An Evening with Fiona Cairns - Maker of the Royal Wedding Cake

On Thursday last week I attended an evening with Fiona Cairns who was chosen to make the royal wedding cake for Prince William and Kate. The evening was hosted by the Peggy Porschen Academy at the Lime Tree Hotel in Belgravia, just around the corner from the Peggy Porschen Parlour.

Upon arrival we were greeted by Fiona and settled down with a cup of tea and one of Peggy's cupcakes. I had the carrot cupcake which was lovely and moist and was decorated with a little carrot shaped cookie on top. We also received a copy of Fiona's first book 'Bake and Decorate' which she signed for us.

Fiona talked to us about her journey from home baker to the maker of the royal wedding cake and then answered any questions we had. She came across as a lovely genuine lady who encouraged us to follow our passion for baking and to take it forward into business if that's what we were aiming for but she also warned us that we'd have to work hard!

Fiona's second book 'The Birthday Cake Book' is one of my favourites and you can read my review here. It received five stars! She also has another book in the pipeline which is due to be published in the Autumn and is all about seasonal baking.

Fiona initially trained in graphic design and had no interest in food but she then undertook a cookery course when she got married and found that she was best at the decorative side of things and this soon led into cake decorating. From there she started making cakes on her kitchen table and her very first order came from the Conran Shop who ordered 72 small cakes. This quickly led to orders from other top names including Harrods. When Fiona outgrew her kitchen table she moved into a bakery in a set of stables in her garden. Here the business continued until 12 years ago when they moved into a new state of the art bakery with over 100 staff and they now supply many well known establishments as well as Waitrose! The business has been running for over 25 years.

Fiona also told us the story of how she came to make the royal wedding cake and we were lucky enough to look through a portfolio which documented the process through photos and sketches of the cake.

I asked why she thought that William and Kate had chosen her. This was evidently a question she'd been asked many times and the answer was that she didn't really know and we'd have to ask them. However, when pressed she said she thought it was because they weren't really a celebrity cake business, they're quite traditional and they also represent traditional British craftsmanship which Kate was keen to incorporate into the wedding.

Interestingly, the royal wedding was in April but the companies under consideration to make the cake only got the call in February which didn't give them long at all as the cake was still in drawing stage in March. Fiona went to Clarence House to meet Kate and was apparently so nervous that she walked straight past William!

After a lot of fruit cake samples and discussions, Fiona was chosen to create the cake. She was phoned just as they were wrapping up the photo shoot for 'The Birthday Cake Book' but they weren't allowed to tell anyone. Even when the team were working on the cake they couldn't tell anyone else at the bakery so they were locked away in a room and told everyone they were working on a top secret project for a supermarket.

Fiona was given a piece of lace but not told where it was from and also a list of 17 flowers which she had to include on the cake, these included Sweet Williams. The list of flowers also included the enblems of each of the home nations. On 27th March the news broke that Fiona was making the cake and there was a deluge of press interest from around the world. She was even invited to go on Piers Morgan's programme in New York.

Overall, there were about 960 flowers and leaves on the cake and the team also made spares of everything just in case. In addition to the cake, there were also 4000 mini cakes in tins which were sent out as gifts after the wedding. The cake was moved to the palace four days before the wedding but had to be finished by 1pm on the Thursday, with the wedding on Friday. Fiona said that she was keen to sleep next to the cake to make sure that it was ok but she wasn't allowed.

When the cake was just about finished the Queen visited to meet Fiona and the team and to see the finished product. However, Fiona's biggest concern was having sticky hands should the Queen wish to shake hands with her but luckily she didn't.

Fiona and her husband were also invited to the wedding but hadn't realised until quite late in proceedings that they were actually invited, so she panic bought an outfit which as it turned out, three other people were also wearing on the day!

When the cake was cut there was no time to slice it for all the guests at the reception, so 600 slices were pre-cut ready to serve. The cake was very well received and Kate and Wills described it as "beyond expectations". Kate also rang Fiona on the Monday after the wedding to thank her. Fiona did however mention that she had a piece of the lace from Kate's dress and then subsequently received a call to return it so that it didn't fall into the wrong hands.

There were 17 cakes in total and the top three tiers were kept for the future...and with the impending arrival of a future heir to the throne, at least one of those tiers will be needed soon. After the wedding, Fiona had to rebuild the cake as it went on display along with the wedding dress. The sword mark where the cake had been cut was however left for the display.

So all in all this was a very enjoyable evening and it was genuinely interesting to hear how Fiona has built up her business. And as previously mentioned she gave us the advice that you do genuinely have to have a passion for baking and you have to work hard...and whatever you imagine working hard to be, you have to double it. Around the year 2000 Fiona did consider giving up her business as she was no longer enjoying it but she has since been able to have more creative involvement again and is now really enjoying what she is doing. She also told us that she still likes to bake cakes in her kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. However, her son is turning 21 soon and has requested a cake from the bakery rather than one from her!

