Meet Alison
Business Owner & Specialist Cake Decorator
My name is Alison and I have had a passion for all things baking since a young child helping my mother bake from scratch from the fresh produce on my parents’ farm. Baking for family & friends gave me the opportunity to try new recipes and compete successfully in the junior and then senior cookery section in the rural shows. This has given me a great grounding and enthusiasm for quality baking. ‘Champion Cake of the Show’ is an honour I can proudly claim after following in the footsteps of generations of wonderful family cooks.
My love of cake decorating also began as a child as I assisted my mother mixing Royal Icing, folding piping bags and kneading the fondant in readiness for the lovely decorated cakes she was often asked to create for people within our community. Like many mums, my own children’s birthday cakes each year were chosen from that famous Woman’s Weekly Kids Birthday cake book, there are not many I haven’t made and also ones I have made multiple times! In recent years I was passed on my Mums precious basket of cake decorating tools, which once again inspired me to start my journey into a new and creative path. Undertaking cake decorating classes and joining the local Cake Decorating Association gave much inspiration for the new and modern styles of cake decorating. From surrounding myself with like-minded cake decorating friends my hobby grew and became a bit of an obsession…
My home registered cake decorating business quickly grew to the point where I had to cut back my day job on Fridays, and then Thursdays in order to complete custom cake orders. A growing collection of tools and equipment rapidly starting to fill our house and was partly the inspiration to purchase the established shop Caking Mad in April 2017. My dear husband was most supportive of this huge decision for a complete career change and unsurprisingly keen to assist with the move to the new shop. We now have back our kitchen table, the lounge and cupboards in the spare room, now no longer storage for my ‘cake stuff’!
It’s Your Party...
…and Hey! A party without a cake is just a meeting...
so let us make that special cake for you!
Whether it’s a simple cake you’re after, a multi-tiered extravaganza or even a carved novelty cake we are confident we can bring your vision to life. Our aim is to provide not only a sensational tasting cake but one that will be the centre piece and talking point of your special celebrations for years to come. Your birthday, wedding, anniversary, engagement, baby shower, child’s party or even corporate function can be well catered for with a single cake or package including cake, cookies, cupcakes, and macarons . All can be either collected at your convenience from our shop conveniently located in the North Eastern suburb of Banksia Park or we can arrange delivery and set up the cakes at your function for a delivery fee.
We have a range of cake stands suitable for best presenting your cake from simple and elegant single tiered stands, rustic wooden boards, adjustable multi-tiered acrylic stands & large silver presentation stands. These are all available to hire with a deposit required for each item.
The Mix
Our aim is to provide the very best quality tasting cakes & other baked goods custom made to order. Caking Mad uses the very best fresh eggs, butter, quality flours as well as the high quality bakery mixes which give a consistent outcome for every bake whether it be a mud cake, butter cake, cookies, traditional fruit cake or light as a feather sponge. We offer a range of fillings including rich ganache made with either dark, milk or white chocolate, luscious Swiss Meringue Buttercream and traditional buttercream. All of these can be flavoured to suit your tastes with fresh zests, coulis & a large range of quality flavour oils & essences.
View our available products and flavours here
Dressing Your Cake
Your cake finish depends entirely on your choice of taste and desired appearance. You may like the rustic naked or semi-naked buttercream, or whipped ganache covering, or choose a full coverage with a perfectly smooth or textured finish. A full fondant covering provides a huge possibility of decorating options from traditional with lovely finely handcrafted sugar flowers to modern and striking effects. Additional decorations can include customized toppers and figurines, wafer paper flowers, fresh flowers or we offer a good range of cost effective silk flowers to adorn your cake.
Each and every cake we turn out is made with love and customized especially for you. We love to collaborate with you to design your special cake and appreciate that your collection of ideas can be worked into a unique design. There are many factors which contribute to the final cost of a cake, for an estimate of price we have provided a standard guide to pricing your cake which will give you a good indication of what to expect.
Our Shop
We are located at Shop 7,104-106 Elizabeth Street, Banksia Park. We have a great range of products and tools in store and all you’d ever need to bake and decorate your own cake creation. If there’s something in particular that you need please ask us and we are happy to locate and order in that ‘hard-to-find’ thing too! We also can create a custom fondant topper or even a custom laser cut acrylic topper to finish off your cake.
Click here to read more about the products and services we have available at our store.
Sharing the Love – Our Classes
Term classes run for 4-6 weeks from the beginning of each of the four school terms over the year. We offer the option of either evening classes or daytime classes for Beginners & Intermediates. Our Intermediate Classes have an assumed knowledge of Beginner level so require completion of Beginners as a pre-requisite.
Other classes regularly run in our dedicated Caking Mad classroom. These include buttercream cakes, macarons, cookie decoration, cupcake decoration, Cake Decorating 101, figurine classes, biscuit cake classes, and children’s school holiday cupcake classes. We also keep a registration of interest for other classes, so if there is a particular skill you’d like to learn just let us know! We love adding new stuff to our class list and keeping up with the latest trends in cake decorating.