Cake Queen 8d – Tanya from Novel-T Cakes

Hello....or maybe Tadaaaaaah! would be more appropriate as the excitement levels are well up there at the moment!  My name is Tanya from Novel-T Cakes and I was one of the lucky 50 cakers invited to be part of this awesome collaborative project.  I think I should say that when I was asked to be part of it I was both honoured and scared stupid, honoured to be part of such a talented bunch and a little scared of not being able to keep up.

So I said yes and watched in awe as the project took shape....then waited in anticipation for my piece of the painting puzzle to arrive in the mail.  When it came I was delighted to see I got a cheerful fish and yachts... how hard could that be right?!  Hmmm turns out that bloody blue wasn't like any blue... so I resorted to procrastination as I had what seemed like loads of time.

Then the photos of the amazing finished pieces started going up and I realised I had to get my butt in gear! So I sat down and procrastinated some more before getting up the guts to start.  Now this may all sound torturous, but that part was self inflicted, once I started I enjoyed it all immensely!

I started by doing the basic outlines and then built up my happy fishy and yachts in a sort of decoupage style.  I decided that to get more out of the experience I should try something new, so I tried painting with buttercream, and loved it!  Then I piped on some outlines and painted them gold.  You would think that would be the hard part over, but no, the toughest part was getting the chocolate biscuit cake base the exact height and dimensions as specified by our esteemed leader, Niamh Geraghty... no way was I going to be the one that had the only piece that wouldn't fit!  So much to the kid's delight, there was chocolate biscuit cake being first cut to size and then shaved to within an inch of it's life - Dessert was served.

All that was left was to deliver the finished piece to the very accommodating Geraldine Arnold who over a lovely cup of tea, let me have a sneak peak of some of the pieces that had already been delivered... And right then, I knew this project was going to surpass expectations!

What amazing talent there is here in Ireland, and what an opportunity to be part of this project which showcases it in such a novel and inspiring way! So to Niamh, Geraldine and my fellow Cake Queens, thank you, you ROCK!