BUSINESS Q&A: Let them eat my cake

Photo by Justin Zamudio

Photos by Justin Zamudio/San Angelo Standard-Times
Suzanna Aguirre instructs Araceli Meza, 5, on how to properly apply icing to a cake at a cake decorating party last week. Aguirre provides materials and guidance for cake decorating parties as part of her cake decorating business, Eat My Cake.TOP: Christen Sanchez, 11, puts purple icing around a butterfly outline on a cake she decorated at a party hosted by Aguirre last week.

SAN ANGELO, Texas —
When Suzanna Aguirre decided to take a cake decorating class four years ago, she had in mind one grand scale, highly-anticipated family fête — her daughter’s quinceañera in eight years.

Aguirre, who has a 12-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son and works full time as the city manager’s office coordinator, quickly became hooked in the art of confectionery design, completing her final courses in Abilene when they were no longer available in San Angelo. She began baking and decorating cakes as a side job and in April opened a home bakery, Eat My Cake Designs.

“I have a full-time job so I can’t commit as much time to it as I’d like. But I’ve been pretty busy with it, so it’s going well,” she said. “If somebody books a cake with me, it’s one of a few cakes I’m doing, so it’s going to be fresh and made just for them.”

A year ago, Aguirre began teaching cake design classes at Michaels, then expanded her business’ offerings to include cake-making birthday parties.

“It all revolves around my kids, basically,” Aguirre said of her business expansion ideas. “I’m always looking for something different to do for (their birthdays); you can only do so many pizza parties.

“In my classes, I’ve had girls as young as 11 (years old) be able to accomplish what the course requires. My daughter loves to help, and I thought this would be cool if I had a party and they could decorate their own cake and take it home as their party favor.”

Word hasn’t spread about Aguirre’s parties as much as she’d like, but the cake-decorating component of the business has grown, she said.

“Right now (the work is) more for birthday parties and promotion parties,” Aguirre said. “My thing is to make it personalized for them or represent whatever they’re trying to celebrate. I try to make it something they would love.”

Taste, of course, also is important, Aguirre said.

“Normally I do a box cake, but I do specialty ones if people request them,” she said. “It depends on what people want and what they want to spend.”

The price of a sheet cake starts at $40, Aguirre said. Custom cakes require more work, she said, and thus cost more.

“It really depends on what the person wants,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot more fondant work — you can make shapes out of it and cover cakes in it. If I’m making fondant figures I have to use gum paste to make it hard, and it’s all edible.

“I did a cake for my friend, and I made (a figure of) her out of fondant, and she just loved it.

“I love making cakes for people and seeing their reaction. It’s cool to teach people how to do it, because they do things they didn’t know they could.”

Standard-Times: Have you ever owned a business before?

Aguirre: No, and that was definitely not my intention when I started doing this. It was just to make cakes for my kids with the goal to ultimately make (my daughter’s) quinceañera cake. It’s really taken on its own life. But it’s turned out well. I enjoy doing it. It’s a blessing.

What do the cake-decorating birthday parties entail?

I had my dad make cake plates so I bring those to put the cake on. There are aprons for them to wear at the party. It’s just really cutesy, girlie. At the (first) party I did, there was a little boy, so I think boys can do it too. I want to cater to whatever it is they’re trying to do. I can provide everything and help them if they need it.

What is something you really strive for? Are you a perfectionist about anything?

I’m such a perfectionist (laughs). Usually with the cakes I do, people are good about telling me what they want the cake to be about. I try to make it exactly the way it would make them the happiest.

Is that nerve-wracking?

Yes, because you want it to be perfect. Any time I think about birthday (parties) I had growing up, I remember the cake I had. So that is a little pressure. But the chaos — to see them so happy — is awesome.

Are you a creative person in other ways?

I guess people would say I am. I am constantly taking on projects. I just made some banners for one of my co-workers for a 50th wedding anniversary. They turned out amazing. I sew, too. I just love making things for people. When you make something for people yourself, I think it’s more special.

