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Giving people bonsai as birthday presents carries the same overhead as giving puppies or kittens. If the recipient does not have a green thumb, you are consigning a thing of beauty to a dry and lingering death. And if they do, they probably have windowsills lined with bonsai already.
So I propose
the Bonsai Birthday Cake as an alternative: just as attractive, but no maintenance beyond a cycle through the dishwasher for the plates and forks afterwards.
Since this is not a recipe, you'll have to figure out how to bake it yourself. Suffice it to say that the soil is rich chocolate cake with a crumbled top and candy pebbles, the tree marzipan and sugar, and optionally the pot made out of icing.
(??) Comme ça
http://www.usbonsai.com/images/tree.gif
...only edible. [DrCurry, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Perfect pot? (#EF 100)
http://www.mattscon...endly Cups & Dishes
Cover with chocolate and you're good to go. [half, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
[link]
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Excellent idea.
A picture is worth a thousand words. |
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I do love bonsai, though. |
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My mom got a bonsai tree as a gift one time. Not being too good at regularly tending and nurturing things (except me, of course) she smiled and put it on the windowsill. That was the last we spoke of it. I'm sure she would have preferred the edible version. |
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(+) It looks like Matt may have the perfect pot, [Doc]. A little smallish perhaps. (link) |
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if I were given one of these, I could not bring myself to eat it. |
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I believe that [UnaBubba] is our resident bonsai maven, so I may await his expert opinion. Seems OK at first, although I wonder how it is not simply a regular cake decorated in a certain way. |
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well yes, [angel] but it is carefully baked in a dish which is too small and hence stunting the growth. |
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I like it! I got my dad a bonsai for christmas one year and it's been one of the most succesful presents I've ever given him. He's repotted it, trimmed the roots and everything. |
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I think it would have to be eaten with a a knife that resembled a miniature wood axe. TIMBER! |
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Hehe, yes I agree [Jinbish]. |
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I'm sure this is possible. |
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After seeing the mess most people make of trees they receive as gifts, I feel certain I would prefer to give one of these, than a tree that has taken 15-20 years to grow, and many hours of care to train to shape. |
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I am often distressed to find that 'Aunt Doris' has put a nice specimen on top of her television, where the radiated heat from the picture tube has cooked all of the water out of the soil, and killed what is a living sculpture, within a week. |
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Do you have any particular species in mind, DC? |
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I might commission a cake like this from my friend Debra. She makes unusual wedding cakes and the like. The gentlemen from whom I receive most of my bonsai training will be celebrating his 60th anniversary this year. This would be a nice surprise. |
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BTW, the plural of bonsai, is bonsai. |
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Rather than create a new idea thread, I'll post here: |
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Banzai Birthday Cake
Happy Birthday wishes from Kato (Burt Kwouk) |
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A special birthday cake delivery service by a comically psychotic oriental gentleman that springs out of nowhere. |
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I've always fancied growing a bonsai baobab - but I have a feeling it will just look like a potato. |
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UB: ones with short stubby trunks, I would think (but then, that's probably most of them).
Jinbish: I actually labeled this Banzai Birthday Cake, before noticing my Freudian slip. |
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You could injection-mould chocolate into a tree shape ..... mmmmmmm. |
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By the way, a "Banzai" birthday cake would have to be delivered by a Ninja who leaps through the window, throws the cake in the air, and slices it into neat segments with a whirling Katana, each piece landing neatly on a guest's plate, candles still burning. |
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[DrCurry]: I had a funny feeling that was the case.
[8th]: I dunno - I kind of fancy the slapstick approach that would be gaurunteed by Mr Kwouk. Maybe not as 'killer cool' but would have me in stitches. |
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"Show me: Frost-the-cake... Aghhh! no yeah yeah yeah... little circle, control. Look eye. Always look eye. Breathe in... breathe ooout..." |
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"Don't know, never been attacked by miniature tree, before." |
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DC, not all bonsai have short, stubby trunks. The following styles are characterised by thin or sinuous trunks: |
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Literati (bunjingi)
Semi-cascade (han-kengai)
Cascade (kengai)
Coiled (bankan)
Wind-swept (fukinagashi)
Exposed-root (neagari)
Twisted (nejikan)
Octopus (takozukuri)
Multiple Tree (yose-ue) |
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There are probably 40 or so styles, in all. I've never bothered to count them. |
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Rule of thumb is that the height of the tree should, ideally, be six times the diameter of the base of the trunk, unless you have multiple trunks or multiple trees. Multiple tree groups may be two or more, though all groups other than two should have odd numbers of trunks. 3, 5, 7, 9, 17, 21, 25, 29 and 31 are popular, for some reason. |
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//Giving people bonsai as birthday presents carries the same overhead as giving puppies or kittens.// |
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Okay, I can't be the only one who read "bonsai kittens" in that sentence. |
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