Take a look at the behind the scenes of the key features at the upcoming Cake International Event.
We give you a sneak peak on some of the exciting features that are planned for the next Cake International show. Take a look at the behind the scenes inspiration and sketches for these amazing installments!
The Magical Dragon
Our project began life as an idea to create a scrap metal dragon and quickly evolved thanks to the wonderful ideas of a children’s book called The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward. In the story, inventor children build dragons out of junk that come to life and together, the children and dragons go on amazing adventures. This display will be a mind-blowing, magical 4D spectacle celebrating the world of cake art, the amazing creativity of the team members and above all things, our intoxicating love of sugarcraft. The centrepiece will be the glorious dragon machine clad with rusty metal panels, nuts, bolts and springs interspersed with gold and silver cogs, wheels and chains. It will be will be around 6’ tall and 18’ long nose to tail, with the tail curved around to the front of the display. Including wing span, it will be about 8’ wide. It is a magical dragon machine so expect surprises to be revealed the more you admire him.
On and around our magnificent dragon machine will be a host of sugar children called Tinkers children. These children will be busy building our dragon, dressed in their tinker outfits, steampunk goggles, tool belts or mechanics outfits and such costumes. Alongside these children will be all manner of Critters helping fetch nuts and bolts, digging out treasures from the surrounding junk yard and working together with the children to build their magical dragon machine. Expect to see flora and fauna dotted around, metal and steampunk flowers and other delights. This piece will be a visual overload, from the crowd-drawing magical dragon to the tiny details of the Tinker children and their Tinker friends. It’s going to absorb people for a long time taking it all in. The idea of this multi-layered display is such that artists from all over the world can contribute. It’s designed specifically to be made up of separate parts and then weaved together by the onsite team. The team will be broken up into sections: Team Dragon, Team Tinkers, Team Flora and Team Critters. Each team will be headed up by one person whose job it is to guide their groups. Team Dragon will be headed by headed by Hannah Edwards, Steph Parker and Jacqui Kelly, Team Tinkers will be headed by Vicky Turner and Jennifer Kennedy, Team Flora will be headed by Karen Blackwell and Team Critters will be headed by Janette MacPherson and Etty Van Urk.
Away With The Faeries
Come down to the bottom of the garden and don a pair of wings that will magically transform you to faerie size, so that you can meet old Fryn the Faerie. Together, you can wander around the flowers, berries and leaves that tower above your head in that magical world that every small child dreams of.
My inspiration for Away with the Faeries is from every child’s dream of wanting to join the faeries at the bottom of the garden. There are so many wonderful paintings of tiny faeries with beautiful flowers and berries and I wanted to bring them to life. Visitors to the show will become the size of a tiny faerie when they enter the stand. The flowers and foliage will be as large and even larger than them, truly bringing you down to a faerie’s size.
The main focus of the feature is dear old Fryn the Faerie. He will be a life-sized sculpted character decorated with sugarpaste. There will also be a mixture of pastes, chocolate and wafer paper used to create the floral elements. The final piece will be a creature cake which will be completed during the show, then cut and served to the visitors on the Sunday.
Chocolate Magic
Chocolate Magic is a series of live edible art created by Daniel Diéguez. This concept includes the design and production of a big scale design using chocolate as the main medium. After bringing Chocolate Magic to Spain, Germany and Australia, Daniel comes back to the NEC with a special edition of his Chocolate Magic. This will be the greatest one, at the greatest show, with the great Karen Marie Portaleo as guest artist. Karen and Daniel will work live at the CI show to create a cake and chocolate display on a 2.5x6m stand at the NEC. Each recreates mystical creatures like fairies, enchanted forests, ancient warriors, goddesses… What will they recreate this time? We can’t reveal that now, but we can say it will be delicious as, with every time, it’s made with the best Callebaut chocolate. They’ll share it with the public before the show closes on Sunday (4:30pm).
Grimm Obsession
Cross over to the dark side with The Grimm Obsession, a collection of international sugar artists as they bring the original tale of Snow White to life. Our walk through exhibit will feature a full-sized dwarf’s bed with young Snow White sleeping peacefully. Around her will be 7 lifesized dwarfs and lurking in the back you’ll find a life-size huntsman. A life-size prince will great you at the entrance to Cake International where he’s searching for the Grimm forest. Joining these are a variety of Grimm sugar creations including a giant fairy tale book, a haggard old lady, a jealous queen and much more. Over the weekend Team Snow will be doing live demonstrations as they work together to create a sculpted cake in the form of fully a detailed dwarfs cottage which we will cut & serve on Sunday.
Emma Stewart is heading up the team with her 3 admins Nathasja Flapper, Tracey-Anne Hirst & Ben Cullen.