Corporate Cakes
Having come out of lockdown, 2022 and 2023 were significant years for corporate cakes. Many well-known businesses were keen to celebrate important events.
In January 2022, the infamous Australian music icon Molly Meldrum turned 80.
The Australian Music Vault held an event at the Art Centre to celebrate his birthday.
Molly Meldrum's 80th birthday cake had to feature him and his love for Egypt, as well as the other founding patrons of the Australian Music Vault; Archie Roach, Kylie Minogue, Tina Arena and Michael Gudinski. I made a bust of Molly, some small sugar figurines and i painted an Egyptian scene onto the cake.
Little did I know that I would be asked to present it to him on stage as was seen on the news that night!
In September 2022, Cadbury celebrated 100 years in Australia.
I had to create an eye-catching, tall cake that would have realistic sculptural elements as well as the striking graphics of the chocolate bars that were being produced to celebrate the centenary.
Realistic fondant cows, large squares of chocolate, and the graphics from bars cascaded high into the air.
Not long after this occasion, Federation Square and ACME, (the Australian Centre for Moving Image) turned to 20 years old. I had to recreate a miniature of Fed Square. The AMCE cake consisted of a vintage film camera and reels of tape.
I have been fortunate enough to create cakes for some of Melbourne's best musicals and theatre productions, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Mary Poppins.
When performing in Melbourne, I regularly made cakes for the cast and production team of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child . They ordered cakes when celebrating significant milestones, for example when they had performed a certain number of shows. However, the most elaborate cake was done for the opening night. I made a replica of the theatre. The Princes Theatre cake took many hours as the theatre facade is so elaborate.
The Is It Cake Netflix series created a great interest in hyper realistic cakes.
The Aunty Donna show requested a series of Illusion cakes for a comedy sketch where the Is It Cakes prank goes wrong.
Not long after watching that, we enjoyed watching Mick Molloy eat the set when I created illusion cakes for an episode of channel 7's The Front Bar.
Below is a selection of other works. Including a free standing Billy Blood Drop for Life Blood, a cake for Transurban of the Melbourne freeways and bridges. A giant gargoyle centrepiece Melbourne's gothic ANZ building. A replica of the Djerring Fleminton Hub for Moonee Valley City Council as well as a surprise birthday cake for Sheila E that was presented to her on stage.
The most exciting corporate cake order was my first corporate cake order back in 2007. This is because I remember the sheer excitement on receiving the order!
I had to create a Red Bull F1 racing car cake for the Red Bull racing team at the Melbourne grand prix. I remember hand painting every detail. Not long after I was asked to make a fortieth birthday cake for David Coulthard and another Red bull cake for Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel. I started to make a scrapbook of some of my ‘big deal customers!’ and I have some funny stories..
