Cake International - November 2018

I was absolutely honoured to be asked by the super talented Daniel Dieguez - international sculpted cake genius, to contribute to his 3 day ‘Chocolate Magic’ live build showpiece at Cake International in November. CI is THE biggest cake show in the UK with thousands of attendees filling the halls at the NEC over 3 cake filled days. Daniel asked cake artists from all over the world to create pieces in their signature style to display alongside the epic sculptural piece he was going to be creating live at the show. The brief were all given was that our pieces had to have anthropomorphic features in some way. I was asked to create a tiered wedding cake so I chose to take inspiration from a magic mirror and give her some big, slightly sinister eyes! This is slightly outside my usual comfort zone but I loved the challenge! Here she is in all her slightly bonkers glory!

The 5 tier cake was completely covered in off white sugarpaste. The frame and eyes were sculpted by hand also using sugarpaste. The frame was then gilded with 24ct edible gold leaf to give it a super decadent finish. The eyes and floral design were hand painted using my favorite medium of cocoa butter and edible dust colours.

Over the 3 days Daniel and a few helpers, including myself created an enormous 3 headed, 6 armed, sculpture of Marie Antoinette out of red velvet cake, chocolate ganache and modelling chocolate. It was an absolute honour to be able to watch Daniel work up close - he is a true artist and what he can do with chocolate is insane! For someone who does not really work on sculptural pieces it was a real inspiration and education for me! On the final day when she was completely finished and all the photos had been taken Marie Antionette was cut up and served to all of the visitors to the show - the real meaning of ‘let them eat cake!’