Cake! magazine by Australian Cake Decorating Network August 2014 | Page 108
Robin Martin
interview with
Written by Sam Pilling
Living in such an amazing world of
cake talent, it’s tempting to spends
hour-upon-hour trawling the internet
for pictures of gorgeous cakes,
searching for hot new trends, and
trying to decode how our cake
heroes created those flowers
or that look. Days have been lost to
Pinterest! But pictures alone do not
always tell the whole story.
So, it’s with great delight that we
can delve a little deeper with one
of our cake heroes - the fabulously
talented owner of Gateaux Inc and
self-proclaimed evil cake genius,
Robin Martin.
Which of all of your cakes has been
your favourite?
That’s a doozy of an opening question!
That’s like asking a mother to choose
her favourite child! My favourite cakes
vary from year to year, season to
season, and at any given moment. I
can’t choose just one, so here are a few
of my favourites.
My favourite graphic cake is Michael
and Nicole’s Bear and Owl cake. The
bride and groom had bought two
wood block art prints on one of their
first dates. The couple wanted us
to use them as inspiration for their
wedding cake and we ended up
blatantly plagiarising them. Fortunately,
the letterpress company that created
the prints loved the cake as much as
the couple!
My favourite Lace Cake is the first
cake that we tried our combination
Gateaux Inc’s range of styles is breathtaking - whimsical, classical, romantic, edgy,
dark, graphic, structured. Whilst Robin may be a Rock Star in the world of cake,
she still meets with every single one of her clients and takes the time to get to know
them. The outcome? Beautiful, personal cakes which tell their client’s story.
Every client is unique, so why shouldn’t their cake be unique too?
of stenciling and piping on. The lace
pattern matched the Bride’s Monique
L’huillier dress. We loved it’s unusual
pattern so much that it inspired us to
start selling our Lace Stencils to other
cake decorators.
My favorite architectural cake is our
Taj Mahal Cake. It lit up!!! No further
comments necessary.
I warned you, I can’t narrow this down...
My favorite cake from this past year
had to be Tam and Hung’s insanely
beautiful Pearl and Plumeria cake. Tam
came in for her appointment and
warned me that Hung really wanted a
traditional wedding cake design. By the
time the two of us were done designing,
I knew that she was going to have to
do some smooth talking to get him
to agree the unconventional design.
I also knew that she would figure it
out, because she and I were both
completely smitten with it.
What do you think will be the next hot
trend in cake design?
I hop