Spray Painted Turkeys and Brick Brownies

Hey, Propsters, I wanted to pass along this link that just came across the SPAM net.  The fine folks at Deli Garage are making an edible spray paint. Shipping to the US is still a bit up in the air, but the site promises tasteless metallic paints for all of your food gilding needs.  Silver steak? Sure! Gilded Goose? Why not?  While you're over there, take a look at their blog. I think you'll like the brick shaped brownies (for wall building) and some of the other clever vittles these guys have on offer.

Oh, and is the website only coming up in German? Up in the right hand corner is a little button marked ENG. Just click it.

Happy Propping, dears.

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Mr. Laurel's Meat Pies

In this season's production of 'Laurel and Hardy,' Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy had to chow down on a plate of meat pies. Well, if your goal is to ask your actor to eat something greasy, crumbly, messy, and high calorie every night, then a meat pie is right up your alley! Your actor can pack on the pounds and your wardrobe staff can start scraping grease. Now, if you don't want your poor performers and costumers to hate the meat pie bit, you can always sub in these delightful meat free pies.  This is one of my shortest posts ever, because these pies are really, really easy to make. Here we go:

Step 1) Buy some of that pastry dough in a tube.
Step 2) Make it into pie shapes.
Step 3) Bake it. (Bake it at the recommended temperature until it looks golden brown.)

Ta-da!  We opted to make a massive batch during tech, freeze them, and re-thaw them a few at a time- and it seemed to work beautifully. I won't claim that the calories issue was completely solved, but it sure beat a pocket of ground beef every night. Also, our savvy director blocked the scene so that only two of the pies were eaten each night. These two edible pies sat atop a towering pyramid of foam meat pies, so the joke still had its punch.

That's it! There you go! Meatless Meat pies! Easy as.....yup, pie.

Happy Propping!

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Something Brown made of Cabbage

Hello all! Thank you for being patient with me lately as the winter has stood in the way of my posting to this blog!  The blog has been getting quite a bit of action lately, so thank you to all who are spreading the word.  This week, I'd like to bring you something truly disgusting- and I hope you'll enjoy it!

Last season we put on a production called "The Government Inspector."  It's a pseudo-period piece that takes place in Czarist Russia.  We find our protagonist at the inn. He has spent all of his money, and is begging the innkeepers wife to allow him to charge one more meal to his account.  She offers him a variety of dreadful things (including cabbage pie and 'something brown made of cabbage' ) from which he chooses a bowl of soup.  Only the bowl of cabbage soup (with chicken feathers) is eaten on stage, but the rest of the menu is pulled out for display.

The soup was a bowl of chicken broth containing a preset feather, but the cabbage pie and something brown were up to me. 

Mmmmm. Delicious. Who wouldn't want to eat that?

 For the cabbage pie, I started with some hot pour vinyl that I found in our kitchen. Our previous craftsperson had made up a batch of the vinyl with sawdust mixed into it, and I liked the texture.  I re-melted the vinyl and poured it out onto a cookie sheet. Once it was cool, I used scissors to cut it into thin strips, like sauerkraut.  I made the crust from Great Stuff. I like to use it as pastry sometimes because it has interesting texture, and is strong and lightweight. I made a blob of it on a sheet of plastic, and cut it to shape when it was dry.  Before painting it, I gave it a coat of white glue so that the paint would stick 

As you can see from the photo, the pie is sewn together. I still have not found an adhesive that works with hot pour vinyl, especially when it is in such small pieces The stitches were not apparent onstage, and allowed the towering pie slice a bit of wiggle.

The 'something brown' was made with hot pour vinyl also, but I wanted it to have a different base.  Under this pile of vinyl sauerkraut and sauce, there are several patties made from baked salt dough and spray painted with Glossy Wood Tone.  The result is a delightful "ewww" from most people who see it.  The hot pour vinyl really gives it the oily sheen that terribly greasy food needs, and the different tones and textures seem to remind people of the worst casserole of their lives.  Mission accomplished!

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Serve Something Spectacular

This weekend, I was shopping with a friend, and we stopped into a local thrift store.  While surveying the offerings, a stack of magazines caught my eye, and I was immediately shoveling handfuls of old cooking serials into my arms.  I would have guessed that these magazines were from the 60's or 70's, but I suppose I'm not a good guesser of period food styles yet.  These phenomenal booklets were published in 1985, and offer photographic evidence of some pretty ridiculous and unbelievable dishes.  While it's true that these dishes are not fake food, but real recipes, it's hard to believe that some of them could ever exist.  I'm going to share some of these photos with you today, I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do.

