With an edible birdcage veil, pearls and purple hat to top it off Lori says, she prefers to “dress” her cakes as opposed to decorating them, infusing the couple’s style and personality into each design.

After the cake has been eaten and the wedding is over, Lori presents each couple with a keepsake gift – a framed copy of the sketch they created together, what a lovely gesture.

Sketch that will be presented as a gift to the couple

The finished cake

Recipe ‘card’ courtesy of PaperlessPost

Recipe ‘card’ courtesy of PaperlessPost

Recipe ‘card’ courtesy of PaperlessPost

Recipe ‘card’ courtesy of PaperlessPost

A bouquet of mini cupcakes - image courtesy of Roxycakes

At five years old, Roxanne Wickware had obvious artistic talent but it’s only been a little over a year since she found a way to incorporate her artistry into her career. Now, as a freelance baker, she’s able to pick and choose her jobs, and says, “when you find what you’re really meant to do, everything else falls into place.”

By Stephanie Wright

Last Sunday at The Cake Show, which was held at the Artscape Wychwood Barns and produced by the Bonnie Gordon School, Wickware took home first place in the professional designers’ Cake Challenge.

'Roxy' Wickware at The Cake Show

Wickware has come full circle in just about a year and a half with the school. Starting as a full-time apprentice and making mental notes while she washed dishes and assisted in every class, she’d go home and practice what she’d seen being taught during the day. It wasn’t the first time she’d unconventionally attended artistry classes. When she was five, her mother used to dress her in her pajamas in time for an evening art class for adult painters where she learned advanced techniques like pointillism, — the application of tiny dots of pure colour to ‘trick’ the eye into seeing a much wider colour spectrum — but it wasn’t an enjoyable experience and eventually her parents allowed her to stop going.

At work on the finishing details with assistant Kristie Figgens

Since graduating from the school, Wickware has launched her own business, Roxycakes, for which she runs a home office and rents commercial kitchen space to bake and design in. Her goal, which she has already achieved, was to create one cake per week. She likes to take each cake seriously and doesn’t want to get overrun with work.

Becoming a freelance baker wasn’t a direct route, on the advice of her parents, Wickware became a English/French translator. Growing up in Timmins, Ontario, to Francophone parents, French was her first language. It seems though that she inherited more than just the language of French culture from her family; Wickware says, “I love food. All food. … I used to press up against the glass at bakeries, even Starbucks, and admire the look of the baking.” Though she loved to bake, entertain and to paint, it didn’t come together until she walked into a bookstore on her lunch one day and saw Martha Stewart Wedding Cakes. Something just clicked. Within days she’d discovered the Bonnie Gordon School and quit her job. Today, she teaches at the school where she learned everything from.

The finished cheese cake under scrutiny by two of the judges: Engaged couple Gillian MacLean and Wayne Scouten (left) were blown away by the detail and ingenuity of the cake.

The kicker? Wickware’s body is highly intolerant of sugar so she can’t test or enjoy anything she makes, let alone any other baked goods. To overcome this challenge, she tested her recipes on everyone she could get to try a sample of her cake. She made feedback cards which she left with local businesses along with 50 samples of cake and asked for clients and employees to taste and comment on the cake: she refined her recipes until they were consistently receiving excellent critical feedback.

Equating her inability to taste her creations to Beethoven’s inability to hear his music, Wickware doesn’t see her particular challenge as a detriment to her career – she knows she’s gone over and above all requirements to ensure her cakes taste heavenly and sees her job as the antidote to her sugar cravings. She even considered calling her business Beethoven’s Cakes.

Sweet Success!

The ‘cheese’ cake she designed and won with at The Cake Show is currently her pièce de résistance. When she first created it for a wedding in wine country, she knew she’d finally gained the confidence to trust her own creative instincts without looking for inspiration and approval from her peers. Now, she’s looking to create other completely original designs for her clients, “people are looking to me to create a showpiece, they like different and artistic cakes,” she reports, and she’s happy to design and bake them – as long as it’s only one a week!

Roxanne’s website is: roxycakes.ca

Find the other winners from The Cake Show here

Read Catherine’s comment about The Cake Show here

Tonight’s the night at the Brooklyn Pop-Up Wedding Series for The Crane Chandelier!

Catherine and Stephanie G. are teaching brides and industry to make origami cranes in the heart of the DIY world.

Find out more about The Crane Chandelier Project (and see our new pictures!)

Read about the project at the Brooklyn Pop-Up Wedding Series and the Martha Stewart Weddings Chapel

Read what The Brooklyn Bride has to say on The Bride’s Guide (the Martha Stewart Weddings blog)