shows topper!

Can’t wait for the return of Bake Off on Channel 4? Then feast your eyes on the barmy – and very pricey – creations in new series Extreme Cake Makers...

Britain may be going bonkers for baking, but when it comes to the nation’s growing appetite for ever more elaborate cakes, only an elite few can cut it in the kitchen. Step forward the self-styled ‘edible artists’, a small group of culinary creators who each consider themselves Picasso with a piping bag and are ready to prove that no matter how bizarre the request, you can have your cake and eat it too.

They are the stars of Extreme Cake Makers, Channel 4’s sugary new series that travels up and down the country meeting the people who are pushing the boundaries of a show-stopping sponge. Whether it’s a life-size Shetland pony weighing 70kg, a doll’s house-style dog hotel or a replica of the Statue of Liberty, these bakers are creating a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.

One of the programme’s biggest bakes is by husband-and-wife confectionary visionaries Phil and Christine Jensen, of cake-makers Peboryon in Penzance, Cornwall, whose creations cost from £120 to £25,000. Their stunning cake-making machine – the Wallace & Gromit Cake-O-Matic – weighs a whopping 140kg, is 7ft long and took 400 hours to make. They used a mountain of local Cornish ingredients to create their masterpiece, which they donated to raise money for Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. ‘It’s everything you dream of in a cake,’ says Phil. ‘We got to work with the design team at Wallace & Gromit creators Aardman Animations. A lot of people thought it was designed for us by Aardman, and I thought that was fabulous – the highest compliment you could get. It’s so whimsical and fun and wonderfully Wallace & Gromit. There’s something deliciously British about it all.’

Throughout the series all the bakers take on some of their biggest challenges ever, and viewers can look forward to seeing their successes but also their failures when a slip of the knife causes a cake- tastrophe. ‘ My most elaborate request has to be for a double bed cake, life-sized,’ says Eloise Durrant, founder of the Gourmet Cupcake Company in Essex. In the first episode she takes an order from a boutique owner who’s throwing a party and wants a 3ft chandelier cake that’ll defy gravity by hanging upside down – but it’s not just the design challenge that gives her sleepless nights.

‘I breathe a huge sigh of relief when we finish a cake, but then the dread of a delivery sets in,’ she admits, fretting of damage in transit. ‘Every single