Eat My Cake Designs

What: Cake designs, classes and cake-decorating parties

When: By appointment

More info: 325-340-3363 or http://suzannaaguirre.wix.com/eatmycakesdesigns#!home/mainPage

Accrington fairy tale world is set for the movies

Accrington fairy tale world is set for the movies

5:00pm Friday 7th September 2012 in News

By Emma Cruces, Reporter

WONDERLAND Holly with Leanne Baker, work experience, and the array of cakes

AN ACCRINGTON business’s weird and wonderful creations has been the inspiration for a short film.

Warner Street cake decorator Holly Zebrowski has been amazing customers with bespoke cake designs since opening the small store one year ago.

When local film company Shoo-ters Media approached the cake shop to be used as a shoot location, they were impressed with the different ideas Holly used in her creations.

Film-makers liked the shop so much, they rewrote their script to be set entirely in Holly’s shop, and renamed it The Cake Fairy – after the name of Holly’s business, The Cupcake Fairy.

The resulting film, which Shoo-ters entered into the Reed Short Film Competition, tells the story of a young girl who is forced to work in her dead father’s cake shop for her wicked stepmother.

Known as the ‘Cake Fairy’, she gets her revenge with a cake dec-orated ‘Lets be Friends’ but which contains a secret ingredient.

Holly’s shop is filled with ref-erences to stories and fairytales and the upstairs floor is decorated to resemble a Mad Hatter’s tea party for children’s parties.

The 32-year-old said the idea was a way to recognise Accrington’s link with Alice Liddell, the insp-iration for the story Alice in Wonderland.

She said: “I was very surprised when Shooters Media contacted me and asked for my help in making the film.

“At first they had a completely different story all written out and said they would probably make a lot of changes to the shop to fit their ideas.

“But when they came, they said my shop was better than their concept and they changed the whole script to suit the shop.”

Bacup-based Shooters Media are currently working on a number of proects, including a theatre project with Liverpool Cathedral. Past winners of the Reed competition have been used as advertisements
aired on major television networks.

Holly, who lives in Baxenden, has been cake decorating as a hobby after her mother taught her how to make cake techniques. However she only decided to make it a career after making a cake for her
daughter. To view Shooters Media’s film featuring the Warner street shop visit vimeo.com and search for ‘The Cake Fairy’.

Goodwill Offers Cake Decorating Classes

Wednesday, September 5, 2012 – 17:26

Special to HuntingtonNews.Net

Goodwill Industries of KYOWVA will offer an eight-week course in professional cake decorating beginning Monday, September 10th. Classes will be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at 1005 Virginia Ave., Huntington.

The hands-on course aims to teach students to prepare, decorate and complete original cake designs and understand the three stages of buttercream icing. Students can develop skills in making flowers and leaves, writing and working with icing colors along with how to stack cakes and an overview of marshmallow fondant. Those who successfully complete the course will leave with the skills necessary to launch a career in cake decorating. The course includes decorating tips and supplies for the students.

With the upcoming holidays, this course will include appropriate decorating ideas. Students will be prepared to decorate an entire cake of their own design by the last week of class. Class is limited to 15 students.

To enroll, contact Kay Cremeans, Career Center Coordinator or Chef Denzel at Goodwill, at 304-523-7461.

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Aerial Talk: Cakes too good to eat

WHEN I was a child, my sister, who is now a chef, brought home a book on cake designs, including that of Mickey Mouse, Pocahontas and Ariel from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

It takes hard work, a lot of time and patience to complete one design

Back then, the designs were two-dimensional. The pictures were drawn on the cake and enhanced by frosting. I was mesmerised by the intricacy of each pattern, and thought that the cake designers were very creative.
Imagine my surprise and awe when I saw far more elaborate designs in the The Learning Channel’s (TLC) Fabulous Cakes.

The series features several bakeries in the US that create cakes according to customer requests. These are not normal, plain old cakes. Instead, the bakers come up with such incredible ideas for their cakes that they put the ones sold at the local cake shops to shame.

Here, cakes are usually adorned with decorations such as flowers. Once in a while, we find beautifully designed cakes especially at weddings but these usually incorporate traditional flowers. The only difference perhaps is the way these are arranged on the cakes.

