Huge crowds of creative cakers gathered from all over the world ready to enjoy a weekend of expert demonstrations, new products, exclusive cake designs and much more.
Sugarcrafters were greeted in the entranceway by Laura Dodimead’s stunning three-tiered celebratory cake, made using a host of sugarcraft skills. It even featured miniature models of SKIS tutors including royal icing master Eddie Spence MBE, sugar flower expert Paddi Clark and master chocolatier, Mark Tilling.
This boutique event is the ideal place to get close to the action and get advice from world-leading cake decorators. Visitors enjoyed free demonstrations from expert sugarcrafters including Alan Dunn, Debbie Brown, Carlos Lischetti, Ceri DD Griffiths and many more and left full of ideas and inspiration for their own designs. With shopping bags full of products from Squires Kitchen and other exhibitors, they were eager to get started.
Visitors also got the chance to get hands-on during the exhibition weekend in exclusive classes held at Squires Kitchen International School. This gave students an opportunity to learn tips and techniques from world-renowned tutors and also gave them a taster of what it’s like to attend a course at the school.
Other highlights included the Clandestine Cake Club area, a medieval display of sugar flowers and the Edible Wafer Paper Art room, featuring stunning wafer paper creations and demonstrations from award-winning sugar artists.
As usual, the Wedding Cake Showroom was a stunning attraction. Featuring truly amazing cakes from 21 of the UK’s top designers, this year also saw the exhibitors collaborate to produce a couture cake display inspired by bridal fashion for the coming year. Look out for these cakes in future issues of Cakes & Sugarcraft and Wedding Cakes magazines.
Pastry chefs Makiko Searle and Marianne Stewart were also on hand showing how to achieve choux pastry perfection and beautiful buttercream, while Master Chocolatier Mark Tilling wowed crowds with his edible chocolate garden where visitors could watch him create chocolate flowers and more live on the stage.
Talented sugarcrafters showed off their skills in prestigious cake competitions, with the winners taking home sought-after prizes from Fairtrade Foundation, Le Creuset, Silikomart, Smeg, and Tate & Lyle. The annual Squires Kitchen competition is highly regarded in the industry and to win gold is seen as the ultimate accolade for sugarcrafters.
See the full show report and all the winning competition cakes in the June/July issue of Cakes & Sugarcraft magazine, on sale 19th May.
We hope the students of Ashburton Cookery School Ltd and Tante Marie enjoyed their visit!