Cake! magazine by Australian Cake Decorating Network May 2015 | Page 65

One of the first commercial jobs I was asked to include a banner with ‘happy birthday’. I tried for a few hours to pipe the letters and it just wasn’t working, so I decided to try painting it on. It worked brilliantly and the very next day I made some cookies covered them and started painting flowers. I haven’t looked back since! As my littlest child was still at home I took it very slowly, only becoming a full time cake decorator once she started school. Tell us a little bit about your new book “The Painted Cake”. Why did you decide to write it and what will people get out of it? Written by Marianna Saran As the owner of Nevie-Pie Cakes in the UK, Natasha Collins has a niche market in the caking industry, as her business is based on specialising in hand-painted cakes. Art and baking runs in Natasha Collins’ family, so it’s without surprise that her hand-painted cakes are just gorgeous to look at. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how it came about that you’re in the cake decorating industry. I’ve always enjoyed baking, I can remember making my first cake when I was around 7 years old. It was a sponge cake made in a loaf tin. The top was very cracked and I poured green water icing over it. It looked terrible and probably didn’t taste that great either (although I can’t remember that bit!) I just kept at it though and practiced every week. I have a picture of myself at about 12 with a cake I made for my brother. It was decorated with a marzipan figure fishing in a pond. I started baking and cake decorating as a business after I had my two children. I trained as an illustrator and then worked as a textile designer for nearly 10 years. I needed to do something creative though after having my girls and I tried various different crafty enterprises. I started making cakes for their birthday parties and after a few years decided that they would be good enough to sell. After training as an illustrator I always had an ambition to write a book, although I thought that it would be a children’s book rather that one for cake decorating. Most of the projects have templates, so if you are nervous about painting free-hand you can trace the design first. My biggest hope is that readers of ‘The Painted Cake’ is that they will be inspired to try something new and that they have lots of fun while doing it. What has been your favourite painted cake that you have created to date? Probably my favourite cake has been my Owl and The Pussy Cat cake. It brought together all my careers so far, illustration, textile design and cake decorating. I really enjoyed creating the story around the cake and coming up with the cute figures. As my career as a cake painter and teacher progressed I started to get a lot of emails from people all over the world asking me if I had a book they could buy. So I wrote a proposal (that alone took me six months!) and I was very fortunate that Murdoch Books liked it enough to commission the book. Writing ‘The Painted Cake’ was a great experience, one that I hope I get the chance to do again. I was also really pleased that I had the opportunity to create illustrations that were used in the book too. The book is great for beginners up to more advanced painters. It goes through all the techniques you will need, how to apply the paint, how to rectify mistakes, how to create tones and detailed instructions on how to paint flowers. What should people consider before attempting a painted cake? You need to think about the equipment they are using. Some food colours aren’t suitable for painting with, they dry with a plastic finish which makes it impossible to layer with tones. Also some fondants are easier to paint onto, one with a high fat content will tend to repel the paint giving it a strange texture. If you are very nervous about painting then roll out a sheet of fondant and practise on that first before you attempt to paint a cake.