Demand for celebration cakes with designs way beyond supermarket larval insects and generic themes is rising fast. From TV shows to trends across London’s high-end restaurants, consumers see what is possible with sponge, fondant, buttercream and innovative ingredients.
The amazing taste, along with architecture-level construction and the chef’s creativity, can turn a celebration cake into something that will last a lifetime in the memory or become a social media hit for both customer and creator. And with endless ideas or influences, creating realistic cakes is a great way to make your business or passion look unique and get press coverage to drive it forward.
Stopping Shoppers With the Hyper-Realistic Look
Cake Tutorial
The concept cum game of Is it a Cake? Or is it the real thing? The idea of cake that doesn’t look like cake was popular long before Netflix ran with the idea. It has long been a clever window attraction across many
London patisseries’ and cake designers’ shops.
From lizards to statues, footwear or mighty motorbikes to handbags, the creativity involved has set the bar higher for people looking for that hit celebratory cake. Customers are challenging designers to move the bar even higher when it comes to hyper-realism.
With clever use of layers, piping gel and chocolate “beams” as construction material, designers can recreate buildings or superheroes in complex poses, or meet any design request.
Amazing cakes with dramatic use of texture and edible paint on the surface, can stop people passing store windows or scrolling on Instagram, and generate orders as they see what’s possible. Customers can also request cakes that are more meaningful to their lives.
From edible handcuffs reminding a couple of that time they met in the cells to sugar-art sailboats or sponge drum kits from a first concert, the creative possibilities are endless, challenging the designer to think up new ways to deliver them and add the finishing details that stamp your identity on the finished product.
Seeking Inspiration Around London
When looking for both creative and taste-bud-busting designs, there are plenty of places to eat in central London that can give you inspiration and a great meal, topped off with amazingly designed cakes or sweets. There’s also inspiration for gluten-free, vegan and other menu ideas to appeal to particular niches and expand your creative knowledge.
Chefs love to challenge expectations; from fruit that’s a cake to edible tableware, there’s always something going on that you can use for inspiration as a designer. London is also changing the idea of how cakes are sold, with the likes of Secret Window changing the concept of a store to a tiny hatch in Brooks Mews taking pre-ordered Tiramisu.
From the likes of the MerryCaker in South London, capable of producing cats, guitars or animals to order, there are a growing number of professionals to inspire the rest of us on how to add realism or fantasy to our cakes.
Going Small is the New Big Deal
Small is always in style, from complex model train set designs that fit in a suitcase to miniature collectibles and the dinkiest of LEGO sets; the world of the miniature has come to cake design. Shrinking down a full-scale design into a single serving does make it easier for chefs to create repetitive designs that they train staff to recreate, allowing them to move onto the next bespoke design.
Cramming detail and design into a small space reduces the need for ingredients but ups the bar for a fine eye and careful hand, as every square millimetre becomes important to the design.
They also expand the designer’s range to providing tasting plates, wider ranges of cakes or catering for larger events, with less wastage at the end of the night, as everyone can more easily take home a cake without the risk of crumbs in a purse or similar disaster.
If you want to create a specific cake, we have plenty of video instructions and template to help you get started. And if you want to create something totally new, our community can provide plenty of help and advice to get you started, or get past those tricky construction elements.
