Oi! FaceCake!

Cakes of famous faces by Zoe Paterson

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An incredibly exciting commission for me - my work is featured on the official trailer for this years Bake Off. I got to have a second crack at Noel Fielding and Paul Hollywood in the process and I’m proud of the results.

Plus - PLUS - a new challenge for me, I needed to make detachable mouths for these cakes in open and shut states so that they looked like they were singing! I was even required to cake wrangle on set at the filming somewhere in deepest Acton. The whole team behind this advert did an incredible job and It’s Nice That wrote a good piece of praise for them. They were also a lovely bunch of people to hang out with for an afternoon - which I was grateful for as film sets are often stressful and chaotic places.

The Daily Mail (blee) has also said I made spitting images of the four hosts, and I’m just so pleased to have been asked!

More on another big (in both senses of the word) commission next month! Ssh!

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Noel Fielding - Neon Layer Cake

Last week when the new line up for the Great British Bake Off was announced, I was as surprised as anyone else. I like Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig very much, but it’s an odd pairing - it’ll be nice to see how they riff off each other when the series airs later in the year. I’ve got lovely visions of them getting together for regular afternoon tea meetings in order to limber up for their onscreen partnership.

I’ve been wanting to tackle a rainbow layer cake for a little while now and Noel was basically the perfect candidate - if I could have additionally made him into a pinata cake filled with unicorn candy I would have done. He is Mr Sunshine.

Instead I decided to amp up the rainbow and make him a neon layer cake. I found some brilliant neon food colouring that actually glows under UV light and used it to great effect here.

Noel is basically a double orange sponge cake with orange zest cream cheese frosting - and food colouring obviously. He tastes darned good!

My only other observation is that he has one of the most difficult faces to capture that I’ve attempted to date. Don’t know if it was the image I chose or whether he’s just a tricky customer generally - I had to re-do most of him and it’s still not completely doing it for me, and I don’t know why. Oh, and I made a gif too! Look:

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Mrs Doyle - Guinness Cake

Especially for #StPatricksDay here’s the legend that is #MrsDoyle from #FatherTed in fondant form. I don’t know if she’d approve of being a chocolate Guinness cake - I reckon she’s more of a classic tea loaf kind of lady but it seemed fitting given the amount of the black stuff that gets drunk today.

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Patrick Stewart - Chocolate Chestnut Cake

What a pleasure to make a very twinkly Sir Patrick Stewart for my in-laws just before Christmas. The cake was also to die for - Nigella’s chocolate chestnut cake recipe doesn’t look like much but is super rich, velvety and like a pudding... probably exactly how you’d want SPS to taste!

Anyway - I think they were weirded out a little bit but thought it was brilliant and delicious.

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Mel & Sue!

When I was a student, I travelled from Bournemouth on more than one occasion to go and watch Light Lunch being filmed for Channel 4. I took a packed lunch and chatted to the in-house band. It’s safe to say I have long had a soft spot for Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins - and I was over the moon when they struck it big on mainstream telly with Bake Off... and obviously gutted that those halcyon days will soon be over.

Anywho. I’ve had a few months off of my own baking game now as I’ve had a baby. When I was pregnant I decided to book myself in to try FaceCakes at a wedding show - namely the Gay Wedding Show  in Manchester. Now my daughter is four months old, and I’m knackered and milk addled and all the crazy things that come with being a new parent... so it was very pleasing when I made these two as dummy cakes for the show that they came out looking mighty fine!

A big thanks to the show organisers for letting me exhibit. And it was lovely to meet so many couples and get so many wonderful compliments about my work. These two are dummy cakes (i.e. polystyrene so they can be used again) but if I had to peg a flavour for these two I think I’d go Lemon Drizzle for Mel and maybe some kind of chocolate raspberry number for Sue.

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Harrison Ford as Han Solo - Death By Chocolate Cake

Witness the fitness people. It was my husband’s birthday on Tuesday and he requested a classic 70s version of Harrison Ford.

I tried out a chocolate cake recipe that I hadn’t attempted before - Mary Berry’s Death By Chocolate which prompted me to wonder whether anyone had actually expired after eating a chocolate cake... turns out, with truth being stranger than fiction and all that, that the Nazi’s were plotting to kill Churchill by that means. Wow.

Still, Harrison Ford as a chocolate cake, it’s the stuff of dreams surely?

