Terry Tang

Owner Terry Tang Designer CakesWavertree, Liverpool

Tang’s has been in business for 12 years, after the former builder decided to turn his home kitchen hobby into a career. Four people work in the shop, producing up to 40 cakes a week; seven flavours are on offer, including fruit, sponge, carrot and banoffee.

Terry’s cake was inspired by the floats seen at Carnival he chose a ’mythical and magical’ theme. "Carnival is a sort of ’club warfare’ and is all about groups of people coming together," explains Tang. "So I included six freestanding figures on the cake."

And what figures they are individually modelled, limb by limb, in differing shades of chocolate, the three women are all bewinged, the three men all drumming and dressed in Brazilian greens and yellows. The judges were amazed by the accuracy of the chocolate modelling; the 12in-tall top figure is so intricately fashioned that the bones in her spine are clearly seen. The two-tier, scallop-edged cake is sugarpaste coated, with sugarpaste stars cascading down from the top. These get larger in size as they reach the bottom of the cake and are hand-painted in increasingly darker shades of pink. Also hand-painted are the manes of the white winged horses on each corner of the top tier.

The judges praised Terry’s excellent skill and creativity in creating the "sculptural quality" of the cake, adding that it really captured the Carnival theme truly a cake with that "eye-catching wow factor."

Caroline Occleston

Senior Cake ArtistThe Cake Shop LiverpooL, Merseyside

Caroline Occleston has worked at The Cake Shop "off and on" for 16 years. Primarily self-taught, she took a college course to brush up on her Royal icing and piping skills, and she is now one of a team of about 11 full- and part-time staff, who produce up to 50 cakes a week during the summer.

"I’ve always wanted to go to the rainforests," says Occleston, "so I decided to feature them on my cake." Her two-tier, round cake is covered in jungle-green sugarpaste leaves and woven around it are tropically inspired flowers, modelled from a combination of sugar- and petal pastes. The top tier is supported by a tree trunk, wrapped around with vines.

The cake features dancers and drummers, hand-modelled from sugarpaste, with Royal-icing piped bikinis on the dancers. The whole is a riot of colour.

"I hope the judges enjoyed the vibrancy of the cake," says Occleston.

Andrea Campbell Jackson

Cake ArtistShuga BudzWolverhampton

Andrea Campbell Jackson joined Shuga Budz three years ago and trained on the job. She now works part-time and helps produce around 25 bespoke cakes a week for the shop. Her two-tier, sugarpaste-coated octagonal cake goes back to the roots of street carnival. It depicts a street full of rainbow-coloured houses, based on a real Brazilian shanty town, populated by scantily-clad samba dancers and children. Perched on top is the Brazilian icon, Carmen Miranda. The figures are made from flower- and modelling pastes and decorated with edible glitter and paint; the buildings are made from pastillage and flowerpaste. She piped the window frames with Royal Icing, and used a glaze on the dancers’ eyes and the fruit on Carmen Miranda’s head.

"I hope the judges liked my ’back to its roots’ interpretation of carnival," she says.