Monday 16 September 2013

Cake Queen 3A - Karen from Karen's Cards and Cakes

Hello everybody, I'm Karen Berry (there are a few Cake Queen Karens!) from Karen's Cards and Cakes in Co Galway. 

When Niamh initially suggested this project and was looking for volunteers I was all 'Hell yeah, bring it on!!!!!'  Like others have said, I loved the Starry, Starry Night project which was undertaken by cake decorators last year, so I knew what we were looking to achieve.  It was only when Simone Walsh's  From Croke Park to the Aviva was chosen as the image we were going to recreate that I realised I'm not all that arty, what in God's name had I let myself in for! Clean and simple, that's me, not bright, beautiful and bold!

It arrived, the envelope, except I wasn't there to see which piece was to be mine. I had to wait ALL DAY for my husband to arrive home from work to take a photo of it and send it to me.  All that day the other Cake Queens were rapidly posting up pics of their pieces, my nerves were in ribbons by the time the pic arrived. 'Half a seagull, aggghhh!'

I put my picture up for safe keeping, after dire warnings of the consequences if we lost them - it really had nothing to do with  'out of sight, out of mind' , really! And there it stayed, nice and safely out of sight until the first of the pieces were beginning to be posted, I really needed to get cracking. I decided to 'paint' my piece using melted cocoa butter and colour dusts. I was very nervous about this as it's not a technique I'd used before which I'm delighted to say I really enjoyed.  And so, I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon, mixing colours (that blue !) and painting away.  After all my worries it really didn't take that long once I got set up.  In the photo below you can see some of the steps along the way. 

So that's me and my piece for this amazing project.  I'm incredibly proud to be a part of this and working with so many of Ireland's finest cake decorators, sugar crafters and bakers, many of whom are friends too.

All that is left to do is say a HUGE THANK YOU to Niamh and Geraldine for all the hard work they have put into this project and no doubt there's even harder work to come to get the piece ready for exhibition by Thursday.  I can't wait to see it on Friday night, Thank You  Ladies xxx




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