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Leonardo DiCaprio - Victoria Sponge

A few weeks back I was commissioned to replicate Leo DiCaprio in fondant ahead of his long awaited Oscars win. I used a smiley picture of him winning at the Golden Globes as my guide.

I do take commissions - whether you’d like a cake of your own face or someone elses, check out my website and ask for a quote!

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David Bowie - Fast Mincemeat Cake

Today David Bowie is 69 and releases his 26th studio album ‘Blackstar’. So a timely opportunity to post this FaceCake tribute to him that I made last month as part of 6 Music makes art. This is something that presenter Mary Anne Hobbs does every year on her show and it’s great - basically encouraging listeners to create a piece of art while listening to, and being inspired by, the show.

So - happy birthday Mr Bowie, hope you are being spoiled and eating a cake of your own face. You are ace.

As for my cake - it has a touch of the Paul Whitehouse about it but the eyes are unmistakeably Bowie. So funny when another celebrity’s face hijacks a cake like this (it also happened with the Martin Sheen cake - he was a dead ringer for Christopher Walken for a while there!).

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What have I been up to?

I’m aware I’ve not posted anything for a wee while so I thought a round up of what’s been going on over the summer was in order - plus I’m doing a WORKSHOP in Leeds next weekend so I wanted to make sure you knew about that too.

The shot above was a commission for a UK supermarket chain. They wanted the ten remaining Great British Bake Off contestants making for their social media channels.

Below is a shot of 2015 runner up, Ian. They sent me from the photoshoot which was lovely of them - plus he’s got the cake as his Twitter avatar which I was thrilled about.

I’ve also done a couple of wedding commissions recently for friends - such a lovely thing to do and it makes a great talking point at the party! Imran and Tasha’s cakes (directly below) went in about 20 minutes flat!!

Thanks to them and Rich and Adele for trusting me to do them justice!

And last but not least, next weekend I’m doing a two hour workshop in Leeds in collaboration with Modes Of Expression - we’ll be making some artist FaceCakes for you to take away, Salvador Dali, Tracey Emin, Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo and Grayson Perry. All of whom have fabulous faces to work on.

Tickets are £35 including tea and snacks and are available through Eventbrite.

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Bradley Wiggins - A lovely Yorkshire ginger parkin...

Yes, OK - I know he’s got a beard now and looks a bit different. But I like full mod Wiggo. I made this cake as a raffle prize for a local street party as part of the Tour De Yorkshire celebrations earlier in the year. The skin tone just isn’t ruddy enough... Mind you, maybe camera phone pictures aren’t cutting it colour wise - time to invest in a proper cake photography set up.

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Amy Poehler & Tina Fey: a fresh gingerbread and a (Liz) Lemon sponge

Gosh, I love these two women so much! Just got to the end of Parks & Recreation... Look, if you’ve never tried 30 Rock or Parks & Rec, do yourself a favour and order the box sets. Superstars both of them. 

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Billy Connolly - Lemon Sponge

Really pleased with Billy - he was a request back in March for the Comic Relief bake sale. Would the nose picking put you off eating him?

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Not my finest work I’ll grant you - but given that these two are heroes of mine I will attempt them again, possibly before going to see them in Manchester this winter. CANNOT WAIT!!

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David Walliams - Chocolate Fudge

This is NOT a good one. Not as bad as Kylie mind you, but still not up to my usual standard. Sorry David!

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Dawn French - Chocolate Fudge

Particularly pleased with how Dawn came out. Managed to get her brilliant smile down I think. Also think she would approve of being a lovely chocolate fudge cake (who wouldn’t approve of that??!).

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Rik Mayall & Ade Edmonson, Lemon Sponge & Coffee Walnut respectively...

Honestly can’t believe it’s been a whole year since Rik Mayall died. Loved lots of his work but chose to honour Bottom with these FaceCakes - I’ve got very fond memories of watching the live show in Brighton in the early nineties... Foul and fabulous in equal measure.

Looking at the pictures now I think I probably captured Ade a bit better than Rik, pleased with the hat and glasses on this one.

Comedy legends both of them - huge love.

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Eddie Izzard - Red Velvet Cake

It made complete sense to me to have Eddie as a red velvet cake. A subtle flamboyance which matches up nicely. The tone on the cake doesn’t match the photo too well... but the techniques on the hair and beard are pretty good. 

I also took the picture while the cake was still freshly painted which doesn’t do it justice.