Note: Please note the foods that are 'Gelee' or covered in Aspic.  Aspic is a savory gelatin glaze; think meat flavored jello.

Breast of Turkey and Sliced Tongue in Aspic and Pate-Stuffed Chicken Breasts en Gelee.  Yum!

Poached Fish with Cucumber Scales

Turkey Breast Galantine

Pear Feuilletes with Caramel

Roast of Beef en Gelee

Vanilla-Ice-Cream Bombe Surprise (The surprise is grapes, apricot jam, and kirsch)

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CAKE!

Materials:  Insulation foam, Acrylic Caulk, Design Master Spray, Acrylic Paint, Hot Glue, Fake Flowers

Here is another  Fake-n-Cake for your enjoyment! This one is for the graduation party scene in Renaissance Theaterwork's upcoming production of ' Crumbs From the Table of Joy '  The show is a memory play, and so certain props are embellished to show their importance in the main character's  memory.  One of these props is her graduation cake, made by the bakery where her father works.

This is another of my standard foam and caulk cakes.  I used Ivory colored Design Master to get the color, and used hot glue to attach fake flowers.  The one misstep was adhering the two tiers together before icing. I should have iced them separately, allowed them to dry, attached them, and then applied the decorative icing.  Ah well, hindsight is 20/20.

If you'd like to learn more about decorating fake cakes, you can watch the videos from my first cake posts here:
Cake Tutorials

and here:
One More Cake Tutorial

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Sarah's Festive Balls- Sugarplums/Sweetmeats

Materials: Celluclay, Food Coloring, Spray Paint, Cork, Spray Snow, White Glue, Garnish

Well, the time has come once more for our beloved production of 'A Christmas Carol' to be dragged from the filthy warehouse, lovingly cleaned and pieced together, and presented as a gift to the whole city. But, alas, this year, a few of the props needed special attention. The sweetmeats. Yes, the faithful sweetmeats that have served us, lo, these six long years, have seen their better days.  It is time for a new platter of sweetmeats to grace our stage, and who better to confect these Victorian beauties than one of my favorite propsters, Sarah Heck?

Sarah is my co-crafter at the Rep, and she's a propster of the highest caliber. She specializes in fake taxidermy, leatherwork, and other crafts; she is a gentlewoman, a scholar, and a judge of fine whiskies. Also, I envy her for being tall. There, I said it.

But enough kissing up to Sarah, let's talk a little bit about sweetmeats.  Sweetmeats, according to my favorite reference website, http://www.foodtimeline.org/ , are a British term for confectionary. Basically, what we call candies.  Confections back in Dickens' time were mostly very sweet mish-mashes of honey, nuts, and preserved fruits.  One of these types of sweetmeat is the famous sugar plum, which according to Saveur Magazine, look like this:

Sarah started these sugarplums by making round lumps of Celluclay colored with brown food coloring and allowed them to dry.  Celluclay is nice because it is lightweight and paintable.

Next, she put pieces of rolled cork (the kind you buy to make cork board) into a blender.  Once the cork was minced to a desirable size, she used spray paint to add some color to batches of the chopped cork.  She dipped each of the Celluclay lumps into white glue, and rolled them in the cork schnibbles. Once the cork dried, she coated each sugarplum in white glue to seal and bind the cork even further.

Once all the glue had dried again, she dusted the top of each with spray-on snow, a sweet substitute for powdered sugar.

Once the 'sugar' was dried, there was nothing left but to pile them dramatically on a wooden platter, and garnish them with holly.

Awwwwwwwwww.

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Sunday Hot Links- Menus and Food Timeline

From the LAPL menu database. Part of a menu from the Seven Homes Restaurant in Denmark, circa 1960s.

This week on the Fake-n-Bake blog, I bringing you two new phenomenal links that I have recently stumbled upon.

Los Angeles Public Library Menu Collection
The first is a database of period restaurant menus at the LA public library.  You can search for menus by Keyword, Restaurant, Cuisine, and Date. This is useful in many ways. Not only is this a gem for ephemera buffs and paper props creation, you can also us it to research food history! Wondering what was popular in New York restaurants in the 1930s? Pop onto the database and browse menus from that period. Some of the menus even have images of their restaurant decor and meal selections, what more could you ask for? Take some time and poke around, I'm sure you'll be thrilled with what you find.

Food Timeline
Reference librarian Lynne Olver has put together this database which is an invaluable tool for food craftsters. From "a la carte" to "zweiback" hundreds of articles discuss the history of food, and a timeline dating back before the beginnings of agriculture lays it all out.  Whether you need to know what Christopher Columbus was lunching on or need a recipe for popcorn balls, you'll find what you need here.

