11th May 2012

CHARD: Big plans for cake sculptor Heather

HEATHER Upham who lives on the Forde Abbey estate where her husband works, has just returned from Cake International at the Excel Centre, London, having won two silver medals for her sculpted novelty cakes. She is now opening a shop.

With cupcake wars raging throughout the country, Heather has already seen a turn in their popularity for weddings, with many brides returning to the more traditional sugarcrafted creations. 

At her shop in Beaminster under her trading name of Fancy That Cakes, she will make and sell her own creations but also sell supplies for other sugar crafters.   

A member of the Bridport Sugarcraft Guild, and the Blackdown Babes - a group which champions genuine crafters, 

Heather’s Barn Owl cake  just missed getting gold because she did not also make the wood it rested on from cake. Her other silver was for the ‘Handbag and Shoe’ class. Both classes stipulated that the cakes had to be 100 per cent edible with no internal supports.

The mother of two and former hair and makeup artist, started her cake business only last year, after it evolved from baking cupcakes and party cakes for friends and colleagues. She also made her own wedding cake in 2004. 

 She said: “The standard was very high this year. It was the first show at the Excel Centre in London, the event is usually held at the NEC Birmingham during November.

The judges said they did waiver over the gold for my owl, but it was a lesson learnt.

ìThe shop in Beaminster belongs to my mum, she retired but still lives over the top and still pays rates on it as a commercial premises, refusing to turn it into a house. 

“My stepfather is newly retired and was looking for a project, so he is helping me get it ready. There is a lot of work to do, and I have a lot of shows to do over the summer but I am very serious about this. 

“I have always worked and I think at 46 it’s time I settled down to something. It will be nice to get this out of the house too, my husband says I make too much mess, everything in the kitchen gets a fine dusting of icing sugar. I am constantly cleaning and we are all so fed up with the smell of cake all the time.”

Heather, who used to do pottery and still does face painting, loves the more sculptural and decorative aspects of cake baking, like the owl which was airbrushed to get the feather effect. She said the options have become much broader with the type of sugar pastes and hardeners now available. 

“I like to use Madeira for the base of the competition ones as ultimately it holds better but it is all perishable and eventually will implode, so I am about to do some dummies for display. The icing goes hard as a rock but even that will perish eventually and a lot of people use cold porcelain for the flowers on wedding cakes, so the bride can keep them.  For my orders, it all depends what people want, fruit cakes are making a comeback at the moment.

“I don’t like cupcakes myself. I still make them because there is a demand and try to be original with different combinations of  base and topping but there are so many cupcake makers, the bubble will burst soon.

I get annoyed when I go to a show and there are about six other cupcake stands, what is the point? 

It does no one any favours, the organisers need to make sure there is more variety or people get bored of seeing them. The Food Standards Authority are getting tougher too, they will be going around the shows this year to do spot checks. You can’t just start making cakes to sell without all the checks. I had to have my kitchen inspected, public liability insurance and a hygiene certificate. 

“There a few changes coming, there is a big issue  with edible glitter at the moment as some of it comes from abroad and does not come up to FSA standards - there is only one supplier in the UK at the moment. Not all glitter is edible. It all kicked off after someone used it in the Great British Bake Off on the TV.” 

Heather hopes to open her new shop this summer, but with entries to local shows lining up, it may take longer than she thinks. 

PICTURE: LOVING THE CRAFT - Heather Upham with her prize winning cakes

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