The Motion Arsenal was honored to be invited by the Princeton University School of Architecture to create an edible sculpture series for Sylvia Lavin’s exhibition entitled, Architecture Arboretum. Speaking of Trees was a one-night-only symposium featuring an expert panel from widely differing fields coming together to discuss the challenges that ‘plant thinking’ offers to or imposes on contemporary, historical, and theoretical work. We handcrafted a completely edible sculpture made of cake to resemble fallen moss-ridden logs on a fresh forest floor.

With festive flavors of mulled wine, chocolate and spiced jam, each of the Buche de Noël-inspired desserts featured realistic bark textures and colours that were delicately painted with Swiss meringue buttercream. The “logs” sat on a bed of cocoa flavored chocolate “soil” amongst dehydrated apple “leaves” and matcha cake “moss”. Visitors were invited to indulge in the multi-sensory experience by interacting directly with the edible forest and consuming the creations, calling to the inevitable impact humans have on the natural world. 

We would like to thank the School of Architecture and the incredible baking team at Princeton Architecture for making this exhibition possible. For more information on the Architecture Arboretum exhibit, please visit Princeton School of Architecture site.