I have a youtube video’s demonstrating how to make the ruffles I made on this cake and also a video showing a simple easy way to make the pearl balls the same size every time.

Ruffles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wukHmaLt0Q
Pearl Balls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMgjGSSqrtw

Name: Ceri Badham, Fancy Cakes by Linda
Category Entered: Class F…A Wedding Cake 3 Tiers and Over
Award: Gold

In 2011 I took redundancy from IBM. I had worked there for 18 years and I knew itwas time for me to leave and find a new direction.

One Sunday afternoon my mum Linda was round for dinner and when she asked me what I was going to do next, as a joke I said why don’t I set up a website and sell your cakes! We both laughed! The next day I woke up in the morning and thought why not and the following week I started building the website and gave us a name.

I had never picked up a piece of sugar to decorate a cake before and it was a complete challenge. My mum had been to college and passed her City and Guilds, and Sugar flowers Part 1 and 2. Mum had been baking and decorating cakes for 25 years and I thought who better to teach me than her.

In November 2013, I went to Cake Internationalheld at the NEC in Birmingham. There were so many beautiful cakes and when I came away I felt inspired. I decided that I would enter Cake International at Excel in London in 2014. I thought this would be a good challenge for me and it would help me to improve my skills.

I wanted to design a cake that was very feminine and elegant. I thought the ruffles were perfect for this combined with the lace and by keeping the 2 top tiers simple I thought it kept it modern too.

The bottom tier took me at least 20 hours. I cut hundreds of flowers and checked the edge of every single petal to make sure they were completely smooth. Each petal needed to lay perfectly. I didn’t want any gaps or inconsistencies in the ruffles and to achieve this it was going to take time.

I then decided to put a double row of pearls on the cake. I waded though my mum’s equipment and found a bead mould. When I made them each one had a seam on it so I decided they all had to be rolled by hand. This was not a quick task and took a couple of hours to make sure every single one was perfect.

I finished my cake and loved it. I was concerned that I had kept the top simple and that I should show more cake decorating skills on it but I loved it just the way it was.

Mum and I set off to Cake International at 630 in the morning with our cakes. Mum was driving. We was halfway there when I realized I had left my entry receipt at home…I won’t tell you what mum said but the air was blue! We knew if we went home we would miss the 0845 cut off for putting our cakes on display. I rang my husband to bring the receipt and after waiting 45 minutes in a service station for him I knew that if we didn’t get back on the road we would be late so we decided to take achance and leave without it.

We arrived with a minute to go and luckily no-one asked for my receipt. I put my box on the table and as I was getting it out I accidently broke 2 of my ruffles. I quickly repaired my cake and left.

We went back on the Saturday to see our results and collect our cakes. I could not believe I had been awarded Gold. I was astounded and so excited.

I looked for Lesley Herbert who was judge for Class F and asked for feedback for my cake. I felt overwhelmed to be told that my ruffles and covering is perfect by someone as talented and experienced as Lesley. She told me my work is so clean and neat and executed so well.

Will I enter again? Absolutely…see you at Cake International Birmingham 2014!