The Sweetest Kind of Fan Art: an Insatiable Cake
“Does a cake fit the fan art brief?” Karin Draggaard wonders. Of course it does! So she baked a scrumptious-looking Insatiable Ones cake and invited the other Danish IOs to help eat it. Proof, if anyone needs it, that cake brings people together. “It was absolutely delicious,” Line and Maria confirm on the morning train from Cardiff to London, still glowing from both the cake a week earlier and the concert the night before.
The Perfect Excuse
“I had been thinking of making a Suede cake for a while,” says Karin, who is a trained pastry chef. “I had a vague plan to make one for another IO’s birthday, but then the fan art call came along and gave me the perfect excuse.”
We All Need a Pastry Chef as a Friend
“The rest of the Danes were very much into eating the cake. We have known each other for years. We meet up to talk about the tours and our experiences. They said they liked it, and as they all had a second piece, I believe them (laughs).”
From Idea to Result
What should this cake look like? Thinking about that is something Karin really enjoys. “I get lots of ideas and then I lock in one or two and take it from there.”
“For the Suede cake I wanted the logo to look identical, so I had to figure out how to do it.”
Fifty Shades of Grey
The cake itself consists of an almond base topped with lemon curd, lemon mousse and white chocolate mousse. “Sandra is allergic to berries, so I had to go down another road.”
“I finished it with black marzipan and blue roses. I did buy the black marzipan because you often end up with fifty shades of grey if you make it from scratch.”
A Pinch of Focus
Of course, there are other things Karin enjoys about baking. “Creating the logo and the flowers takes a lot of focus. I also love discovering the result: after assembling and decorating, does the cake look the way I imagined? And, of course, there’s the happiness when people eat it.”
4–5 Hours
Isn’t a cake like that a lot of work? “I never think about it. It probably took me 4 or 5 hours. I did it in stages. First up were the decorations, as they need to dry for a few days. Then I did the bottom and the rest.”
A Rose Tutorial
Her fellow Danish IOs were curious about how she made those pretty roses, so Karin made them again and filmed the process. Now you can try it yourself.
From Hobby to Job
Karin trained as a pastry chef but worked in the pharmaceutical industry for twenty years. “I didn’t feel like doing that for the rest of my life. For a long time, baking cakes was just a hobby.”
“Last year I got laid off, together with 5,000 others. Now I work half-time at a local bakery, where I decorate our typical birthday cream cakes.”
Pastry in the Queue
This year Karin travelled outside Denmark for the first time to see Suede in Milan – the good influence of the others, she says.
“And the others had a little request: bring us rum balls, dark chocolate truffle balls, made from one day old Danish pastry, cocoa, jam and a generous splash of rum, rolled in sprinkles. So we had them in the queue in Milan and in the flat after the after-party in Lausanne."
From a Suede cake in Denmark to rum balls in the queue in Milan, Karin’s baking is becoming part of the Danish Insatiable Ones’ adventures. And while the band may be the reason they come together, it seems that a little something sweet is never a bad reason to stay a little longer.
Karin's Suede PassportName: Karin Draggaard Country: Denmark Suede fan since: 1996 Favourite album: Autofiction Favourite song: Turn Off Your Brain and Yell Favourite B-side: The Living Dead Favourite concert: Vega Copenhagen 2002, the one where Suede came in 10 minutes after the light came on, because people didn't leave, and played 2 more songs. Most underrated Suede song: Simon |
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