A NORTH CUMBRIAN woman has said she is ‘incredibly proud’ of her business, after gaining national success for her ‘magical’ hand painted wedding cakes.
Alison Fawkes, 38, from Thursby opened her business Cakes by Alison Fawkes back in 2019, after a difficult start caused by coronavirus, she found much success as pandemic restrictions lifted and wedding cake orders started to pile in- with Alison creating over 200 wedding cakes in the 18 months following covid.
After success in the wedding industry, Alison felt she needed to ‘find her niche’ to allow her business to evolve and began to use her talent for art to create bespoke hand painted wedding cakes, depicting scenes close to the customers hearts.
Her most recent cake for a couple from Clitheroe, in Lancashire featured the clients montbeliarde dairy heard, case tractors, New Holland combine, Victoria's donkey's and goats, and their Labrador.
Alison said: “I have always been good at art, and I grew up in a rural village on a dairy farm, so I am surrounded by a lot of farmers.
“I made one of my best friend’s wedding cake a few years ago, that was the first one that I did, and everybody loved it. Since then, I have just done more and more, it’s something that I am so passionate about, and I just love it.”
To create the cakes, Alison mixes melted cocoa butter and edible dusts, which she paints onto the side of her cakes to create the elaborate and colourful designs.
The hand-painted cakes have become so popular for Alison amongst customers that every single wedding cake she has ordered in June will be hand painted.
She said: “It’s quite surreal for me, I am getting orders from literally all over the country now and I have got the likes of the Farmers Weekly sharing my cakes online.
“When I originally started my business, I never expected it to grow to the size it is now- and I did feel a bit like where am I going to go from here? It was apparent to me then that I needed to focus on my hand painted cakes and that’s what I am doing now.”
Alison is incredibly passionate about her business and thankful to all of her clients for the amount of support they show to her designs and cakes, she said: “The job satisfaction I get from this, the cards, letters, gifts and messages I get from people telling me how much they truly loved their cakes- things like that it is why I do it.”
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