Lauren Rule- Baking as Art (Class Topic #1)

In class it was mentioned that a person was doing their research paper on the culinary arts.  My passion is baking and I am always checking out blogs about people who turn their baked goods into ascetic creations.  Art is a beautiful thing.  Food, in my opinion is also a beautiful thing.  I wish I could make my baked goods into works of art like so many people do.  Even the most basic changes can make a huge difference in the way food looks.  Take for instance the way a cup cake is frosted.  It will taste just as fantastic no matter how it is frosted, but a cupcake with a design is much more ascetically pleasing.
  Using a special frosting tip over a knife or icing spreader makes a big difference.  The sprinkles also add a cute touch.  Cupcakes are my favorite to make.  I love experimenting with flavors and flavor combinations.  My favorite icing is variations of cream cheese icings, but they are hard to pipe through icing tips to make beautiful designs.  My second favorite kind of goods to make is cookies.  You might be asking yourself how a cookie can or cannot be ascetically pleasing.  But if you think about it, a cookie requires a certain shape and color as well as decorating beauty.  Now unless a cookie is burnt, none of those will affect its taste, but it will affect its ascetic components.
  SHAPE
COLOR
  ICING/DECORATIONS
Now compare all of these cookies and tell me one doesn't appeal more to you than the other.  With the exception of the burnt cookies (and maybe those iced cookies on the left), the ascetics don't affect the taste.  But if you have the option of chowing down on a delicious and beautiful baked good, why not?!  There is definitely an art to baking; some of us, however, are not artistically capable of achieving baking ascetics.  I suppose it is like any art, practice makes perfect (or at least a little better)!