Cake queen 2B - Amy from Cake-a-licious and blogging virgin.

So when I first heard about this project I jumped at the chance to be involved, to do something a little different from the normal weekly cakes, but little did I know at the time how amazing and overwhelming this project would be.

This was my pic, it included lots of iconic landmarks, the ha’penny bridge, part of the spire and part of the GPO, I loved it but had no idea what to do with it. So I put it beside my bed in the hope that inspiration would strike.

It eventually did...about a week before the piece was due. I decided I wanted to try pointillism with royal icing. I wasn’t sure if it would be the right technique to capture the detail but gave it a go anyway.

So I started by tracing the picture, piping the general outlines and filling in the white sections. From here it was just hand numbing dot piping in several different colours, and adding some highlights here and there.

 

It worked! I was thrilled, especially because I didn’t have a plan B.

I loved being involved in this project and was blown away by how all the pieces fit together so well and by how well received it has been. Can’t wait to work with these fab queens again x

 

Cake Queen 4d - Breda from The Ribbon Shack

Well  I am absolutely brutal at blogs and the like so this will probably be the shortest blog of the lot, pretty much like my cake, the shortest of the lot.  I got a little conflustered (it doesn’t take a lot) as people were using different forms of measuring as in centimetres, millimetres or inches.  I was trying to get everything done as my daughter was overdue her first baby (the gorgeous Arianna arrived on the 19th!)

I never double checked the measurements, sure why would I, I knew it was to be 3cm in height.  So off I set about making my ickle (very ickle) contribution.  Got it all finished, I was bloody delighted with myself.  I left it in the kitchen and told my daughter Mary that one of  her favourite Cake Queens Karen was very kindly dropping  in to collect my piece later that morning, which she did, and Karen very promptly rang me.  I can’t quite remember what words she used but basically she was giggling and calling me an  eejit, the cake should have been 3 inches not 3 centimetres.  She said this to Mary, Mary told Karen she would have to ring me and tell me it was too short cos there wasn’t a hope in hell she was going to ring me (mind you I did wind Mary up a bit when I did speak to her later on and pretended that Karen hadn’t spoken to me and the poor child was nearly dying a death having to say that the cake was too short, hehe, there has to be some pleasures to this motherhood lark).  I came up with a brilliant idea (at least I thought so), as part of my piece had a house on it I chanced my arm asking the Queen Bee Niamh G could I leave it at the height it was, way lower than all the other pieces and when somebody asked what happened we could say the house had been built with pyrite, it cracked and sank, tadahhhhhh problem sorted.  Not quite, she said nope, she’s a  right spoilsport.  I redid the cake to 3 inches this time and off it went to join all the other 3 inch cakes.

Cake Queen Karen from Bake Cake Create - Section 7a

Being a Cake Queen.  ‘Twas wonderful….

I remember seeing the first pictures of the ‘Starry Night’ collaboration on the internet and I was blown away by it.  Such a beautiful piece of artwork transformed into an edible art piece by 50 of the most talented cakers around the globe.  While never physically constructed together due to geographical logistics, I just loved the idea of a work of art being taken apart and 50 individuals putting their own stamp on their piece in edible format.  While each section was made up of varying techniques, when it came together in digital format, the result was beautiful and each piece merged perfectly into the next.  It didn’t matter that colours didn’t match, techniques didn’t match, it was instantly recognisable and I loved the fact that each piece was so individual to each artist. 

I remember talking about it with my very good friend Niamh, our Queen Bee of the Cake Queens and originator of our Edible Art project and we oohed and aahed and said to each other, ‘Wouldn't it be fantastic to be involved in something like that’.  For me, the dreamer, I just continued to dream about such things.  I’m a person ‘who does’ rather than being a go-getter.  Give me a task and I’ll do it to the very best of my ability but while I might have big dreams, I’m not the type of person to actually act upon them always.  Thankfully while Niamh is a dreamer too, she is, more importantly, a go-getter.  I should have known, when I heard strange whirring noises around the time of our Starry Night conversation, that Niamh’s brain had gone into overdrive and was already thinking about how we could do something similar in Ireland.

Niamh rang me at the start of the summer:

Niamh: Hiya, I’ve got a bit of an idea.

Me: Yeah? (there’s always a bit of apprehension/excitement in my voice when Niamh tells me she has an idea because you never know what she is going to say.  One of my favourite things about her, incidentally)

Niamh: Eh, what do you think of doing our own cake collaboration here in Ireland?

Me:  Oh God, YES, YES, YES (a little like Sally from ‘When Harry met Sally’ – I think I may have banged the table too!)