Happy Propping!

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One Last Herring Cake

This cake is the last of the opera's Albert Herring food-stravaganza, and it happens to be the one that I made.  Here is the research image:

Isn't it darling? You just know that whoever baked it was wearing pearls and a crinoline!

I started by using the band saw to cut a bevel into my bead foam base, and then cut a hole into the middle of the cake.  I then sanded the edges to soften them.  Next, I mixed some color into my acrylic caulk, and frosted the cake.

Once the frosting dried, I decorated the cake using items I found in stock; some foam lemon slices that I painted orange and some little silk daisies. Ta-da!

                                                    

Note: There is actually one other Herring cake, a lovely strawberry number by Keli (of the Sham ala Keli entry.) Unfortunately, I do not have photos of said cake. If I come across any, I will post them!

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Cakes ala David

This is another lovely foam con-caulk-tion! David Russell is our Master Craftsperson, and boy, can he fake some cakes! This one is a lemon cake based on a research photo from County Living.

See?

David's other cake is a lovely sugared violet number. Here is the research image:

Is this not the most precious cake you've ever seen? Thanks Kids Cuisine.com

He started out with an insulation foam base, and added little foam lady fingers around the edge. To texture the lady fingers, he coated them with Elastomeric and sand, and handed them off to the painters for that fresh-baked look.

The frosting is our good old standby, acrylic caulk.  Unfortunately, the caulk took a while to dry, and before if was cured, some curious performer left a few fingerprints in the top. No worries, though, a few judiciously placed violets solved that right quick. The resulting cake was far sweeter than this photo shows.

Lord, I need a new camera.

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Cherries Cake ala Ellie

This is another of the 'Albert Herring' cakes. As you can tell, we put together quite a spread for the picnic.  This lovely cake is the work of props apprentice, Ellie "Biceps" Bye, another talented and sweet young props artisan.  Ellie used the standard recipe of insulation foam and acrylic caulk to make the base of her cake. The cherries on top are purchased artificial cherries from our stock.

Ellie is just nuts for fake cakes!

The real charm and cleverness of this cake is in its nutty exterior. Ellie used cork crumbles to simulate copped walnuts, pressing them into the caulk before it dried. The result is a cake that is beautifully textured, and looks good enough to eat. Yum!

If you'd like to read more about Ellie, you can take a look at this article at PhillyBurbs.com

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Sham ala Keli

This lovely ham is yet another picnic prop for 'Albert Herring.' Crafted by our resident sculptor Keli Sequoia, and painted by our talented painters, this ham is a vision in foam and flex glue.  The body of the ham is carved from bead foam, and the slices of ham are microfoam sheeting- that thin, translucent foam used for packaging.  I believe the bone is made of bamboo. Keli did something very clever here, which was to reinforce the edges of the ham slices with wire, allowing the slices to gracefully drape from the ham. The slices of ham were attached to the body with green glue, and the ham was coated with flex glue (I believe) before being painted. The final touch is the real cloves, which you can see Keli placing in the photos. Well done, Keli, another beautiful prop from a talented lady!

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Herring-Do Part 3- Sugared Pansy Cake Ala Oona

Lovely Oona and her lovely cake. The photos don't do either of them justice.

This is a fine example of pastry fakery from a lovely young woman who claims to be a costumer/couturier but is just aching to let her inner propster out.  Oona Tibbetts created this lovely bundt while overhiring in our shop this summer.  I hope you'll all forgive me, my sub-par camera has led to some sub-par photos of this lovely cake. I assure you, the 'real' thing is far more scrumptious looking than these pics give it credit.  If any of you many wealthy readers want to see better photos, please send a Canon Rebel EOS to Anna Warren, C/O Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and I'll do what I can.  Now, back to Oona's cakery.

Here is the research image that Oona was given:

She decided to make a few adjustments based on size and the flowers we had available in our stock.  The cake that Oona made is taller and has a smaller diameter than the source photo, and she used violets instead of pansies. You see, my friends, adaptability! Oona started by carving the cake form from bead foam. After patterning the cake, she set the bandsaw table at a 10 degree angle, and cut the cake with a lovely bevel.  From there, she used an Olfa knife to carve away the scalloped pattern around the edge of the cake, and sanded the top to a graceful curve.

Once the shaping was done, a coat of Jaxsan (the magic prop goo) was applied to seal the foam and provide a paintable surface.  One of our talented props painters (Ilana Kirschbaum, I believe) painted the cake. Once dry, Oona glittered up a few silk violets (mmm sugared flowers) and applied them to the top of the bundt. Et, Voila!  Another darling addition to the Albert Herring picnic table.

