Newcastle, NSW, Australia
I’m a former industrial chemist, and after deciding on a career change while at home with my two young children, I’m now a qualified pastry chef and cake decorating enthusiast. In 2009 I started taking some classes in cake decorating and other pastry-related cookery, and taught myself many more decorating techniques from books and internet resources. In 2010 I started a pastry apprenticeship, studying Retail Baking (Cake & Pastry) Certificate III at TAFE, which I completed with Distinction in 2012. I completed my apprenticeship in December 2013, and as of 2018 I am now working as a Cake Decorator at Designer Delights in Charlestown, NSW.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Purple Lilies

Okay, so I'm taking a break from doing cakes at home at the moment, but as it turns out we're doing a wedding cake at work this week!  We don't actually have that much cake decorating gear at the patisserie, so I figured it would be easier to make the flowers at home than lug all my gear to work... but having said that, I'll be packing myself a bit of a tool kit to take with me for the rest of the week to work on the actual cake.



So these are my purple 'fantasy lilies.' For the uninitiated, 'fantasy flower' is a cake decorator's technical term for a decoration that looks like a flower but doesn't try to resemble any particular variety of real-world flower and/or doesn't attempt to be botanically correct. These lilies certainly aren't... I just copied the picture of what the customer wants!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Winnie the Pooh Cake

The last cake from before my study break was a first birthday cake for Mia, whose christening cake I did back in May.  The plastic figureine was supplied by the customer, and the cake design was modelled off one of the "suggested use" pictures from the ad for the figurine.

First Birthday/Baptism Cake

I'm currently on a short "cake break" while I focus on my TAFE assignments and upcoming exams, but just a quick catch up of the two cakes I did earlier this month... firstly a teddy bear cake for a little boy's first birthday and baptism.  The teddy was modelled to resemble 'Bear' the birthday boy's favourite toy.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Black & White Wedding Cake

I'm almost three months into my apprenticeship and life is STILL a blur... the last cake I had on the books before the job opportunity came up was also my first real wedding cake, and it was two weeks ago!  As usual, better late than never...




I had a slight hiccup the night before the wedding due to my underestimation of how much fondant it would take to cover a 16 inch square board... two trips to the supermarket and several covering attempts later, I was finally able to stack the cakes.  It was a much later night than expected getting it finished, but I still "made it to the church on time," so to speak!