Preston Cake City

As part of the celebrations for Preston Guild 2012 , Preston City is to be built in cake !

Myself and a number of other avid cake bakers in the area quickly signed up for the challenge of building an iconic building in PRESTON in cake.

Our chosen building 

Preston Cake City is to be built in a victorian square in the city centre as part of the "Square Food Festival" which is in turn part of the Vintage Guild. Preston guild is an ancient merchant guild celebration which dates back from 1179 and is the oldest of its kind in the country. The Guild only occurs once every 20 years , we even have a local saying of "once every Preston guild", meaning something that happens very infrequently.

Sue, Carla, Kate, Jo, Hazel and myself have all come together along with some great local sponsors
Dewlay
Artisan Foodworks
Mick The Egg man Brooks
Foodlink Lancashire
and my hubby, local design house 6 and  7's to create a pyramid shaped building which resides on the sides of the entrance to the closed dock area of Preston and controls the swingbridge over the entrance.

Our creations have been forming for the last month or so, baking and freezing and deciding on cake mixes and tin sizes and how many eggs, how much butter,which flour.

Created using vanilla sponges, butter cream and fondant icing and even Blackpool Rock, the creation is taking shape.

Its been great fun, but also very stressful, will the building stand up ? what will the weather do on the day ? will it look anything like what is supposed too, how will we transport it  !
Ace of Cakes, Cake boss and numerous other TV programmes come to mind.

Final touches will be made to the cake on Saturday 1st September, on the same day an edible map of the city is being created by the public and then on Sunday the 2nd , we deliver our cake for public viewing and ultimately consumption by the public !

Cake carving of the mid section and the decoration of the base layer where completed on the friday evening, the top section and the mid section were completed on the Saturday along with a dry run of the final assembly, Hubby kindly worked out how to transport and pack the cake for the Sunday delivery. 

We dropped off the cake at approx 11.30 am and then had to wait patiently whilst the finishing touches went on the map, all completed by about 3pm and then judging was held of the bakers favourite cake and then consumption by the general public. This was like the feeding of the 5000 !!!! 

Great fun but very tiring ! Fabulous community event and a lovely focus for the Square Food Festival event and a great way to celebrate the city.

Thanks again to