Feature Artist - Michelle Small

I guess my journey into cake decorating began from a desire to make my friend’s birthdays special by baking them a cake. I couldn’t remember the last time I had received one for my birthday and the memory of such a gift inspired me to reintroduce this custom amongst my friends. At first I was making fairly straight forward cakes and decorating them with fancy writing or candy, but after a while, I started to get more excited by the challenge of more difficult 3D designs.

I did my culinary training in Christchurch, New Zealand which made it possible for me to work and travel using the skills I had learnt from school. This is of course is how I ended up in Fernie, BC. After being in town for about a year, I took a position in the kitchen at Island Lake Lodge as a breakfast chef where I was lucky enough to get introduced to the culinary arts of baking and pastry. This actually turned out to be the creative outlet I had no idea I was looking for and also where my love for making all things sweet began. I owe my success to two amazing and talented women I worked with there – Stacey Schmitz and Johanne Ratthe – who taught me all the basics of this very rewarding activity that I needed to know; and then some. I still feel that I am learning and improving with every cake I make. I think it's all relative. I always feel like I still have so much to learn!

So, with my new set of skills and a bag of newly acquired inspiration, I started to dabble in cake decorating, starting first with themed cakes and working with chocolate and gum paste to sculpt objects, and then moving to experimenting with making different kinds of icings, cake mediums and flavours. I used any occasion as an excuse to make a cake in order to try out something new, which helped develop my skills.

After a while, my friends were all suggesting I try to make a business out of my creations and after getting some feedback from people I had made cakes for, I finally decided to give it a go. The response from our local community has been somewhat overwhelming because I just never imagined myself as any kind of artist, let alone of the edible kind! I just really enjoy what I do and get my inspiration from the people I create cakes for. Actually, I feel incredibly lucky that people give me the opportunity to do something that is so much fun! However, a lot of challenging, nerve-wrecking moments go into producing a unique piece that is very personal as well as entirely edible - art you can eat, so to speak.

People like myself usually dabble in cake decorating as a hobby at first but then become more and more involved. I have come to realize that cake decorating is very artistic as well as challenging and requires lots of patience and practice. The popularity of television shows like Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes really has pushed this profession to the forefront and now it is more respected and has helped inspire me to take my decorating to a new level. My fist “professional cake” led me to see the potential for cake decorating as a business in Fernie and well, at this stage, I am just getting my feet wet before I endeavour to take the big plunge.
Anyone interested in seeing some of my cake creations is welcome to check out my Facebook page called “ Piece of Cake” or you can write me an email to get in touch with me personally at pieceofcakefernie@hotmail.com.