A baker from Wiltshire has been crowned a champion cake illusionist, as her company wins Cake Business Of The Year.
Hannah Edward-Singh lives in Royal Wootton Bassett with her husband and three children and is the founder of The Cake Illusionist, which combines baking and art to make life-like cakes.
After three months and several rounds of tense competition in the Baking Industry Awards, it was Hannah’s nostalgia-themed cake inspired by her 80-year-old mum’s picnics which won her the prize and gained her national attention.
The intricate winning cake is inspired by picnics that both Hannah and her children have enjoyed and includes hand-crafted ice cream, pork pies, scotch eggs, sandwiches and more, all handcrafted to a life-like standard from sugar paste.
"The theme of the competition was 'nostalgia' and we had to include a freestanding figurine, so that's me as a little girl surrounded by my mum's endless summer picnics," said Hannah.
"She reminded me today that they weren't just any picnics, they were posh ones!"
The award-winning cake took around 100 hours to create, and involved modelling, painting, airbrushing and weaving.
Judges were wowed by the realism of the picnic items and the attention paid to every detail of the handcrafted picnic basket, right down to the tiny wasp sitting on a strawberry.
"Her tasty creations are so impressive it is a struggle to tell dessert from reality, as it seems impossible to believe that the pastry on her beautifully crafted croissant won't just flake off at the first bite," they said.
Outside of her award-winning business, Hannah also dedicates her time to working in public relations, where she incorporates her illusion cakes into advertising campaigns and press launches.
But while the judges thought that Hannah was an easy pick for winner, she never expected to walk away with an award.
"This is wild! I entered the phenomenal BIA's which recognises excellence in the UK baking Industry, and it's huge," the baker shared on her business Facebook page.
"The movers and shakers are huge corporations, global brands and big big business. Then there is me, a solo-entrepreneur.
"I may be small, but I'm still aiming for mighty and I put everything I had into this and it actually paid off. Too good to be true," she added.
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