Sweet success for cake queen Jessica

Kaitaia 'cake artist' Jessica Atkins already has a well-earned local reputation, but now her fame is spreading.

She won the big prize, and the people's choice award, at the recent Great Cake Expo in Auckland (and was featured on TV3's Campbell Live last week), but before that her work appeared in the international cake magazine 'Sweet', which is devoted to the best in cake decorators, bakers and sweet stylists.

Jessica and 12 others were invited to produce a creation drawing inspiration from an artist and their work, to her surprise and delight.

"I couldn't believe it when I was asked," she said.

"I recognised the other cake decorators in the group instantly. They were all well known, famous cake artists who I had admired and looked up to for a long time, so to be included with them was a dream for me."

The artists chosen as inspiration included Da Vinci, Escher, Britto, and Degas, but Jessica chose one much closer to home, Kerikeri's Lester Hall.

"I knew instantly that I wanted to showcase a New Zealand artist," she said.

"I love Lester Hall's art. I also love that he too is a Northlander. I asked his permission and he was really happy for me to use his work as inspiration for my cake. I love how he uses bold, vibrant colours and features stunning iconic imagery, patterns and words symbolic of New Zealand culture."

She called the cake 'Te Tui', inspired by a collection of Hall's works, with a specific focus on his 'Tui Turn' and 'Miss Kiwiana' paintings, which she replicated in the top two tiers of the cake, using gel colours on fondant. The bottom tier was garlanded in tui feathers modelled from gum paste, the next tier with harakeke, also modelled from gum paste.

Jessica, who operates under the name 'Rosy Cakes', was born in Kaitaia and returned to live in the Far North with her husband and two young children more than a year ago. She got into cake decorating when she made her now three-year-old daughter Molly's first birthday cake.

"I started practising and instantly fell in love. I haven't looked back. Cake decorating is my passion," she said.

She had always been artistic but had never really focused on any one medium in particular, until she discovered cake decorating.

"Now I love that I can incorporate other areas of art, like painting and sculpting, into my cakes," she added.

Her children's birthday cakes were her favourites by far, however, "because so much love goes into them".