Cake-maker of excellence Nicola Gill, founder of Honey & Lace Cake Design has recently collaborated with Black Pearl Weddings to create this masterpiece "Urban Romance" for our soon to be released photo-shoot.
Experienced and skilled, Nicola is capable of creating luxurious cakes with magnificent designs, bespoke specifically to clients requirements with ease, and is a true consummate professional, recently nominated for a prestigious Hitched Breakthrough Award. Here Nicola tells us a little more.
"Urban Romance"
Please can you tell us a bit about yourself and your business?
I have always been a keen baker but it wasn’t until 2013, after many years of working as a scientist, that I discovered the magical world of sugarcraft. After reading rather a lot of wedding magazines whilst planning my own wedding last year my eyes were opened to the exciting possibilities.
Wedding cakes didn’t need to be a three tier fruitcake covered in white icing, they could become a unique representation of the couple’s style and personalities.
Honey and Lace Cake Design was born in early 2014. I have since been asked to appear in the UK’s most popular wedding magazine as one of their top cake designers and recently was shortlisted to the Hitched breakthrough awards top ten new cake designers in the UK which is incredibly exciting. Making sugar flowers is my favourite area of sugar craft. I studied botany and enjoy gardening so I find nature a great source of inspiration.
What advice would you give a bride and groom when selecting a wedding cake?
Your wedding cake is a chance to express your style and a good cake designer will be able to work with you to create a truly unique cake just for you! Think about the design but also think about the taste, it's nice to have a combination of fruit cake and more modern flavoured sponges so your guests have a choice. Take some photos of cakes you like and maybe swatches of your colour scheme or your wedding invitation design to your cake tasting, these will be really helpful to give your cake designer a feel for your style.
What cake trends have you noticed over the past 6 months?
Metallics are still proving popular and I can feel there is a shift back to a more classic style of sugar flowers and hand piped royal icing. Personalised details, such as sugar lace matching the bride's dress, or monograms of the couple's initials, are also popular to create a completely bespoke design.
What do is you most popular products?
Couples are also getting more adventurous with their cake flavours, some of my most popular choices are rhubarb and custard and chocolate and Cointreau, not something you can find on the supermarket shelves!
What is the most elaborate cake request that you have had?
Perhaps not the most elaborate, but the most unconventional! I made a lovely personal wedding cake for a wonderful couple getting married at Lewes Castle. Their reception was at a beachside house in east Sussex and they decorated the garden leading to the beach with bunting, candles and fun board games on each table. They had a jazz band, magician and sparklers for the photographs. I was given a fairly free design brief - a teacup of roses, a motor bike and absolutely no pink! The result was a unique cake with wired sugar roses in the teacup topper, hand made models of the bride (in her gorgeous vintage tea dress) and groom sitting on their motorbike, tiny sugar bees taken from their wedding invitation design and finished with lots of bright flowers and piped pearls. They were utterly thrilled with the results!
For more information please see www.honeyandlace.co.uk.
All images courtesy of Honey and Lace.
