Rushden woman wins award for life-size dinosaur at Cake International competition

A Rushden cake maker has won a gold award for her life-size dinosaur at an international competition.

Victoria White has been victorious once again at Cake International, a prestigious contest which has been running for more than 20 years with cake decorators and sugar artists coming from around the world to compete.

There are many different categories including sculpted cake, decorative exhibit, floral and cupcakes.

Victoria, a mum-of-four who runs Victoria White Cake Design, entered the life-size category this year and her stunning dinosaur design saw her claim a gold award as well as first place in that category.

Victoria told the Northants Telegraph: “I first started making cakes for my children’s birthdays, 18 years ago.

“I progressed onto making cakes for family and friends, learning from books and online videos.

“I loved it so much I decided to go into business when my youngest child started school in 2016.”

While Victoria makes all sorts of celebration cakes, she says realistic sculpted cakes are her favourite.

She said: “I first entered Cake International in 2017, making a sculpted cake dragon which was awarded bronze.

“I was blown away by the cakes on display and I’ve entered every year since as well as some other competitions.

“In January I made a T-Rex birthday cake for my son Isaac.

“He loves dinosaurs and wants to be a palaeontologist.

“I thought it would be fun to make a life-size dinosaur one day.

“When the schedule for Cake International was released and I saw the life-size category, I knew straight away what I was going to do.

“I started researching dinosaurs as there was a size restriction for the piece.

“I had to find one that was small enough to fit the space but big enough to make an impact.

“I found the Deinonychus was the right size so made a scale model from clay to see how the pose would work.

“I then started work on the main piece.”

The dinosaur took Victoria about three months to complete and is made from Renshaw extra sugar paste and home-made modelling chocolate and is coloured with rainbow dust colours.

Renshaw, which makes a range of cake decorating products, sponsored the piece, and Victoria added: “The dinosaur is the largest piece I’ve made so far, but as I gave myself plenty of time it wasn’t too stressful.”

However, this isn’t the first time Victoria has created a showstopping design.

In 2020 she was commissioned by fashion designer Thom Browne to create a life-size cake version of one of his suits.

She only had three days to make it including baking, then she had to take it to Paris for a photoshoot and it was featured in Vogue magazine and GQ.

Other designs she has made include a stunning owl, which she won an award for in 2019.

And not content with just creating amazing cakes, Victoria is currently working on a book teaching sculpted cakes which is due to be published next year.

To see more of Victoria’s work, visit her website at https://victoriawhitecakedesign.co.uk/