Cake decorators from around New Zealand descended on Dunedin recently for a national conference to share ideas, compete and learn. Rebecca Fox discovered the dedication and hours that go into turning a simple cake into a work of art.
To say cake decorating is an all-consuming passion is not an overstatement.
The hobby can take over lives, fill spare rooms, cupboards and spread over any clear surface but it can also bring joy and happiness to many.
"Seeing the look on people’s faces when they see the cake, makes it all worth it," Gillian Belton, of Hokitika, says.
At a recent New Zealand Cake Decorators Conference, Belton, Sandra Boston, of Whangarei , Helen Corder, of Tauranga, and Robert Harwood, of Perth, demonstrated how they make their specialty decorations.
Each has their own tale of how cake decorating became a part of their lives.
Boston, who demonstrated how to make an Isomalt (sugar substitute) butterfly sculpture, was a jeweller until a visit to a decorators’ guild meeting got her hooked 20 years ago.
"That was before Trade Me had taken off and there wasn’t TikTok or Instagram, just a book in the library or the guild."
She loved how much faster it was to create things than in jewellery.
The hobby became a business when she realised there was a demand for the tools and materials she was bringing in from overseas. Since then the materials and tools available to decorators has boomed.
"I eat, sleep, drink [and] breathe cake-related things."
Belton, a part-time teacher aide, spent more than a week making 500 petals to create her hydrangea entry in the conference competition. Each one is individually cut out, veined and coloured. Making botanically correct decorations is her latest passion.
"When I had 350 [petals] I put it together but it wasn’t enough so I made more."
She got into cake decorating after making her two boys’ first birthday cakes.
"I made a Thomas the Tank Engine cake and haven’t looked back. I’m completely self-taught from trial and error and YouTube."
At the conference she demonstrated how to make cartoon cakes — designs that are made to look like 2-D cartoons.
"I tell my boys ‘head off to bed I’m going to play with Playdoh’, as it’s just like Playdoh to work with."
While Harwood, who works in insurance, demonstrated how to make his nautical-themed cake, just one of the many designs he has mastered since learning how to make sugar roses for his mother’s cakes aged 9.
"We liked to go to restaurants, try something different and then work how to make it at home and I’ve always done art."
With every cake he makes, he tries to find something new and different to do. He likes to experiment using different materials in unexpected ways and has become a convert to modelling chocolate and the speed it enables things to be created at.
"I collect information at a vicious rate and if there are 10 different ways to cover a cake I like to know them all."
Harwood has been known to search the internet for how to apply makeup to learn how he can make a face on a cake doll look human.
He suggests cake decorators have many skills; from being engineers to ensure the cake does not fall over, plasterers, logistical specialists, artists as well as great bakers. While many of the decorations on display at the conference were not edible cakes, most make their designs to be eaten normally.
Corder, a past-president, secretary and treasurer of the guild and life member, got hooked when she did a night class to learn the skills needed to make her niece the wedding cake she had promised — a three-tier cake covered in cascading roses and ivy.
"That’s how making sugar flowers became my thing."
Over the past nearly 30 years, Corder has demonstrated at many conferences and guild meetings sharing her skills around Australia and New Zealand.
"I’ve retired a bit now."
Cake decorating has a lot of bonuses as a hobby — one being that creations are usually eaten, meaning they are not left with their designs hanging around, she says.
"You can give a cake away, you take photos of it, eat it, but you are not stuck with it."
Expert tips
• Go to a Cake Decorators Guild meeting in your area — they love to share their knowledge with beginners;
• As decorating products are all different keep trying until you will find one that suits your skills;
• Don’t be afraid to give it a go and have a play;
• Practise;
• Take inspiration from other creative arts.
