Boo Lee Scrumptious!

When it comes to choosing our suppliers, we love to use local whenever we can. Luckily for us, Boo Lee Scrumptious, a local cake company that creates exquisite, bespoke cakes is just on our doorstep! The company is owned and run by Christine Lee, a creative artist with over 25 years experience in the industry. She makes all of her cakes to the highest specification using the best ingredients and makes fabulous creations for all occasions, working with you to create the prefect design for that extra special cake.

With many years of experience prior to starting her own company, Christine was running the kitchen for one of the UK’s top cake companies, making cakes for the Royal Family and celebrities such as Cheryl Cole, Pierce Brosnan, Ozzy Osbourne and Sasha Obama to name but a few! Between designing and making her cakes, Christine also offers private tuition on cake decorating techniques and cupcake parties for children. She has held lessons at some of London’s top hotels and currently teaches at Leith’s School of Food and Wine in London.

Christine on cakes and Boo Lee Scrumptious…

I’ve had the nickname ‘Boo’ since I was little, hence Boo Lee Scrumptious!

Trends –

Flavour wise, bride and grooms are still choosing to have sponge flavours over the traditional fruit cake.  A popular choice is to have a chocolate wedding cake and serve it as the dessert at the wedding breakfast.  Another trend at the moment is for some of the cake tiers to be dummy tiers which is great if you want an amazing centrepiece but perhaps only have a small amount of guests to feed.

Most of my clients have a definite idea which direction they want to go with their wedding cake although there are some who need a bit of inspiration and guidance.   It all depends on the theme of your wedding, so I do get requests for cakes with bright, bold colours, although the majority of bride and grooms like to stick to the more traditional designs, with whites, ivory’s or subtle taupe colourings.  I am seeing a big rise in people asking for a completely bespoke design. They want something that is personal to them and has never been seen before.  A popular way of doing this is to incorporate the lace from the bride’s wedding dress into the design on the cake.  I recently had the opportunity to design a stunning 5 tier wedding cake around a lace cutting sent to me from Paris by the world famous dress designer Zuhair Murad.  I spent hours fully piping the whole cake to include lace brush embroidery, delicate lustred pearls and glittered diamonds. Fresh flowers on a cake still seems to be preferable to sugar flowers at the moment but I predict a change in the next year due to the Royal Wedding cake!

Choosing a wedding cake

I would advice couples to choose a design that ties in with the theme of their wedding, i.e. if you have bright bold colours in your dress, flowers, table settings etc then go for the same with your cake so the design is carried through the whole wedding. The same goes for weddings with subtle muted colours. I have been to weddings where the cake has been bright and bold to stand out but just ends up looking out of place.

Choose the flavours that you like and don’t worry what the guests might like, you can’t please everyone and after all this is your day!

Inspiration

I have to say that I get my inspiration from just about everything. Fashion, home decor, nature etc.  I’ve even been known to take pictures of plates in restaurants because I like the pattern on them.  If I had to choose a favourite though I would say fashion, particularly dresses.  I can’t watch Downton Abbey without seeing cake designs in some of those wonderful period costumes!

Gluten free

I am a completely bespoke cake company therefore as well as being able to have just about any flavour cake you would like, I also endeavour to cater for any dietary requirements you may have, including gluten free and nut free cakes.

Memorable moment: Indian wedding cake – Bollywood Dreams

I loved working on this cake!  After a meeting and cake tasting with the bride and groom at The Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London, I decided that to carry the whole wedding theme through, this cake would need to be completely covered in bright, bold cerise pink and gold decoration. Each of the seven tiers of the cake was a different flavour. The pattern around the side of the cake was taken from the beautiful padded materiel wedding invitations and menu cards which I also incorporated in to the cerise pink sugarpaste swag that continues around the cake from the top to the bottom.  The happy couple also requested that the cake be studded with gold Swarovski crystals for added bling!  After discussing the flower choices and colours with the florist I made all the flower sprays you see on the cake from sugar.  As it was such a detailed cake I was interested to see how long it would take me therefore I timed each stage over the period of a month. From buying the ingredients, making the flowers, baking, piping, painting the piping in gold, stacking and then finally delivering, the finished cake took just over 120 man hours.  I had to hire a fellow cake decorator to help for a couple of days and even my Dad joined in, helping to paint the intricate detail around the cake in gold lustre!  I needed to hire a van to get to the venue as the cake was so tall.  Unfortunately there were no windows in the back of the van so I had to sit in the next to the cake in the dark with just a small torch to make sure nothing happened!  My boyfriend Huw then had the task of driving from Chesham to London, missing as many potholes as possible.  We both breathed a sigh of relief when Bollywood Dreams was finally in pride of place in the Ballroom at The Grosvenor.  The reaction from everyone there working for Giles Sherlock Events and decorating the venue was amazing and made all the stress worthwhile.  The bride and groom where also thrilled!

Visit Christine’s website http://www.booleescrumptious.co.uk/ for more information and to view her amazing cakes!