Niamh:  Really? 

Me:  YES!  Ger is on board, I presume?

Niamh:  Absolutely.

Good, I thought, as long as we have Ger, (who has the enviable quality of being able to instantly calm Niamh down in times of stress, by just saying the word ‘Breathe’), we’re going to be ok.  This could really work.  And there was the start of a beautiful project.

As you know by now from the other blog posts, the image chosen was the glorious "Croke Park to Aviva" painting by the very talented Simone Walsh.  I loved the painting, such detail, such vibrant colours.  Could 50 of us produce this in cake?  Yep, I had no doubts.  Of course, we had the added pressure of this being made entirely in cake and each piece fitting beautifully into the next piece and then being on display in front of the general public in an art gallery in Dublin.  Sizing, exact dimensions, 50 variants could equal disaster but …..nope we got there.  Each person received their section by post.  It was like a child waiting for Christmas to come, the excitement!  What piece was I going to get?  Each person posted up their piece on our Edible Art web page as they received them.  I particularly loved the ones with the brightly coloured houses and the ones containing those fab fish.  Mine arrived.  Top edge piece with the plane and part of Croke Park.  Ooh, I thought, I’m happy with that.

The first task was to cut out a sheet of florist paste to the exact dimensions of the picture.  Ok so far.  I’d deal with the cake later.  

I used my airbrush to create the beginnings of the sky.  

I rang Niamh at this point and said, ‘I’d like to do something a little different with my piece’.  Niamh said, straight off the bat, ‘Make the plane 3D’.  I’m not sure if she was half joking but a little lightbulb went off in my head and I thought, yes, that is exactly what I will do.  It would have to be pretty small but those of you who know me, know I love making little miniature things in sugar.  At this stage my florist paste was already drying out and I thought, oh oh, I need to make a hole in this to accommodate a flower pick.  I needed a section of florist wire to hold up my 3D plane and you can’t insert wire directly into a cake.  You insert a flower pick into the cake which then holds the wire so the wire never touches the cake.  I had images of Scrat from ‘Ice Age’ where he pulls his acorn out of the ice and the whole thing starts to crack.  If I pushed a flower pick into my already hardening florist paste, would it crack just like the ice?  Just had to go for it.  I didn’t breathe as I was pushing it through.  Thankfully, it didn’t crack.  I then traced the outline of Croke Park and the roundabout with spire at Dublin airport.

I chose to add depth to the sky with edible dusts rather than use the airbrush again.  The blue was not going to be an exact match to the original painting but having seen the variances with the blues in the Starry Night collaboration and how beautiful it turned out, I wasn’t too worried. 

I painted with edible paints on the remainder of the piece but used another section of florist paste to make my part of Croke Park with extruded piped sugarpaste for the gold accents.  While it was only an itsy bitsy section of Croke Park, it was detailed enough in the colours and depth.

Finally I made my little plane. Was smiling all the way through making it.  I wanted to mount the plane in such a way that if you looked at it from a bird's eye view, you wouldn't be able to tell that is was 3D.  I curled the florist wire, attached my little sugarpaste plane to the florist wire and mounted it into the flower pick.  I stood back to look and grinned from ear to ear.

Final stage was making the cake, 3 inches high and to the exact dimensions of the section we had received.  I love the mathematics behind cake making, so this was a part I enjoyed.  Sad….I know! 

I was involved with the huge task of fitting all the edible sections together.  Between Ger, Agatha and myself, we slowly saw the picture coming to life.  We were in awe and hugged each other and were so proud of everyone.  It was a wonderful moment when we inserted the very last piece.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed being part of this wonderful collaboration.  A dream come true for me.  Thanks so much to my brilliant creative friend Niamh and Geraldine who was such an integral part of this project – her organisational skills are unsurpassed and she kept everyone’s level of sanity at an even keel.  Can’t wait for the next project!  Roll on….and quickly!

How it all happened - Niamh Geraghty, 10C

Remember that last post?  The one about us and the picture and the cake and the picture and the ninety odd pounds of cake?  Well!!  We did it.  We made it.  It's gorgeous.  But, before you get to see the picture in all it's glory you're going to have to settle down, get comfy and learn how we did it.  So?  Are you comfortable?  Yes?  Then let's begin.

