by Heidi Glenn
Art 2013 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International USA/Dessert Clay McLachlan/Reprinted by permission from 'Modern Art Desserts
Freeman started out wanting to be an art photographer. But one day, while still in art school, she came across Display Cakes, artist Wayne Thiebaud's 1963 painting of frosted confections, during a visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The image was so arresting, it stayed with her for years, and later inspired her to set off on a completely different career path: baking.
"I wasn't really sure what I loved about [the painting], but I really just became obsessed with cakes," Freeman tells The Salt.
Over the past several years, Freeman has made a name for herself by crafting desserts inspired by the great works of modern art on display at SFMOMA. She sells these edible art bites at the Blue Bottle Coffee bar, the cafe she and her husband, Blue Bottle founder James Freeman, operate inside the museum.
The project started as a cake-with-your-coffee concept. Appropriately enough, one of the first modern art sweets she put on the menu was an homage to Thiebaud. These days, she has a full menu of desserts — and some savory items, too — that gets updated as often as new art exhibits rotate through the museum.
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And then there's the cafe's most popular item, a dessert inspired by the art of Piet Mondrian, featuring geometric blocks of white velvet cake, colored red, blue and yellow, stacked together and "glued" with chocolate. In her new book, Modern Art Desserts, which came out this week, Freeman details how to make this signature confection: It's a two-day effort involving four separate cakes and assembly blueprints.
The SFMOMA will soon close for renovations for three years. Until the museum and café reopen, you can find Freeman online at her blog, Modern Art Desserts, telling the stories behind her work-of-art desserts.
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