September Cake Decorator Spotlight
My Happy Chaos
For September, I’m featuring Kym (My Happy Chaos) from Canada! I am always in awe of her AMAZING buttercream painted cakes and her cakes are always on a simplicity side which I love. (Side Note: her answers are in Canadian English.)
Hi Kym! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hey!
A little bit about me – I’m married to a Canadian, we have been blessed with 3 amazing kiddos, and we live in Canada, although I am actually from Australia! We live in a rural/farming community (although we ourselves aren’t farmers) in Alberta.
My husband and I were both born and raised into devout Christian families, and so God is at the centre of our family 🙂
My favourite season is fall, because of all the changing of colours, and so September and October are some of my favourite months!
How did you start making cakes?
I’ve always enjoyed baking and trying new recipes while growing up, but I never really delved into decorating cakes until I had kids, and even then, it was just for their birthdays. It actually wasn’t till around this time last year that I realized just how much I enjoyed the creativity side of it, and I decided to buy a few supplies and try to see what I could do! I also watched many caking YouTube videos along the way!
How do you describe your cake style?
This is a tough one as I don’t know if I’ve truly found my style yet, but I would say maybe a little bit ‘outside the box’. You won’t see too many sprinkles, drips, piping from me, and I don’t usually follow the ‘trends’, but you’ll see a lot of texture, stenciling, buttercream painting, and fun ways to incorporate food (like my bacon cake!!)
Do you have any must-haves tools in your cake decorating kit?
The biggest game-changers for me were my Ateco turntable, metal scraper, and offset spatula, as well as palette knives and paint brushes!
Can you share a lesson learned from a baking or cake decorating fail?
2 things I learnt on one cake haha firstly, if your buttercream is soft (I use Swiss Meringue Buttercream) then it may cause the cake layers to slide around! Second, if you’re chilling your cake in the freezer for more then 10-15 minutes…put it in the fridge before bringing it to room temperature or else the drastic change in temperature can make your cake sweat/condensate!!
Where do you get your creativity from?
Pinterest! I often browse through colour palettes and paintings for ideas!
What do you enjoy the most about making cakes?
I love the decorating aspect! My favourite would have to be buttercream paintings. I love how an image can form with just a few strokes of the brush and/or palette knife!
Is there any cake decorating techniques that you want to learn?
Still trying to perfect macarons and making isomalt sails!
Is there any advice you can give for a fellow baker?
It’s probably a common answer but I honestly think the best advice is to: Just have fun!!! There may be some fails, but don’t let that stop you. There are SO many different ways to decorate a cake, and the beauty of art being subjective is that there is no wrong way to do it!!
What is your favorite activity (besides cake decorating)?
Playing piano and spending quality time with my little family! (Reading books, playing outside, camping, and etc.)
Cakes I’ve Done
White Textured Cake
I used some isomalt for the first time!! So fun! I did manage to break my sail but I used the shards, added some silver leaf and called it good – adds to the texture right?
Lion Buttercream Painted Cake
I did this buttercream painted cake for a Painted Animal Cake collaboration on Instagram. All buttercream!
Elephant Buttercream Cake
I tried another buttercream painting! I’m absolutely loving this technique and I can’t wait to do more!
Butterfly Buttercream Cake
Definitely loving using a brush for these designs. I use a palette knife for the base colour, but after that, it’s all brush! Adds texture, can be used to blend and lets me do fine lines too!
Fashion Dress Trio Cakes
They were a part of my Dress Cake theme using buttercream painting techniques.
Gorgeous Nature Inspired Cake
I created this gorgeous nature-inspired cake for another buttercream painted cake collab.
Beautiful Deer Cake
I loved doing this ‘re-design’ on the deer cake I made a while back!
Pretty Faultline Cake
I used a stencil from Michaels and edible silver leaf to create this fun faultline cake!
Buttercream Bacon Dress Cake
It was the International bacon day a few weeks ago and I wanted to keep my Dress Cake theme going with a bacon dress cake.
Happy Canada Day!
Being Australian, I wanted to represent Canada with a few things that are very Canadian to me!! Timbits, maple syrup (drip) and the well-known colloquialism: ‘eh?’
Gorgeous cakes, Kym! Thank you for sharing your beautiful work. Be sure to visit Kym on her Instagram for more buttercream art and get the discount code for cake stands!
Check out the past cake decorators!
