I was honoured to be asked to create the centrepiece for the best group-winning Sugar Pirates table display at Cake International 2018.

My pirate ship was almost entirely modelled from Renshaw’s Belgian Chocolate Modelling Paste, with the sails created from Saracino wafer paper. I airbrushed it all using my beloved Clairella Cakes airbrush and Spectrum Flow’s ethanol-based colours – designed to be able to cover chocolate.

The waves were hand-modelled from Renshaw’s Ready-to-Roll Icing in five colours, marbled together, before using royal icing and brush embroidery to achieve the foam.

Thank you to the Cake International judges for choosing our display as your favourite and thank you to Vicky Teather Sugar Artist for devising this wonderful collection and for all your hard work in bringing it to life! You rock!