Fiona Cairnss beginners guide to cake decorating

By Sarah Stephens. Photographs by Laura Hynd 738AM GMT eighteen March 2010

Previous of Images Next Fiona Cairns "I longed for to show that you can emanate something pleasing with minimal equipment" Photo LAURA HYND Pansy spray oven baked sweat bread Photo LAURA HYND Crystallised flowering plants and leaves Photo LAURA HYND A summer grassed area oven baked sweat bread Photo LAURA HYND Sugarpaste roses Photo LAURA HYND Easter biscuits Photo LAURA HYND

As we proceed the building, the thickly honeyed air surrounds us; a comfortable haze of vanilla and divert and sugarine that brings to mind the joy of home baking. "I cant smell it any more, Fiona Cairns says laughing. "I used to be means to, but not any more. We are only outward Market Harborough in Leicestershire at Cairnss bakery, that produces 750,000 masterfully flashy cakes each year, from angel cakes to tiered marriage extravaganzas. They are sole all over Britain in shops together with Waitrose, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason.

Inside, the perfumed air intensifies. A raise of oven baked sweat bread tins squares, circles, hearts sits built high, watchful to be cleared up. Slabs of unrolled sugarpaste in crayon-colours are squeezed and rolled and unwrapped. One lady arranges cream, white and china shine sugarpaste petals on tip of a row of angel cakes unfailing for a wedding. Tiny sugarine models of baby shoes, penguins, cars and flowering plants lay in rows of boxes on a shelf. Elsewhere a man covers a consume oven baked sweat bread with lilac sugarpaste with startling speed, cupping his hands around to well-spoken it out, then, determining it is not perfect, he whips it off and starts again. All the cakes are still handmade by 60 employees.

Easter biscuits Sugarpaste roses A summer grassed area oven baked sweat bread Crystallised flowering plants and leaves Pansy spray oven baked sweat bread Yuletide oven baked sweat bread decorations stars on topping

"Its utterly opposite from baking at home, isnt it? Cairns says.

Twenty-five years ago Cairns, 54, who creatively lerned in distinguished design, was operative as a fritter cook at the Michelin-starred Hambleton Hall. Here, she learnt to work underneath heated pressure. "Orders for cakes would come in at really short notice. It was the time of nouvelle cuisine; all was rarely flashy and exact. Then one day she motionless to have tiny ripened offspring cakes for friends as Yuletide presents. "They pronounced I should try to sell some. Theyd never seen small cakes similar to that before. So the following Yuletide she contacted the Conran Shop, that put in an sequence for 72, call her to set up her eponymous company. "In open I rang Harrods. Nothing has ever been some-more sparkling than when the Harrods customer called behind to contend yes.

The association grew rapidly; shortly a converted stable in the grassed area of her 400-year-old farmhouse was no longer big sufficient for all the orders. Pro­duction in the future changed to the bakery in 2000, when Cairnss husband, Kishore Patel, a partner in an interiors/architecture practice, gave up his commercial operation to spin MD. Cairns even found herself creation Paul McCartneys Yuletide oven baked sweat bread each year around a crony at a rocknroll catering company.

Cairnss bent for distinguished designs and flavours is clear in her initial book, Bake and Decorate. The recipes are directed at beginners, nonetheless there is sufficient to seductiveness the experienced cook, too. Unusual combinations such as star anise, almond and clementine; and white chocolate, rosewater and cardamom lay to one side some-more normal chocolate and battenberg cakes. In the decorating section, crystallised flowering plants give approach to mosaics done from Smarties, and a rebellious Bollywood oven baked sweat bread blooms with red and pinkish sugarpaste roses. "I had regularly longed for to give beginners a guide to decorating cakes as I thought there was a opening in the market, Cairns says. "I longed for to show that you can emanate something pleasing with minimal equipment.

Her tip for a quick, considerable oven baked sweat bread is to spin a creatively oven baked Victoria consume upside down to give a prosaic surface, drizzle with a brew of topping sugarine and lemon juice, and adorn with uninformed flowers. "Flowers are pleasing crystallised, but if you havent got the time theyre only as great fresh.

Cairns is confident about her company. With an annual turnover of �3.5 million, enlargement is on the cards; after this year the association will take over the old Pukka Pies bureau in Market Harborough, enabling her to take on some-more staff and supplement new lines, together with flashy biscuits and shortbread. So is the disturb for cupcakes entrance to an end? "I think cupcakes and angel cakes will be around for a small time yet, she smiles.

"Bake and Decorate (Quadrille, �19.99) is accessible for �17.99 and �1.25 p&p fromBooks (0844-871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk)