Cake Collab with Tara Gan

This is the first time we did a cake collab (let’s stick to ‘collab’ instead of ‘collaboration’, let’s just give in) with Tara Gan. Tara is a fabulous sugar artist whose work is just beautiful. Her work is so breathtaking that we simply had to get in touch about working together.

So last week, she travelled all the way on London Underground with her delicate flowers in a large bag and was justifiably horrified when a lawyer decided on lean back and sit ON the bag. For those of you who know about those London Underground you-can-rest-your-bottom-on-these-but-not-really-sit seats, you know what I am talking about. Imagine our relief when we found that only a tiny petal was broken, all her other flowers made it! How did we know he was a lawyer, you ask? He had a legal pad.

Here is the first collab we did. I provided the turquoise extended tier chocolate cake that I had made in the previous week’s Contemporary Tiered Wedding Cakes Masterclass. We then proceeded to decorate this cake with absolutely stunning sugar ranunculuses (or ranunculi), rose and hydrangea that Tara had made. We also decided to add some very delicate purple stephanotis flowers to the arrangement and a couple of dainty ranunculus leaves. The result was stunning –

Its such a simple and elegant look, we fell in love!

The next task was entirely different. Tara had brought with her some delicate peachy peony buds. I had some white peonies. Tara dusted my white peonies with petal dust and we created our first floral arrangement. Petal dust is a very simple way to absolutely transform sugar flowers. This was the result – we added those gorgeous hypericum berries that Tara had made to the mix. Gorgeous!

We then moved onto the biggest cake yet. This was a tough one. Not only did we have to make all the flowers “go” together, it also had to be done quickly. It is quite strange just how long this project took. I had been stockpiling peonies, roses and rose buds for some time and Tara had brought in her beautiful flowers and leaves. Its not as if we were short of flowers. But still, it took us more than an hour (!) to decorate this cake. Placing each flower in its place to ensure that the balance was right was a tough call. Given we are both creative types, it took patience. Don’t forget that this was the first time we had ever met, let alone worked together.

Despite all that, I am super proud to reveal what we came up with. A five tier cake with a flood of brightly coloured cascading sugar flowers. Here it is in all its glory:

Here are a couple of behind the scenes pictures – we did not get to use all the sugar flowers! Tara had also brought with her a stunning gardenia and some freesias, we hope to do another collab soon and use these.

And, if you are interested in HOW we took those pictures, above, here is a candid shot of me taking the first image of the day. We have a simple backdrop set up, as you can see. We set this up right next to our workshop door, to make the most of natural light. That table you see? I got it from Argos, very cheap, years ago. It folds right down and stays out of our way until we need it.

You can buy sugar flowers made by Tara Gan in her Etsy shop, here.

Follow Tara on Instagram, here.

Fancy learning how to make sugar flowers yourself? Check out our classes here.

Follow us on Instagram, here.

Until next time!

Shikhita

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