The Amazing Art of the Japanese Christmas Cake

Hi ATS. I find myself alone in Tokyo tying up some loose ends and it looks like I'll probably be here through Christmas. I took the pictures below this morning in the hotel I'm staying at (Imperial Hotel, across from Hibiya Park). They are all photographs of award-winning "Christmas Cakes" on display in the hotel.

"Japan" and "Christmas" aren't concepts that go together much in the public imagination, and with less than 2% of Japan being Christian, you might wonder why they would go together at all. Yet ever since the beginning of the US occupation after WWII, Christmas celebrations and displays (generally presented in a non-religious, aesthetic way that may seem odd to westerners) have become a seasonal fixture of winter in Japan.

One Japanese Christmas "tradition" is the so-called "Christmas Cake," which somehow became bound up in the public imagination with the holiday. The photos below are all of actual cakes - The only materials used are cake and frosting. The detailing is amazing...I've never seen anything like it. Yes, its ALL FROSTING. I've kept the pictures big so you can appreciate the details, so you will have to use the scrolling bars to see the whole images.

Nobody does detail like the Japanese. Just look at those cakes!

Merry Christmas, ATS!

-Silent Thunder, spending Christmas alone in a Tokyo hotel...with a cake for sure.

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Below: This is frosting on a cake, but it looks like knit cloth. Fantastic illusion.


Below: cake shaped like a book and quill pen


Below: cradle and teddybear, very convincing (use the image scroll function)


Below: Who doesn't want a remote control cake-car?


Below: This horn was the most impressive to me. How they got that metallic color is beyond me.


Below: A massive, two-story Christmas-Cake-Tree in a stairwell

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reply to post by silent thunder


That first cake picture takes the cake so to speak.
The amount of accuracy, concentration, and finesse,
is really a work of art.
I am sure that as excellent as your photos are,
you will agree that there is nothing like the real thing.

Stay healthy over there, the sweets can be heavy.

S&F

Originally posted by Wildmanimal
reply to post by silent thunder

 

That first cake picture takes the cake so to speak.
The amount of accuracy, concentration, and finesse,
is really a work of art.
I am sure that as excellent as your photos are,
you will agree that there is nothing like the real thing.

Stay healthy over there, the sweets can be heavy.

S&F

I agree. The ribbons at the bottom and the pom-pom tassel is particularly amazing,

I've never seen anything quite like this, but I know cake chefs can do ridiculous stuff with heated blowtorches and so on.

Good find OP!