This past Sunday, April 25th I entered my very first, not only cake competition, but live cake competition. It was held at Bonnie Gordon School Annual Cake Show. I was up against Bonnie’s own cake designer Isabelle.
I went into this competition knowing that I was up against 2 people with way more experience than me but was completely up for the challenge. Was I nervous? Yes. As Patricia and I rolled, covered, cut and draped fondant and gum paste over our blank cake forms with a bit of sweat building up on our faces our competitors took their time delicately painting the trim and detail work previously done on their cake. It did stressed me out every time I looked to my left and saw what seemed to be, yet another, finished tier having appeared mysteriously from somewhere under their table. That didn’t stop Patricia and I though. We worked our tails off and through the stress, pressure, sweat, sore backs, arms and feet we accomplished what we set out to do. In 5 hours we produced the cake we had designed and although we worked down to the very last second and some elements were quite rushed and rough towards the end I really think that we did a heck of a job. I really would have liked to have seen what our competitors would have been able to do in the 5 hours having started from scratch like we did. Was it fun? Looking back on it, yes, but in the moment, not so much! Will I do another live challenge? Sure, but not right away. I really do think that the crowd enjoyed it too, as they were crammed around our table non-stop and couldn’t keep their eyes off what we were doing.
Did I win, maybe not but in my mind and of those in attendance the real winners were Patricia and I for having been able to pull off our cake in only 5 hours with our level of experience. Below are some photos from the competition of Patricia and I hard at work. Thank you to all of our supporters and those of you who stood by us and watched up work and gave us words of encouragement.
- Patricia works feverishly to finish the fringe on the bottom tier
- I make the lace for the top tier
- I make and place the ribbon and bow on the top tier
- Patricia and I work together to drape the swag on the bottom tier
- Patricia makes the rose border for the middle tier
- Patricia making the bows for the bottom tier
- I place the bows on the bottom tier
- Patricia touches up the cameos
- I delicately paint the broach I just made with metallic silver
- adding the frill to my Marie Antoinette shoes
- adding the finishing touches to my Marie Antoinette shoes
- my finished shoes ready to go on the cake
- the cake starts to take form
- putting the top tier on the cake
- I struggle to put a support dowel in the cake
- Patricia dusts our flowers to finish them off
- carefully placing our flowers on the cake
- putting a few last flowers in place
- I finish a lily at the very last minute
- only a few minutes left before the competition’s over
- just before the competition wrapped up
- the bottom tier of our finished cake
- the middle tier of our finished cake
- Our finished cake!








































