The Tasty Art of Chocolate & Candy

"QUANTUM SHOT" #412
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The following article is co-written by Avi Abrams & James Golbey, from Dump Trumpet. "Dump Trumpet" is a daily compendium of cool links on art, funny stuff, some games and videos, which we find quite entertaining.

Watch what you bite into. It might be a priceless chocolate piece of art

Some people may unabashedly crave chocolate and consume it as fast as they can rip away the wrapper. However, by doing so, they miss on some serious creativity and artistic thinking that modern chocolatiers are putting into their products. In this article we'll see some very yummy and eminently edible chocolates and candy... totally not healthy (but you know all about that)

An Epic Fail for Easter Bunnies

These chocolates are a little bit better than Easter Bunnies, trust us on that. Some of these treats will cater to your inner geek (you know, "not by bread alone"), while others may even interact with you, before you eat it.

Precision Engineered Chocolate Tool Set:
- more info

Use this tool set to make more chocolate:

Chocolate Human Skulls (Actual Size!)
- more info

Not that morbid, but still could be a strange experience to bite into:
"Body & Soul" by Gaku Otomo:

(art by: Gaku Otomo)

Tokyo's Chocolate is something else again

Want to have a taste of some sweet destruction? Imagine yourself being a Godzilla on a rampage of a chocolate city:
- more info

(art by Naoko Tone and Atsuyoshi Iijima)

Or let your chocolate properly germinate:

(art by Yoji Ishii)

This must be still the most obvious chocolate sculpture choice:

(art by Marcus Tomlinson)

To go even more complex: here is the WORKING chocolate sculpture record, playing actual sounds! -

(art by: Tom Vincent)

A lot of these sweet creations were shown at the Tokyo Chocolate Exhibition.

Lagrange34 brings chocolate into the "wild and wonderful" world of Italian Design:

Eat these contemporary chocolate blocks in your modern pad, surrounded by works of abstract art and "Wallpaper" magazines.

Bitter-sweet medium for a bittersweet art

Horatio Law makes a touching statement in making a life-size digital portraits of Oregon children, adopted from China - from all sorts of candies: jellybeans, lifesavers and m&ms:

What's even more profound, he takes the war & violence images from the world news... and replicates them with candy:

(images credit: Horatio Law)

Twin Beans

Jason Mecier uses the media of jellybeans to make some pop-culture commentary. Here are the characters of the "Twin Peaks" popular show:

and some swanky series of art made from the chewing gum packs and wrappers:

(images credit: Jason Mecier)

See all kinds of candy "explode" in a stop-motion fireworks animation here.

Prudence Emma Stait does a "candy treatment" on a famous Banksy's piece:

Want to see the handsome face of George Clooney immortalized in thousands of jellybeans? Click here to see it (we don't really want to see it again)

We mentioned before the Gummi Bear Chandelier (created by Ya Ya Chou) - surely an amazing thing, provided it would not suddenly drop on your head - enveloping you in a sticky-sweet deathly embrace:

My guess is, that's why they put a similar Gummi Bear rug right under it:

(images credit: Ya Ya Chou)

Then all bets are off - as everyone with enough candy (and cash) gets involved!

Missed Manners goes epic (Tolkien in this case), with sweeeeeet attention to detail:

The Battle of Helm's Deep

The Battle of Pelennor Fields

Well, by now you might feel overwhelmed by all this creativity - and wishing for a simple pleasure to bite into NORMAL candy and chocolate, without being afraid to ruin an expensive and unique work of art?

Indulge in a Memory Lane

These sites are going retro and offering the chocolate and candy treats straight from our schooldays' memory. In UK there is A Quarter Of and Sweetie World. In the US check out Old Time Candy and Retro Candy Online, to name but a few.

Remember "Gold Nuggets" Bubblegum?

or "Sweet Tobacco" - coconut strips dusted in chocolate powder:

Some go a bit far, for instance this site shows how the messages on Lovehearts have changed over the years. For example:

"Conversation hearts were invented in the 1860s... These first hearts had printed paper notes tucked inside. The lengthy, old-fashioned sayings included such wistful thoughts as "Please send a lock of your hair by return mail."

With time messages evolved to include (outdated and cheerful) "You are Gay" and "Dig me" (transformed into a "Digg Me" nowadays).

Something For Dessert:

Here is the making of the lifesize Sculpted Baby Cake:
(sculpted cake competition, Cake 2006 at NEC Birmingham, UK by Michelle Wibowo)