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Herring-Do Part 2, Strawberry Cream Cake ala JT

Some of you may remember my first guest contributor, JT Ringer, from his earlier post Canapes ala JT. Well, he is back on the Fake-n-Bake blog with his towering strawberry cream cake! Yet another picnic delicacy for 'Albert Herring', this cake is a delight for the eyes.

JT based his cake on this research photo:

We decided against the grapefruit.

Each layer of the cake is carved from bead foam, which lends itself well to the spongy nature of the angel food cake. After a coating of Jaxsan, the layers were painted by the talented Ilana Kirschbaum to give them that golden brown, fresh-from-the-oven look.

JT assembling the cake layers.  Notice his use of splash proof goggles, nitrile gloves, and a respirator. You can't tell from the photo, but he's working outside to spare his co-workers the fumes. How considerate!

The cream in this cake is made with Great Stuff expanding foam.  The foam is adhesive, so it holds the layers together, and holds the (purchased) fake strawberries to the top without additional glue. It is lightweight and durable as well, and is very useful in the making of food props.  The thing to remember, though, is that Great Stuff expands as it cures, so it's important to plan ahead.  Notice how the prop cake is slightly more towering than the research photo? Yup, expanding foam. Luckily, this precarious tower of angel food cake is the perfect opera prop- scrumptious looking, and ever so slightly larger than life.

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Herring-Do Part 1- Candy Sticks

Hey all! I've just returned from my summer gig and boy do I have some sweet fake sweets for you! The next several posts will be dedicated to the talented props artisans and apprentices of the Santa Fe Opera, and their sumptuous creations for our production of 'Albert Herring.' This opera is the story of a young, innocent man who comes of age during a rum-fueled night of debauchery following the Loxford May Festival and his crowning as May King.  Naturally, the picnic table at the May Festival is an operatic smorgasbord of delightful treats, but we also find a few faux edibles in the Herring family grocer's shop.  To start us off, we have some of the candy treats from the shop, a sweet little piece of set dressing on a grand wall of propliness.  These confections are the work of John Daugherty, a young man who volunteered in our shop after his hours in the Orchestra Services Dept.

These candy sticks are simply made, but oh-so-sweet! First, John cut some 3/8" dowel (painted white) down to 6" lengths, and lightly sanded the ends. Next, he used hot glue to attach varying types of ribbon to the dowels, spiraling each ribbon around the dowel to create the swirled look of the candy.

Once the candy sticks were decorated, John wrapped each one in cellophane, twisting the ends and using a bit of Scotch Tape to secure the wrapping.  Such a simple process for such adorable treats! The candies went into jars onstage, just one more finishing touch on the lovely set.

See how proud John is of his tasty treats? Hip Hip Huzzah!

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Short and Sweet- Candy Links

Hey all, I was looking online for vintage candy wrappers when I found these two websites.  I haven't given them thorough scrutiny yet,  but they both seem to be worth a peek.

http://www.candywrappermuseum.com/
This is one person's collection of candy wrappers past and present. A good resource for your propping needs.

http://mistertoast.blogspot.com/2006/06/candy-bar-wrappers.html
This is just a short, fun blog post with some sweet old candy wrappers.

Enjoy!

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Canapes ala JT

Hey afauxcionados, welcome to this week's blog. This week, we have a special guest contributor. My friend JT is a propster in Texas, and has some lovely canapes to share with us. I'll just let JT take it from here:

For a recent production of 'Much Ado About Nothing', the director requested a tray of simple canapes. I decided to go with a cheese spread on bread garnished with vegetables. Some were fake and some were consumed.

For the project you will need:
- Bread (I bought Pepperidge Farms pre-sliced stuff)
- Cheese spread
- Matte Acrylic spray
- White Acrylic caulk
- Tint (yellow ochre for this particular cheese)
- Oregano

I wanted to seal the bread that was not going to be eaten, so I let it dry out over night then sprayed it with four coats, or so, of matte acrylic spray. As a warning, the bread did shrink and warp a little when it dried so it’s probably not a good idea for close distances.

Next, I spread some cheese on two pieces of bread and enjoyed a snack while analyzing the cheese for color and texture.

I put some caulk in an appropriate mixing container and added just a little bit of the yellow ochre tint. I guess it was my lucky day because I was able to match the color without adding too much tint.

