Part of our job here often requires doing a lot of research. Luckily for us, that research is often made up of a Bride’s Pinterest Board dream wedding! One our favourite parts of the gig has to be the cake research, so when we discovered Kate Sullivan of Cake Power, we became instant fans. We were even more delighted when Kate took some time out of her busy schedule and deadlines to answer our questions….
Kate, we are in love with the amazing and creative designs that come out of Cake Power. What make you decide the world of cakes was for you?
I had worked as a magazine photo editor for about 15 years before I started making cakes I loved my job. I got to travel and I worked with great people but I wanted to do something a little more hands-on. As soon as he came across my first cake-decorating book by Colette Peters (and this is a long time ago, before many people were doing this sort of thing) I was completely in! I really love the temporal nature of making cakes. I like being able to design something and make it as beautiful as possible but that it also would be filled with these amazing tastes and smells and textures– and it was a one-day thing. It’s there for one special day and then it’s just a memory.
You also teach kids how to bake, which must be challenging as well as fun! What gave you the idea to start this?
I have a son who is nine years old and so it was just a natural thing that we would start making things together. A lot of the materials I use sugar paste and modeling chocolate are perfect kid things to great to sculpt with and they’re fun to color and kids get really excited about baking things.
I once had an artist come for a wedding cake consultation and order a cake based on a cake that just been painted by my son, and I had to laugh because there was no way I could ever do anything as free-spirited as he had painted on the cake! I’ve always loved working with kids it’s a lot of fun.
From Oprah Magazine to Martha Stewart Weddings, you have an incredible list of press features. Which one has been your favourite to feature in?
It’s hard to pick a favorite magazine because I really genuinely feel honored to be asked to do anything like a magazine spread. In some ways if I had to choose I guess I have to go with Oprah. She (and by extension, her magazine) has a warm place in my heart (along with millions of other people) because I genuinely do feel like she is a force for good and I like being in some super small way close to that.
Your cakes all seem to have very unique designs, where do you get your inspiration from?
The cake inspirations come from everywhere, everything I see is fair-game. Definitely fashion and I love going to museums & Galleries. I love the other cake designers out there; I feel like the bar is continually being raised in terms of creativity. I’m particularly inspired by Alexander McQueen and other designers who are whose work is somewhat fantasy-based.
What is the craziest request you’ve had for a wedding cake?
The craziest wedding cake request I’ve ever gotten is for a Rubiks cube wedding cake. I really liked that cake and that the bride and groom were totally wonderfully geeky about the whole thing and their guests were as well. It was a big, fun (challenging) Statement cake.
Lastly, if you could make a dream cake for anyone, who would it be and what would you create?
That’s a hard one. Right now all of my nieces are coming of age and getting married. I love them so much, and for the most part our consultations consist of talking a little bit about some of the things that they love or things that they’re inspired by and then they just say okay surprise me. It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s pretty great to be able to do something that you feel really driven to do because you love the person very much. And then you have a little bit of yourself and a lot of them reflected in the final design of the cake.