My name is Niamh Geraghty and I was asked to get involved with Dr. Sketchey's and The Doorway Gallery by producing a piece of edible art.  Mmmmm, I thought to myself, yeah, that sounds like fun.  So, as I am wont to do, I ran it by Ger, she of Cake My Day fame and my usual partner in crime.  As, she too liked the sound of it, I threw my net out a bit wider and soon I had a team in place.  They were and are:

Geraldine - Cake My Day

Karen - Bake Cake Create

Agatha - Agatha Cakefield Avenue

Dawn - Dawn's Custom Cakes99

Trish - The Cupcake Store 

Aoibhean - Little Cake Co.

Breda - The Ribbon Shack and, last but not least

Anne Geraghty - Cakes, Glorious Cakes.

Team in place it was time to stop ringing and worrying and put my idea into play.  

My idea? Ah, to make a cake, a big cake, 50 cakes in fact.  A cake all about Dublin.  I had nine bakers lined up, I just needed another 41.  That was fun.  My final baker to come on board was the wonderful Karen Smith Jepson.  She reminded me only the other day that she was the very last person I asked.  Which is really interesting to me as she was involved in the original project, the very one that inspired me.  

A year or so back, 50 bright bakers, came together to recreate Starry Night by Van Gogh to celebrate his birthday.  They each, all 50 of them (world wide) each took a portion of the picture and recreated it from a sugar medium.  You can read all about it here and I think you should.  It's a beautiful piece. 

There I go again, off on a tangent.  

So, with 50 bakers lined up we were good to go.  

We, however, needed an image of something that said 'Dublin' to us so I opened it out to all the bakers and asked them to suggest pictures that they thought would look great as a large cake.  They came in thick and fast and I decided that, actually, I was going to make an executive decision and pick the image I loved best.  Funny thing is, the image was one that had come in a few times.  'From Croke Park to the Aviva' by Simone Walsh.  Vibrant and gorgeous and there wasn't a part of that painting that I hadn't wandered through at some point in my life.  I got in touch with Simone and she gave us her permission to use the image.  I think she was intrigued by what I was trying to do.

Trish had the image blown up, my lovely husband measured it and cut it (oh, never EVER measure with a fabric measuring tape.  That 1cm that you cut off?  Yeah, that's a really important centimetre).  Geraldine was charged with sending everyone on our list their image.  All, barring mine, were done randomly.  I created a grid and filled everyone's name in, here and there, and then wrote numbers e.g. a1, a2 right up to 10e on the back of my cut pieces of paper.  Then it was just a matter of matching the code with the relevant name and posting.  

Okay, so why wasn't my piece random?  It was my gig!  I wanted to do something I really loved yet knew if I took the stacks (which I grew up alongside those who know me well would know I er, cheated.  Instead I took Poolbeg, I have many happy memories of walking that pier with my mam and dad.

I went on holidays.  Fun in London (baby).

When I got back we set about working out how it was going to work.  Medium to use, height etc.  Then, one night, the early hours of a morning in fact, I woke up in a panic.  I rang Ger (us cake makers can do that you see.  We're all on facebook and can see who is unfortuante enough to be still up working at 2am)and said "the other bakers, the starry night ones .. . theirs was digitally blended!!!  They didn't have to assemble a pysical cake.  GER!!  THEIR CAKE NEVER MET ANY OF THE OTHER CAKES"  Ger did what she always does, when I ring in a panic, and told me to breathe.  Not Calm Down, which is a terrible thing to say to someone, but breatheeeeee.  I did.  She said we could do it.  I believed her and fell asleep.

Now cake makers can be a contrary lot.  We, well some of them, like things to be very precise.  I do too but I'm not very good at it.  Despite explaining that 3" was the same as both 75mm and 7.5cm we still had height variences.  Mine included.  My piece ended up on a strip of sugar paste, on a cake card and then on a foam core board to get it to the requisite 3" high.  Ger wasn't much better and well, some were wide, short, too long, waaaay to high and some very, very stubby indeed (isn't that right Breda?).

We weren't aware of the issues we'd have regarding sizing until it came to be assembled and sure, it all worked out in the end.

What kept me going, as I can't speak for the others, was the rush I got whenever someone posted a picture of their finished piece.  The colours!  The techniques! The many, many questions on what shade of blue so and so was using.  In the end we told everyone to just enjoy it and do it however they saw fit.  And they did.

Of course there was a deadline and cakes started to arrive at mine, Ger and Karen's houses and we were surrounded by chocolate cake.  Heaven.  I met up with most of the girls last Monday and ended up coming home with a car full of boxes.  Each box contained a cake and I promised, faithfully, Agatha and Geraldine that I wouldn't begin assembling it all until they came over the next morning.  

I can't keep promises like that.  I couldn't help myself.  I just had to see if, say, mine lined up to the one next to it.  And sure, when it did, would it line up with the one underneath it?  It did!!!

