating it together (cake is typically eaten in celebration of something) became part of the experience of the project.
In this mycelium version, the focus was more on the humor and physical properties of the cake than the deeper meaning and symbolism of it. The initial concept was that of a cake that would grow its own frosting, and that the fruiting body of the reishi would act as decoration or even mimic candles. The course of this project wasn’t long enough to allow the cake to frost itself, so the full extent of it wasn’t realized, but that was what I had intended to present. I had also considered, unrealistically, that it would be funny to slice it (I was told that I would probably need a saw or something), and also considered making everyone sing happy birthday (to whom? No clue, but my thought process was like, there’s a cake, and if I start singing happy birthday then will everyone else follow regardless of if there’s an actual birthday to celebrate because socially we’re told to do that).
There was also an element of play and childhood/childishness to it in that playing with dirt was a thing I did a lot as a kid and the concept of a “mud cake” is fairly well-known as a gross things kids really like to serve to people around them. This is like the grown-up nerdy version of that.
Process
My first step into deciding that this was going to be a cake – I like cakes, I like baking, and I had been toying with the idea that being in the lab is weirdly like baking all semester. I chose to use molds already present in the lab: a 9″ nonstick cake pan, a ~7″ stainless steel pot, and a ~5″ glass petri dish, all of which were autoclaved prior to being packed. I did not inoculate the substrate before packing it as time was a bit short for this project. I packed the substrate into the molds using an autoclaved large spoon and did so outside the flow hood on the counter (sprayed with isopropyl and wearing a mask just in case).
A few days before presenting, I checked on my cakes and noticed that the one in the nonstick cake pan was turning black around the edges which was alarming. I turned it out onto a plastic cutting board and it appeared that the nonstick coating and the mycelium were somehow reacting negatively to each other, with the pan rusting from the moisture and the mycelium turning black. Maybe someone can find something cool to do with this reaction but I was kind of upset that I would have an ugly cake because I wanted it to really grow and have that velvety frosting-y surface to it. I packed the mold again, but this time lined with plastic wrap, and while I didn’t end up using that version because it didn’t have enough time to grow to be stable, I can say that it worked at keeping the mycelium safe/away from the nonstick coating and the reaction did not repeat. (you can kind of see the discoloration and crumbling of the bottom layer in the photos above.)
The other two molds were fine and came out pretty easily with a little thin metal tool (Ryan also fashioned a spatula out of plastic from the vacuum mold for me to slide around the edge of the mold and I did this prior to de-molding to pull the mycelium away from the sides). This is relevant because the nonstick pan TOTALLY stuck. I then just stacked the layers on top of each other on a plate. Sorry for no process photos, I kind of forgot that I was supposed to do that.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9Mx4hZs88h3ky6Md9 <- link to video of the full turnaround of the final project which I was unable to add directly to the page!
Learn More
Here’s my contact just in case:
cestevesfreire@gmail.com (I actually check my email)
cestevesfreire@mica.edu
@dozingggreen on Instagram