Helen Martin Glaberson takes a look at the new food explosion service for special events, being launched this week by Bompas & Parr. It’s a spectacle that will surely blow the concept of a traditional cake out of the water, or off its plate to be precise.
Often weddings, private parties and corporate events risk being a bit generic. You’ll encounter the same cover band, canapés, champagne, sponge or dodgy fruitcake at each ‘doo’, with each event eventually blurring into one.
Well, this is one new party trick that will definitely not fail to turn heads. For a fee, a trained explosives technician can lay charges within your wedding cake (or food of choice), which you can detonate at the climax of the evening, to the surprise of your poor unknowing guests.
The idea was inspired by recent art and personal projects where very high-speed video cameras film light bulbs and jelly dropped from a height to test whether the camera is running at speed, jelly specialist Sam Bompas told Futurespace Magazine.
Bompas said they were initially interested in exploding jellies as more of an art-based project, but then they thought it would be more interesting to incorporate the idea into wedding cakes at real functions, “to make an event go off with a bang.”
“People spend a lot of money on wedding cakes, but that they don’t always taste particularly nice,” said Bompas. “You put the knife in, cut it and it’s all a bit of an anti-climax. Plus, when you go behind the scenes, a lot of it ends up going in the bin,” he added.
“Jelly is pretty magical… you can see the light through it when it’s exploding.”
“We thought what would be much more fun would be to embrace the fact that the wedding cake is often the focal point and explode the cake so that it creates the greatest spectacle possible,” said Bompas. “It’s never really been done before.”
Bompas said the new service doesn’t only cover weddings, although they are the main occasion when people really go ‘all out’.
“Everyone knows at a wedding you’re supposed to cut the cake, but instead it explodes. When you’re subverting the ‘normal procedure’ it becomes more powerful.”
To celebrate the launch, Bompas & Parr collaborated with renowned photographer Ryan Hopkinson to produce photographs and a short film of jellies detonated by explosives.
Foods work in different ways when you project them with powerful forces, said Bompas. “Jelly is pretty magical and that’s one of the reasons why we shot with it because you can see the light through it when it’s exploding,” he said.
Meringue and cream work well too, according to Bompas. He says you can even do it with ice cream, although you need act quickly and explode the food before it melts.
“Ice cream can also be very, very messy,” he warns. “Cleaning it up involves a lot of mopping.” The mess of course is something you need to bear in mind before you rush in.
In general, we’re seeing a lot of creativity in the food world at the moment with many unchartered areas yet to be explored, said Bompas. He said there’s currently a real willingness for people to look at what’s at the end of their fork, with a growing interest in unusual food experiences.
So if you’re open to new foodie concepts and are a bit stuck for innovative event ideas, maybe consider treating your guests to an exploding sponge. Okay, granny might get a bit of a shock, but one thing’s for sure: you’ll certainly not fail to wedge your evening in peoples’ minds forever.
Prices start from £800 depending on scale and the technical complexity of the explosion.