To simulate the herbs in the cheese spread I liberally added some dried oregano to the gourmet caulk mix. The oregano helped with texture, but was not visible as herbs in the cheese. So, after spreading some caulk mixture onto the bread I sprinkled more oregano on top and mixed it just enough to lightly coat the oregano in caulk but so the green color still showed. After the caulk cured I sprayed a little bit of satin acrylic spray over it to give it a little gloss.

 The (almost) end result was:

Left to right, the first 2 pieces of bread are real cheese and the third is caulk. For the show all of the canapes were dressed with shreds of real carrots or cucumbers, which were (obviously) replaced each night on the fake canapes.

Anna again-

So, propsters, do you have a lovely food project that you would like featured on the blog? Send it on over to propsanna@gmail.com along with photos and an explanation of your process. If I like what you sent, I'll put it on the blog. Happy propping!

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Fauxsciutto Part 1

 The real deal. Check out that awesome stache!

 So, sometimes I like to take a break from my job of making fake food to spend a little bit of down time making fake food. I also like to tout new, exciting things that are happening in my neighborhood- especially new foody propsy things!  A few weeks ago, some good friends, my husband, and I toured a new meat curing facility in our neighborhood. Bolzano Artisan Meats is the first dry curing facility in Wisconsin, and is owned by a charming couple who are clearly passionate about their product and their process. After touring their facility, and sampling several of their delicious products, we got to talking. While we enjoyed our lesson on the history and process of meat curing, we wanted more, we wanted visual aids! So, we mentioned this to the Bolzano Meatsters, and they mentioned to us how they'd been dreaming of a display prosciutto, and we mentioned to them that Jen and I made fake stuff for a living, and somehow an idea was born. We decided to create a fake prociutto, modeled off of Bolzano's speck prosciutto.  I would do the sculpting, and Jen would do the painting, as Jen is a far better painter than I. So, step one is completed, I have carved the prosciutto, and I am handing it off to Jen today. Here is the process thusfar:


Materials: Insulation Foam, Green Glue, Dowel, Jaxsan, Cheesecloth


Step 1) Research Photos
I was lucky enough to get some in person research for this one. Scott (see above photo) was kind enough to allow me to come in and photograph one of his prosciutto from every angle. I also took measurements on the prosciutto, noting them on a quick sketch in my notebook.  (Note the gloves, beard net, hat, and white jacket. These guys are serious about sanitation.)

Like so.

And so.

Step 2) The Foam Blank

This project, like so many, is carved from pink insulation foam, which is available at most home improvement stores.  Pink foam, like blue foam, is easy to carve with a band saw, hand saw, utility knife, etc, and can be sanded smooth when the carving is done.  It is lightweight and durable, and is an invaluable theater material. If you've seen a play in America, there is an 84% chance that you've seen insulation foam carved into something else. (Ok, I made that statistic up.)  I decided to place a dowel through this piece as well, to give the thin part of the leg some extra stability. I layered the foam in the usual way, sticking the layers together with green glue, having first cut a v shaped trough for the dowel. Once the layers were together, I trimmed the sides on the block so that the blank was nice and square, and traced the basic shape of the prosciutto onto the faces of the blank.

Step 3) Carving the Shape
When cutting, it's important to remember this: It is always easier to remove more later than to add material back on, so err on the side of caution. Because I squared off my blank, I was able to do most of my cuts on two planes. What I mean is this, I carefully cut away the excess from the ham shape. Then, I taped the excess foam back onto the shape, as if it hadn't been cut away. I then rolled the blank over 90 degrees, and cut the profile shape of the ham. When I removed all of the excess, I had a basic shape cut into all four sides of the ham.

Ta-da!

Once I had the rough shape cut into the ham, I used the research images to lay out the details. I used my trusty Olfa knife, a hand saw, a Japanese saw, and course sandpaper to whittle down to the correct shape, before smoothing it all with some medium grit sandpaper.


Step 4) Coating and Texturing
This coating was a tough one. I was hoping to try out some casting latex, but none was available. I considered flex glue, but decided that it wouldn't give a tough enough skin. I finally went with my old stand by, Jaxsan. For the bottom of the prosciutto, or the top of the leg, whichever you prefer, I used cheesecloth covered in Jaxsan to give a striated look. I also used a bit of cheesecloth up over the hoof to give the little toes a bit more stability. Once I had the Jaxsan on, I used a spray bottle of water to wet down the Jaxsan, and smooth it out more. Then, I hung the whole thing to dry overnight.

For the most part, the project went really well. If/when I make another, I'm interested to play around with new coatings, and also to get more detail on the hoof.  Once I have photos of the painted item, I will post them! Also, if you like the fake ham, you should definitely try out some of the lovingly crafted Bolzano products, available in Milwaukee, and at their online store.
















                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

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