The International Cake Show is to be held in Brisbane in May and thousands of edible artists, cake decorators, professional pastry chefs, bakers, chocolatiers, home hobbyist decorators and food personalities from across the globe will converge on Brisbane to battle it out in 22 categories across three days.
In preparation for the International Cake Show I was recently treated to an exclusive one-on-one session with award winning Brisbane cake designer and sugar artist extraordinaire Zoe Byres who created a cake in honour of Lady Brisbane.
Zoe trained as a lawyer and enjoyed dabbling in baking and cake decorating to escape the stress of her career. Her love of creativity through cake decorating continued to grow and it wasn’t long till she was wanting to extend beyond winning first, second and third place at the Ekka. Fast forward four creative years and Zoe has now stepped away from the legal profession into the world of cakes where she is a Fondastic Ambassador, Demonstrator, Teacher and award winning cake designer who specialises in hand sculptured and hand painted cakes.
The inspiration for my cake, Zoe says, was the gorgeous yellow sunshine colour of my logo and the contrast of the beautiful, iconic Bougainvillea featured at South Bank. She also adores the Story Bridge and says that ‘not much else is as immediately identifiable as Brisbane’. Follow the photos below to see my beautiful Lady Brisbane cake come to life …
While Zoe had baked the lemon lime white chocolate mud cake base the day before I arrived for my one-on-one experience, on the day it took Zoe about 2 hours to decorate my cake. The exquisite and incredibly realistic hand made fuchsia bougainvillea flowers, were constructed from wafer paper, and took 4 hours alone to make, these had been prepared the night before.
Zoe’s freehand style complete with paint splattering and her trade mark drips is unique to cake decorating and these features make a statement on my Lady Brisbane cake. Notice the stylised section of Brisbane’s iconic Story Bridge hand painted by Zoe directly onto the cake and covered with strips of silver foil. My logo was also painted freehand onto the cake, incredible to watch as Zoe so calmly paints my logo without a single mistake. Lastly the beautiful fuchsia flowers are attached and presto – my cake is completed. Continue to look through the photos below before I reveal my finished cake.
I was deeply honoured to have such an amazing cake created for me by this creative, intelligent and beautiful woman (with amazing pink hair). Thank you Zoe, it was an absolute pleasure and honour to meet you.
I can’t wait to see what Zoe creates for the International Cake Show in May.
By the way if you are wondering did I eat the cake? Well I was hesitant to as I didn’t want to destroy this amazing creation but I yes, my family and I did eat the cake and it was delicious, a great flavour combination. The remainder of the cake has been cut up and placed in my freezer for when unexpected guests drop in.
Read more about the upcoming International Cake Show here in my previous blog post and follow Zoe on her Instagram account here and visit her website here.
Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think.
International Cake Show Australia 2018
When: Friday 18th May to Sunday 20th May, 2018
Where: Brisbane Showgrounds Exhibition Building, Upper Level Gregory Terrace, Bowen Hills
Tickets: EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON SALE NOW – Early Bird Adult One Day Entry $24 incl GST and Early Bird One Student/Pensioner Day Entry $15 incl GST
Website – www.acada.com.au