All in just two years!

Wow, what a lot has changed in two years!  Exactly two years ago today, on the 5^th April 2014 John and Jackie got married.  We’d been friends for years before that, and Jackie had been our daughter's favourite teacher, so they have a special place in our hearts.  When they announced some months beforehand that they were getting married, after a fairytale romance, I enthusiastically offered to make their wedding cake.  My business was in its infancy and I’d never made a wedding cake before.  They eagerly agreed, the deal was done……and yes, I had moments where I deeply regretted making the offer.

The wedding cake is the centrepiece of the Reception.  Everyone will look at it.  Everyone will watch as the Bride and Groom cut it ….. there’s no hiding place.  If the cake is rubbish, everyone will know.  I lost many nights sleep worrying about it and when I did sleep I had all sorts of dreams encompassing just about everything that could go wrong.  John rather helpfully (not) kept reminding me that Mr. Kipling would be on hand if it all went wrong.

But they trusted me and there is no way I would let them down.  So I set about learning as much as I could about how to build a wedding cake, one that would get from my home in Hampshire to the wedding venue in Oxfordshire, in one piece. 

Gosh, when I had finally made the cake I was sooo proud of it!   And I think I had every right to be proud of it.  Now, two years later, I realise it wasn’t quite as smooth as it could have been, and the placement of the flowers could have been better….but on the whole I think I did an amazing job…even if I say so myself.

It did something else for me too, it gave me the impetus to keep going and to make more wedding cakes, and to prepare myself and my business to take more on in the future.  I love making wedding cakes and so I know this is the direction for my business.

In the intervening two years I’ve learned lots of new techniques, some via courses and some by studying at home.  I really wanted to make some wedding cakes that would be different, that would stand out from the crowd.  Although I had attended courses to learn how to make sugar roses and peonies which are by the far the most popular flowers on wedding cakes, I spent months teaching myself how to make tropical sugar flowers (I bought a fantastic book by Alan Dunn to help me). 

I created my ‘tropical sugar flower cake’ as my first entry into the Cake International Competition.  I wrote a post about this last year, you can read here.  This won me a Certificate of Merit from the judges, which I was thrilled with. 

Having well and truly caught the competition bug, I decided to enter the Spring Cake International Competition.  In March this year I created my ‘beach theme’ wedding cake.  I’d bought a course on how to achieve the aged painted wood effect and thought it would be perfect for this cake.  It is a very labour intensive process but the results are worthwhile.  I hope to incorporate the wood effect in other cakes in the future.   I was delighted to earn another Certificate of Merit for this cake too.

But the ‘icing’ on my cake journey so far was winning the Bronze Award for my ‘Rainbow Daisy Cascade’ design, also at this Spring's Cake International competition.  I absolutely loved it because it was so different from the pastel roses, peonies and lace designs we all know and love.  It is vibrant and bold.  At the competition I was able to hear some of the feedback from the public and it was all so positive towards this rainbow cake. 

So it’s been a wonderful two years from making Jackie and John’s cake to winning the Bronze Award.  I thank Jackie and John for allowing me to start with their cake, it was the first and most important step on this exciting journey.  

Where will the journey take me next……silver and gold awards at November's international cake competitons....hopefully….but most of all I look forward to making your wedding cake, making it the centrepiece of your Reception and something you and I can both be proud of.

I already have some exciting wedding projects in the pipeline.  I'm especially looking forward to making Claire's wedding cake in July.  Her 'coral' colour scheme and beautiful barn venue in the same village as mine is very exciting.  

Sonja