Since her childhood, Ukrainian pastry chef Dinara Kasko has been interested in art. After graduating in architecture, she became fascinated by baking. Thanks to the influence of her studies and background, she soon decided to try something new.
Kasko uses specific software and 3D printers to create “sculptures”, her own silicon cakes' moulds. As she explains, “It’s very important to me to create something beautiful, that’s why making cakes is a way how I’m doing self-realization as a designer.”
Her creations became very popular and she has been involved in several projects, including the last edition of Ruby Chocolate event in Shanghai or the collaboration with SoGood Magazine, taking inspiration from the work of various artists, like José Margulis and Matthew Shlian.
Intrigued by her projects, we asked Dinara Kasko some questions about her inspiration, techniques and future projects.
Before reading the interview, enjoy the selection of pictures of her pastries in the gallery on the top of the page!
Where does your inspiration come from?
People ask me about inspiration quite often. And every single time, it’s not easy to me to give a clear response. In fact, an inspiration can be in everything. It can be an object on the street, nature, architecture, an image of something, a country, different shapes and so on.
What challenges/rewards do you encounter when working on a new cake project?
We work a lot on recipes and moulds. Every single time when we create a new project, we do a lot of testing with materials for mould (we model a mould, buy special plastic etc.). I bake a lot of cakes experimenting with recipes. This is the most challenging as there are a lot of issues that we have to deal with.
Can you tell us about any specific techniques or equipment you use to create your cakes?
Technology and design play a very important role in my creations. I create a 3D model for the mould on my computer first. I have special softwares installed (3ds Max, Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, Archicad, Autocad, Cura etc) and an Ultimaker 3D printer. Also, sometimes I use a milling machine and a laser machine. As for pastry, I use a lot of construction tools (a spray gun, a building satula, different tubes, rules, etc.)
Tell us about your most challenging creation.
It was the Ruby cake. It took us 1.5 months. It was a really hard work to create the mould. We used 3D printing every day to print the models. Two kinds of plastic were involved. Finally, we got the mould.
What is your favourite ingredient/material to work with and why?
It can be caramel, chocolate, exotic fruits, berries, vanilla and so on. As for the ingredients that I always use to make cakes, these are cream, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and gelatin.
What are you looking for in a successful cake: flavour or desing?
There are two main concepts that I keep to. The first one is "appearance is as important as taste", and the second one is “taste will always be more important than appearance”. I always try to make cakes that taste delicious and look beautiful, so they could bring visual and taste pleasure to people. And again, taste is always more important than appearance as people won’t buy your cake for the second time if they didn’t like the taste trying it for the first time.
Any future projects you would like to share with us?
I have started working on a new project with a Spanish chef. I am working on new moulds (parametric design). We are planning on releasing our project in December. We will be taking pictures and making videos of our creations as usual.
You can find the description of all Dinara Kasko's creations on Instagram.
