ACRYLIC BOX DESIGN

Oh to be in my head . . . I will try to do justice to my imagination when talking about this design. It had been sitting around in my head for over a year! I wanted this cake to be the ultimate showstopper, to be remembered—there would be gasps when people first saw it and then oohs and ahhs as they closed in to see the detail. I imagined people would even take selfies with it . . . or am I the only one who takes selfies with cakes? Haha.

In my imagination the cake was being displayed in the centre of the room with the dining tables surrounding it, like you would display an ice sculpture. Look, I know that the wedding isn’t about the cake (I say this, but isn’t it?). The guests are there to witness a display of love between the happy couple, but I mean—it’s cake art. Can we just pretend it’s the centre of attention just for this design?

Throughout my career in the wedding industry I have seen trends come and go. Some come back, and some I hope remain gone. One that has been used by florists over the past couple of seasons has been acrylic plinths filled with floral displays, and they are incredible! Such an inspiring way to display flowers. It truly makes me think of the forbidden rose in Beauty and the Beast. It feels romantic and untouchable at the same time. I started to wonder, as I often do when I home in on a design or a look I love, how I could incorporate this into a cake design. Of course flowers are a no-brainer for a cake design, but an acrylic plinth? Then I remembered: years and years ago I had some PVC cylinders made to send out Mother’s Day cakes in. The cakes looked SO beautiful displayed in them. Obviously, though, I wouldn’t want to lock away a HUGE FOUR-TIER WEDDING CAKE inside an acrylic plinth!

Then it hit me: why not create a fake tier out of acrylic?! GENIUS. The idea that I could create something non-edible to incorporate into the structure of the cake was an instant hit, and had my creativity bursting. The lines of the acrylic would work perfectly as a square, and the sharp-as-shit edges would tie in perfectly with my branding (which as we know is heavily ‘sharp-as-shit’).

I decided that for this project it would be a lot easier to make a square acrylic box the right size. So I got my friends at Peg Creative to cut me flat pieces of acrylic that were 20 cm (8 in) square. These I would glue together into a cube, leaving the bottom open.

The full size of the cake had to be four tiers so that there would be three tiers of cake for the guests to eat, with the acrylic tier obviously just for show.

I wanted the entire cake to be ivory and sharp-as-shit on every edge, to match the perfection of the acrylic box. The box would be filled with an array of fresh blooms, to feel like beauty locked away. It would sit on top of a 10-inch square cake, then have a 6-inch and a 5-inch on top. I planned to use more florals on the cake, and have these move up from the acrylic box onto the middle-top tier as if they were escaping the confines of the box. Yeah, and they’d escape down onto the bottom tier too.

Using gold paint I would also illustrate a few flowers peeking out from behind the fresh florals . . . to soften and romanticise the design slightly, and to offset the sharpness of the square tiers.

DESIGN DEBRIEF

From original concept to completed physical design . . . originally I wanted to add hand-painting to this design. In my design inspiration I thought this might add a softness to the sharp edges and the restricting feel of the acrylic box.

When I got to the actual construction of the cake, I remember adding each fresh bloom ‘escaping’ from the acrylic and then stepping back, assessing, then adding another bloom, and so on. By the time I had added the florals and was happy with the direction, I took one final step back and knew that I had achieved showstopper status without needing any painting.

It’s so important to allow this freedom within the design; to know when to stop. This isn’t often my forte (more is usually more, haha), but I’m really happy with this balance of fresh romantic flowers against the contrasting sharpness of the rest of the cake.