Every now and then, I get a really exciting commission that allows me to really challenge myself as a cake designer.
You may remember that I donated a cake to The Old Vic Theatre for their 24 Hour Plays Celebrity Gala back in November, so I was thrilled when the team got in touch to ask me to make a cake for the theatre’s Birthday celebration.
I created a blood red cake, in the Old Vic’s current colour scheme, topped with their rather beautiful crest. The cake itself was airbrushed by my incredibly talented airbrush technician, Chris, and I spent several hours handpiping the crest in royal icing before handpainting it with gold metallic food paint.
This cake was truly a labour of love and I loved every second of creating it!
OK, that’s a bit of a fib as this design was a tough one. This was a huge challenge for my steady hand and I wanted to ensure that the crest was copied with accuracey. To be honest, I have always wanted to create something heraldic like this (the closest I have been before was the Slugs & Snails Cake that I created for Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen in December).
This is how it was done; I first traced the crest from paper to a parchment circle. This was then ‘scratched through’ onto the cake using a scribe tool (a posh metal cocktail stick, for the uninitiated!).
The outline was now scored into the cake for me to pipe over with royal icing, which was allowed to dry overnight before being handpainted in gold.
Rather appropriately, the cake beneath this elaborate exterior was a classic Victoria Sponge cake!
Happy 196th Birthday to The Old Vic! Here’s to many many more years of fantastic productions and many more cakes.
Cxx