Temari Cakes at Peggy Porschen

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to visit the Peggy Porschen Academy for the first time. I was attending the Temari Cakes course with Maki Searle who is famous in cake circles for her innovative spherical shaped cakes.

Maki of Maki's Cakes took us through the process for making Temari cakes step by step. These gorgeous cakes are perfect for many occasions but are particular popular for weddings...although I'm not sure how I'd feel about making 100 of them! :-)

They're also ideal for Christmas...just make them in festive colours...et voila...you have Christmas baubles!

On the day we made two sizes of Temari cake and also the lovely parcel cake below. We made the spotty bow by cutting out small circles of green and laying them on top of the red before gently rolling over them. You can see the same technique here, which I used to make Pudsey Bear's bandana.

So what does Temari actually mean I hear you ask...or even if you didn't I'm going to tell you anyway! Temari are traditional Japanese hand balls for kids to bounce and dribble. It's not only cake here...you get education too ;-)

To make the balls, the cakes are baked in a half sphere silicone mould. The cakes are then levelled and a small amount of cake is scooped out with a melon baller. Half the spheres are filled with jam and half with buttercream and they're then chilled. Two halves are then put together before the whole thing is lighly coated in buttercream.

When thoroughly chilled the balls are covered in marzipan as you can see Maki doing in the picture above. They're then covered in sugarpaste icing.

The finishing touch is the addition of a little lustre dust, some glitter and piped royal icing using a 1.5 nozzle. I've also seen Temari balls with little snowflakes cut out of flowerpaste, hardened and then stuck on...very wintery and they'd make a lovely Chirstmas present.

If you'd like to know more about how to make Temari cakes then Maki explains the process in her book Cakes to Fall in Love With.

These cakes really are beautiful and I'd love to find the time to make some more. They're so unusual and very original.

To finish any visit to the academy or if you just happen to be passing, the lovely Peggy Porschen Parlour is just across the road. I had a sticky toffee cupcake which was a moist date and walnut sponge with a creamy caramel centre and a toffee frosting. I don't normally rave about such things but I would go so far to say that this was one of the best cupcakes I've ever eaten...truly delicious! I also saved a sugar plum cupcake for the next day which was a tasty combination of plum and cinnamon.

As for my visit to the academy, I did enjoy my day and the Temari cake instruction but I do find the price to be extremely high considering I have paid less for courses elsewhere and the experience has been just as good. That being said...I'm so pleased to have learnt how to make Temari cakes and some other courses use dummies for their Temari instead of real cake so it was worth it for that alone!

Ice Cream Cake Pops

The theme for this August's Calendar Cakes Challenge is British Summertime. Hosted by Dolly Bakes this month we are celebrating the best of British...be that seasonal summer produce, the seaside, holidays or English country gardens to name but a few...let your imagination go wild! If you'd like to see last month's Olympic inspired bakes, check out the round up here.

The weather may have been a bit hit and miss in the last couple of months but we did at least enjoy some glorious sunshine last week. I even made it to the beach...and no visit to the beach would be complete without ice cream. I love these cute ice cream cake pops and they're a great way to use up cake cut offs!

There are two varieties here, the first are the mini cones. I bought the cones online and filled them with chocolate ganache. The cake balls on top are cake crumbs mooshed with ganache, the balls were pressed on top and then placed in the freezer to firm them up ready for covering. To cover, each ice cream was dipped in Wilton Candy Melts which can be melted in the microwave but to make them a nice runny consistency for covering, it is advisable to add a little vegetable oil.

These little ice cream cone pops were designed by Peggy Porschen and you can find out how to make them in her new book. I actually found the recipe in the latest Love Baking: Cupcakes & Sweet Treats magazine. You can also read a bit more about how to create cake pops in my previous post where I made Tiffany Boxes, Piggies and Blossom Pops.

The second type of ice cream cake pop is the Magnum style or Fab. These are made from cake crumbs and vanilla buttercream. The lolly sticks are available online or in some cake decorating stores. The shaped pops are again put in the freezer and the sticks are stuck in with a little of the melted chocolate. The ice creams receive a dipping in the first colour and they are then left to set a little before being dipped in the white chocolate.

If you can't get hold of Wilton Candy Melts it is just as easy to use melted chocolate. Both types of cake pop were finished off with a good helping of Dr.Oetker sprinkles.

If you'd like to join in with Calendar Cakes this month, you can check out more details here. We love to see your creations and absolutely all ideas are welcome...and if you're not based in Britain...no problems we love to see summer holiday bakes from your part of the world!