Cake! magazine by Australian Cake Decorating Network May 2014 | Page 32

The Winter wedding cake
I met Sue years ago in a crowded
nightclub in Manchester...we literally
bumped into each other, and said at
the same time to each other “I need
a friend.” We hugged and from that
moment on I knew we would be friends
for life. Amazingly enough she lived
just around the corner from our farm
and our friendship grew and grew.
Twenty five years later the news came
- it was to be a Winter wedding. Sue
said she would leave the design of
the cake and choice of flowers up to
me. The only specification I had from
Sue was that champagne gold was the
choice of colour for the bridesmaids’
dresses.
It took me 3 months of sleepless
nights trying to think of a design
worthy enough for my best friend, then
one night as I was falling asleep on the
couch watching television, the design
came... I saw it in its completion
standing proud in front of me. I leapt to
my feet and started scribbling a sketch
of the dream Winter wedding cake.
The wedding reception was held at
Bolton Town Hall in a very large high
ceilinged room so the cake needed
to be grand enough not to get lost in
the room. A 7.5 foot wedding cake
should do the trick I thought to myself!
There were 120 guests invited to the
wedding, not enough people to warrant
such a huge cake I know! But this is a
once in a life time occasion so I pulling
out all the stops.
I ordered the ivory regal ice fondant,
when it arrived I looked at the larger
bottom tier and looked at my dining room
table and thought whoops! The table
simply wasn’t big enough so I contacted
a local bakery and paid them to cover
the dummies in sugar paste for me.
The design around the base of
each cake was hand piped baroque
scrolls in royal icing, antiqued with
champagne gold dust. The design
on the supporting drums consisted
of similar baroque oval plaques, with
hand piped royal iced floral urns.

I invested in a day’s royal icing private
tutorial from the infamous Eddie
Spence MBE. Royal icing isn’t my forte
so I thought who better to ask than
the best in the business to guide me
through a few of the royal icing stages.
The flowers needed to have a Winter
feel to them so I chose off white
calla lilies, snow berries and cream
Avalanche roses. For the foliage I
chose eucalyptus and ruscus leaves
and for a splash of drama I added
green cymbidium orchids.
I did want the bride’s bouquet, button
holes and cake theme all to tie in
together, so I offered to make them all.
It has taken 14 months with 2875 hours
of hard work to achieve what I wanted
but the look on the bride & grooms
face was worth every minute. The
bride’s bouquet will be kept by Sue so
I am making another throwing bouquet.

The bouquet and button hole flowers
are made from an inedible product
called cold porcelain which is very
durable and won’t break.
There were three cutting cakes two
made by Zoe Clark; a lemon sponge
with lemonchello butter cream and
a chocolate sponge with chocolate
ganache. The third flavoured cake was
made by my step father who prides
himself on his legendary moist brandy
soaked fruit cake with extra thick
marzipan.
Sue has involved me so much in her
wedding it makes me so proud that
I have her as such a very special
friend. Michael, my best friend,
helped me assemble the cake on the
morning of the wedding and it was a
magical Winter wedding enjoyed and
remembered by all who attended.
- Robert Haynes

more information
www.sugarflowerstudio.co.uk
facebook.com/pages/Sugar-flower-Studio/114445531966734