Bakers create ‘50 Shades of Grey’ cake

“Fifty Shades of Grey” will be released in cinemas tomorrow (Friday), but it’s been the icing on the cake for fans who have already been able to get their teeth into a topless Christian Grey – immortalised in cake!

Two life-size and edible versions of the man of the moment Christian Grey, have been created by talented Clitheroe baker Rosie Dummer and her team for the Cake International Baking show in Manchester. The 6ft. tall cakes were constructed using Genoise sponge, 25kg of flour and 340 eggs.

Mother-of-four Rose and her team of six took two-and-a-half months to construct the life-size character and used 200kg of sugar paste to craft his exterior. And for those a little sensitive to the naked human flesh, there’s also a clothed version of Mr Grey – also made of cake – clad in a grey business suit.

You would be forgiven for thinking he doesn’t look much like hunk Jamie Dornan and that’s because he’s not supposed to. Rose, who lives in Whalley Road, explained: “The cake resembles the character written for the book, rather than Jamie.

“When I first pitched the theme to Cake International it was just a throwaway idea. I really didn’t think it was workable. As the show was scheduled for the week of the movie premiere, it just seemed like a great opportunity to do something relevant and entertaining, so we went with it.”

She added: The Pendle Cake Company have been the backbone of this project from the start. Lee has become my structural engineer, heavily involved with the preparing the frame with me, and Becca has been organising the kilos of cake and sugar paste that we need to prepare and assemble. Inside Track, Clitheroe, have helped us with transporting these huge creations and Castle Sheet Metal, in Sabden, have helped us with all the frames. We also had Advanced Heating Supplies in Lomeshaye help us with all of the pipe work that we used within the structure. And, of course, I’ve had a lot of help from Molly Robbins, who runs Molly’s Creative Cakes in Crawshawbooth. We are so lucky to have so many local firms on board with what we do.”

Rose is no stranger to creating edible life-size characters. In November last year, Rose was commissioned by Cake Masters Magazine to make a 7ft Grenadier Guard out of cake to raise money and awareness for the Poppy Appeal.

Before becoming one of the UK’s top cake designers, Rose had a very different career, serving with the Armed Forces. She was the Army Air Corps’s first female helicopter pilot, and subsequently the first female Lynx pilot.