Before you knew it I had assembled every piece I had, posted photos of it, rang Karen and squealed down the phone about how bloody brilliant the whole thing looked.  I also asked that no one tell Ger what I had done.  Forgot she had facebook on, she arrived, with the frame and another 20 cakes an hour later and gently yelled at me about how I was one of those ones who couldn't walk past a Christmas present without squeezing it.  

I said, okay, you're right.  I'm a bad person.  We'll do nothing more until tomorrow.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  She too got excited and before you knew it we practically had the thing built and were standing on chairs, looking down at it, hugging each other.  We rocked it.  

It was so hard to go asleep that night.  Was wound up and thrilled at how brilliantly it was all coming together.  

Next day, Tuesday 17th September, was the deadline for all pieces to be in so we could assemble it.  A friend of Gers offered to make our frame and we took him up on it.  The size of the frame brought home how big this piece was going to be.  

At noon Ger and Agatha arrived.  They started lining the box frame and I began making lunch before running out to do the first of my school runs, shouting over my shoulder "don't start putting it together until I get back".  Of course, whilst I was out they started putting it together which meant I arrived to two slightly worried cakers.  Due to the nature of the piece some cakes were slightly wider or longer than they should have been.  This was fine when we'd assembled it on the counter last night but when it started going into the frame all those milimetres added up to a couple of centimetres which added up to 10 cakes that weren't fitting into our frame.  This meant they, I ran away again (thank God) to do another school run) had to shave, and I do mean shave, millimetres off every other piece.  It was nerve wracking for them and there was chocolate everywhere.  

When I came back from that school run I found Karen in the mix, sorting out the frame and the shaving and Aoibheann and Nicola working on Aoibheann's piece.  

Aoibheann.  She rang me in a panic on Monday night.  She thought I was Oscar answering the phone and, upon realising I wasn't, said "You know how Ger says 'Breathe'?  I need you to breathe!"  It turned out her piece of the image had gotten lost, we're blaming the husband, and she couldn't make her image up.  I had taken tonnes of photos of each persons image, front and back, but couldn't find them on the computer.  I recommended she make her cake and, the next day, come over and place her piece where it should go and, using the surrounding cakes as a guide, do it then.

It worked.  She did a fantastic job.  Herself and Nicola were so funny doing it.  Oh, and I spun a line about how Aoibheann had deliberately not done her piece until the last minute so that we could have one piece that we could trim to whatever size we needed to insert as a last cake.  Sometimes I can come up with great stories in a heartbeat.

It took 5 hours to assemble it, 6 cake makers and 6 boys, a lot of shaving and cutting of cake, a fair bit of swearing, one accident and, before you knew it, we were all cheering and laughing and staring in awe at what we had put together.

In about two hours it's leaving my house, I will be sad to see it go(although looking forward to eating at the kitchen table again) as I have loved practically every minute of this project.  I certainly couldn't have done it without Agatha, Dawn, Breda, Ger, Karen, Anne, Aoibheann or Nicola but I definitely couldn't have done it without these gorgeous people, my fabulous, wonderful, brilliant, clever cake making friends.  I salute you my friends, it has been a joy (mostly, cackle) and I look forward to working with you all again.  Be very, very proud of yourselves.  What you did?  It's bloody brilliant.

Introducing, Left to Right.

Grainne, Darina, Karen B, Marisa, Agatha, Dawn, Karen, Aileen, Deirdre and Nadi.

Aisha, Amy, Ellen, Karen J, Nicola, Karen K, Anne, Ger, Kelly and Philip

Janette, Rebecca, Aoibheann, Gillian, Susan, Bronagh, Valerie, Bernie, Barbara and myself.

Hannah, Laura, Suzanne, Breda, Helen, Tara, Emily, Tanya, Jean and Carol.

Sandra, Trish, Karen McH, Jenny, Caroline, Jenny D, Louise, Yvonne and Marian.

Thank you.  It was a pleasure getting to know those of you whom I hadn't had the opportunity to meet before.  Loved it.

Cake Queen 1E that’s me Sandra Kinnear

I was in on Holidays in Canada when I got a text message from Cake Queen aka Marian “check your Facebook you have a message” the message was from another Cake Queen aka Agatha and she was

telling me briefly about the project and asked me would I like to get involved, my first thought was wow the Irish version of the “Starry Night” project and I was delighted and thrilled to be asked to be part of it.

