Down the Rabbit Hole with Oak Furniture Land

The new Oak Furniture Land Store on the Great Lodge Retail Park in Tunbridge Wells was offically opened by Cllr David Neve on Saturday. A replica cake of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland was being donated to Groombridge Place after the opening. The cake was made by Maidstone based cake artist Francesca Pitcher of North Star Cakes

To celebrate the relaunch of the Tunbridge Wells Store this Easter Oak Furniture Land commissioned a special 3ft White Rabbit Cake based on the 1865 illustrations by John Tenniel from the Lewis Carol fairytale ‘Alice in Wonderland’. This is the forth local commission from Oak Furniture Land received by Kent CakeBomber Francesca Pitcher of North Star Cakes. Francesca was delighted to take on this latest challenge from the furniture specialists, “making this well loved character for Oak Furniture Land was such a pleasure and so different from the usual commissions I get, I’m very lucky to be asked to make such varied cakes for a company that supports local events and causes and I’m so happy to be asked to take part in one of their store openings for a forth time”.

The Cake has a strong internal structure allowing it to stand on two legs and is made up of seven 8 inch square sponge cakes expertly sculpted into shape by Francesca. The cake was filled with heaps of Madagascan vanilla buttercream and covered in white chocolate ganache before modelling started. All the small details are made from edible materials including the buttons, embossed gold pocket watch, playing cards, and dirt! Francesca even had to cut a paper dressmakers pattern in advance so that she could then make the edible sports jacket complete with ‘leather’ elbow patches for the white rabbit to ensure that it would all fit correctly on the cake. You might think that going to this level of detail in confectionary seems extreme but Francesca said of the cake, “making a pattern for an edible jacket in order to dress a cake rabbit is just one of the many necessary but unusual skills I’ve acquired in the name of cake art – it’s all in the detail”.

The cake was later donated by Oak Furniture Land to Groombridge Place for their special ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Easter Holiday Event and was put on display in the restaurant before being consumed by the public.

More information on the Tunbridge Wells store opening  Click here. For more images of the White Rabbit Cake please visit North Star Cakes on Facebook.

 

 

Cake Masters Magazine Awards 2014

Collaboration award nomination

 

From 20,000 votes we’ve made it to finalist in the Collaboration category of Cake Master Magazine Awards for our “Welcome to the Jungle” live installation at the Cake & Bake Show Manchester this year – created by all these people in this list here.

Thank you to everyone who nominated us! There were some fabulous collaborations this year (and last year) and we’re delighted to be in such good company …  and, let’s face it, it’s a great excuse for a knees up!

Fellow CakeBomber Tracey Rothwell of Little Cherry Cake Company is also nominated in this category for running the splendid Cakenweenie collaboration.

And CakeBomber Vicki Smith of Incredible Edibles is nominated in the Novelty Cake category. Well done Vicki!

Francesca Pitcher of North Star Cakes (and CakeBomb’s artistic director) is nominated for best Cake Masters Magazine Cover image for her tiger cake.

[… and look, so is our cake crush, the beautiful Gonzuela Bastarache of Kupkake Tree (off of the telly!!!) star of Halloween Wars on Food Network.]

And look at that super talented Avalon Yarnes appearing twice too! Those scary Sugar Spooks are back this year too!

Check out the CakeMasters website to see the list of all the finalists. Good luck to all!

 

 

Collaboration Award

Francesca, artistic director of CakeBomb is our poster girl, alongside three other lovely ladies of course. Good luck all!

Novelty cake finalists

Newcomer Vicki Smith has done so well to be nominated for novelty cake

Magazine cover nominees

Francesca again, for her Tiger cover! Good luck to all the finalists!

Orchids in Orpington – part deux

Did you guess the species of orchid correctly? The name is Eulophia Guineensis. Orchid The winner who correctly identified the flower wins a signed copy of of Eric Lanlard’s book Chocolat. It will be announced over on our Facebook page.

The jardinière  cake is Francesca’s original art work based on elements from the Orchid Society of Great Britain‘s gold award winning display at the Chelsea Flower Show this year, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism of the Sultanate of Oman. Eulophia guineensis is native flora of the Sultanate.  Also in the display was another impressive flower native to the Sultanate of Oman, a six foot tall Eulophia petersii. Hey it’s turning into Gardener’s World around here. The Orchid Society also won gold at Chelsea last year.
The Orchid Society of Great Britain's Gold Award Winning display

The Orchid Society of Great Britain’s Gold Award winning display at Chelsea 2014. Photo © Orchid Society of Great Britain

Our cake for the launch of the Oak Furniture Land Orpington branch was presented as a gift to the Orchid Society. It is made of carved sponge cake covered with sugarpaste, and is hand painted in edible dusts with another of the flowers from the gold winning garden, Cattleya Purpurata.  It is the handiwork of CakeBomber Francesca Pitcher of North Star Cakes.
Francesca said: “The cake jardinière was based on the designs of the Aesthetic movement of the Victorian Period, specifically the ornate and heavily stylised porcelain of that time. This type of jardinière was typically used to display rare botanical specimens of the day, so it fitted the brief perfectly.”
We think that the jardinière and the ‘planted’ orchids are very realistic. Great job Francesca!
 jardiniere

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Competition

Check out our competition over on Facebook.

Closing date is Sunday June 15th.

Open worldwide.

 

 

Competition for June

 

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