Behind the Scenes With an Artist Fashioning Sugar Into Ornate Cups
Every Tuesday, cake designer Margaret Braun opens her studio at the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York to the public. There, she sculpts sugar paste into 2,000 cups that look like they belong at a royal banquet. The cups, adorned with intricate strings of pearls and baroque-style flourishes, are dazzling—and made only of edible materials. So, we went inside the studio to meet Braun and see the sugar artist in action.
Alex Lau1/9Sugar Cup as Sand Mandala
"Having worked in edible materials my whole life, I love the feeling of working so hard on a cake and then never seeing it again," said Braun. "There's a masochistic part of it. I get a sick thrill out of loving something so much and then it being taken away from me."
Alex Lau2/9"This Project Is Just Delicious for Me"
There are cups with pedestals, and others that are tall and conical. Some sugar cups are some speckled with cardamom to look like earthenware and others are dusted with edible silver dust for a little shine. Then there are the flourishes—ovals, starbursts, medallions, curlicues, chains of pearls, and other rococo and baroque-inspired swirls. "They're all a mix and match of motifs I've been using for years. Even when I try to make them all alike, each cup has to be different," she said. "I love that."
Alex Lau3/9Step-by-Step
How exactly does she make the cups? First, she makes sugar pastes and rolls it out into strips. Then, she places them into cylindrical tins to get a general shape and lets them mold for about ten minutes. She next seals the cylinders before finishing the cups with handles and embellishments.
Alex Lau4/9"You Can't Be Perfect"
"I have a very good, steady hand. I have an overdeveloped, idealized concept of symmetry," Braun explained. "No matter how elegant a piece might look, my hands have been on that. They look handmade, and they're totally flawed. I think that's what gives them life."
Alex Lau5/9Meditation on a Sugar Cup
"I don't measure things. It keeps everything interesting, because I have to trust my eye," she joked. "It really keeps me in the moment in terms of design and composition."
Alex Lau6/9Bringing Sugar to Life
Hand-sculpting the cups give them life—and each has its own personality, said Braun. "Because I make them by hand, I remember them all. Each one has a story," she explained. "And they're all in different stages of production—molding, sanding, gilding, repairing broken ones with gold leaf—so I'm constantly going over them. They're kind of animated to me."
Alex Lau7/9Repetition But Not Repetitive
The whole open studio is a canvas for Braun, who carves block prints and sketches, using the same motifs that characterize her confection design. What appears on a cake or cup may later appear painted with food coloring on paper or sculpted in porcelain and vice-versa. "It's all part of the same thing, all repetition—a continuum—of what I like," she said.
Alex Lau8/9Bringing Her Imagination to Life
When Braun was fresh out of art school and in her twenties, all she wanted was to paint. But she was working the line at Saint Ambroeus, so she had to make do with the pastry gear she had around her all day. It turns out food coloring looks a lot like watercolor when you paint it on paper. "Since I was in the bakery, I always had food coloring. I had a need to paint so it was utilitarian," she said.
Alex Lau9/9Evolution of Taste
Braun will be the first to tell you that, as much as many of her motifs stay the same, her color palette is changing. Though she's made a career as a designer of colorful cakes, these sugar cups are all-white—and she loves it. "As I get older, my ideas become more formed and distilled," she described. "I now have an appreciation for things I didn't appreciate before."