I received my picture in the post on the 4^th of September and I immediately started to decide how I would complete it…

My first step was to trace the image on to baking paper, then I cut the flower paste to the exact size (as per Instructions) I used a scribe to scratch the image on to the paste, I then started to paint the picture using edible colours, and when it was dry I used Royal icing to do the outlines, and then painted them gold.

My next stage was to make the cake I decided to make a 6” square Chocolate Biscuit cake and carved it to the size of the picture, I ganached it to give the sharp edges and smooth sides and used my set square and level to ensure I got them right, this part was harder than the topper, when I was happy with it I spread a thin layer of Royal Icing on the topper then placed it on top of the cake and let out a big sigh of relief…

I called to cake Queen Geraldine on Sunday to deliver my piece and saw some of the other pieces and the excitement of seeing the whole project complete was great…

Thanks a million to Niamh and Ger for including me in this fab project and I get to be a “Cake Queen” for a day…   

Cake Queen 5C - Susan Moore

Way back in July I got a message from a certain Niamh Geraghty asking me (me a hobby sugarcrafter) if I would be interested in taking part in making a piece about Dublin out of cake for the edible art gallery!  Without hesitation I said I was in cause it sounded like a challenge and more than likely a whole lot of fun too!

When the picture was chosen I have to admit I was excited & a bit worried as it's so detailed but the colours were so vibrant I just knew it would be an awesome cake!

While I was on my holidays my piece arrived, I watched facebook as people posted up the pic of their piece of the picture and couldn't wait to get back to see what mine would be!

I have to admit I was a bit less worried about it when i got it as it was pieces of buildings so how hard could that be?!  I stuck it up so I could look at it every day but most importantly so that I wouldn't lose it (I love everything!!).

I finally sat down a couple of weeks ago, having not done anything remotely cake related since June and cut out my shape.  Being the novice I am it didn't enter my head to trace my image on to the icing...  I started off trying to paint the blue of the main building.  3 attempts later I finally got the blue I was happy with!  I wanted the windows & buildings to have a layered effect so I cut them all out piece by piece and began to put it together.  I made the bushes using an icing nozzle to create the texture I wanted.  It was only when I got to applying the roof on the final building (the purple one on the bottom, that I realised I had put everything else on too low so they all had to come off and be cut out and put back on again (in the right place this time!).. There's where actually marking my icing first would have come in extremely handy!  I painted the gold lines on and I was done - Woops.... it was at this stage that I remembered that I was supposed to have taken pictures as I went along!  I guess I'll know for the next time.

Anxiously I took a pic of my piece and posted it up for the rest of the Queens to see.  I don't mind telling you that every day since I made it (even now when it's too late) I wished I had done it again, just in case I could have made it look better, maybe added a bit of sparkle!

The worst part was definitely making the cake itself!  I had nothing even remotely the right size, I used pieces of cake board covered in cling film to try to create the right shape inside my smallest casserole dishes, I propped them in place using biscuits?!  I know not exactly genius!  I would have been better cutting it to shape but in my mind this was going to work!  I poured the chocolate biscuit mix in (cursing myself for adding marshmallows which all rose to the top) and it duly spilled out the sides.... aaaah!  I popped it in the fridge and let it set, when it was set enough I took it out, peeled the sides away to reveal the right shape but about an inch too small!  Luckily enough there was enough on either side to get to the right height... I put the top on just to cut it to size... another error!  I didn't get a chance to ganache the sides because I was afraid I would tear the top if I took it off!  Anyway, it's done and it's in and hopefully mine wasn't too big or too small for the  girls  who assembled it!

Who knows what crazy plan will be thought up for the next Cake Queens venture but I for one can't wait!  This has been a blast and i'm extremely grateful to have been a part of it!

Cake Queen 7C - Valerie Dennan Orr

I was so excited and also terrified at the prospect of being involved in this piece.  Out of the 50 cakers, I was the only non-professional.  How daunting! I figured that to be considered is an honour and if I ran into trouble, I could run to one of the others screaming for help!  My piece arrived in the post and I was itching to get started but had a few weeks to wait.  The initial difficulty I had with my piece was that it had no single clear element like a bird or a boat that I could focus on, but in the end I was happy with this as it made my piece abstract and added a new element of interest.

When the time came, I decided to measure and cut my sugar plaque and just go with it.  I marked out the locations of some key elements on the piece and went from there.  I used both sugarpaste and royal icing on it.  The royal icing was piped for the gold outline but also splodged on for texture within the piece.  The colours were obtained using edible pigment pastes and pigment powders either painted directly on or mixed with alcohol.

The big problem for me was carving the cake to the exact measurements, it's so easy to get caught up and overdo it.