The pastry chefs featured in Fabulous Cakes, are out of this world when it comes to designing cakes. You cannot imagine the amount of creativity and hard work that goes into the cakes.

Customers will approach a bakery with a rough idea of what they want. For example, a woman was organising a baby shower for her best friend, so the chef suggested a cake that comprises a big yellow duck sitting in a bath tub, complete with a shower, bubbles, tiled floor and a shower cap for the duck.

Another baker designed a cake with the theme, Phantom Of The Opera, for a college drama club. The masterpiece has a long row of piano keys, a long sword made of hardened gelatine and a clay-like model of the heroine Christine sitting in a boat.

The first thing that came to mind was, “How on earth are they going to cut that? Are they even going to eat it?”

It made me wonder if the whole exercise was just about presentation and not at all about taste.

Still, my mouth watered as I gazed wistfully at the brightly coloured fondants and creams. The cream and chocolate seemed to be calling out to me.

On Fabulous Cakes, watch how the chefs mould and smooth fondants to make surfaces, cut and trim the cakes into the desired shapes and place the “ornaments”.

The best part is that all of the things used to make the cake are edible!

Designing such intricately designed cake structures requires hard work and patience. It’s the kind of work that you can’t mess up, so I salute the chefs who do this for a living.

Understandably, the cakes are very pricey but for special occasions, why not indulge yourself?

Fabulous Cakes airs every Wednesday at 8pm on TLC (Astro Channel 707)
 

It’s a ‘piece of cake’ for Trisha Vandeven

By ANDI WETHINGTON

Special to The Daily Statesman

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. — Long fascinated by the world of crafts, Trisha Vandeven has honed her skills in customized creations in everything from oil painting and flower arranging to today’s business of weddings, catering, and specialty cakes.

Trisha’s, the at-home business of this 31-year resident of Bloomfield, primarily focuses on specialty cakes “from simple to simply elegant,” as the company tagline reads. “If you can imagine it, we will bake and frost it and fulfill your sweetest dreams.”

Originally from Dudley where her family farmed, Trisha attended Dexter Schools and started on her cake decorating “just as a sideline” right after graduation. “I fooled around with it, mostly for family,” she explained. “My mother started making cakes as a home business, and she retired from it about 12 to 15 years ago.”

For a full-time job after high school, Trisha worked at the former Campbell Filter Company, first in the plant for two years then in the office for another four. The girls in the office held “birthday swaps” for each other, and one year Trisha created a ceramic fruit arrangement. Her very all-business traffic manager asked her, “What are you doing working here when you can do that?” And his question stuck with her.

“I started asking myself why I would do an okay job when I liked doing other things,” Trisha said. The proverbial wheels were set in motion.

When she married John Vandeven and the couple bonded families, Trisha was able to stay at home with their three kids. She opened a craft shop in Bloomfield, and from the family’s old, two-story Victorian home she taught oil painting classes for adults and children.

Several years later Trisha tried her hand at wholesale floral work and sold to Silver Dollar City and various gift shops. “I was able to be at home with the kids, which is always a plus, and I had a job, too,” she said. “I did floral arrangements and craft shows, as well as antique Santa Clauses. We focused on the Victorian era, and I bet I made a million ribbon roses.”

Reflecting on her timeline of at-home work, Trisha joked that she “ought to be called evolution,” tackling everything from oil painting to flower arrangements and antique crafts to gift baskets and personalized prints. “You go with what’s popular at the time, with what sells,” she relayed. “[My husband] John even did the woodworking for me and made picture frames. It was a team effort. He’s always been the best supporter.”

After all these ventures, though, her business objectives changed, and 19 years ago this month, Trisha made a complete circle back to her original, high school love of specialty cakes. Her daughter was getting married, and this mother of the bride loved being a part of every detail. “I did everything but her dress… and the tuxes,” recalled Trisha. “I took care of the flowers, the catering, the attendants’ and flower girl’s dresses. But I also found out that it’s hard to do it all and be the bride’s mom. That’s when I realized there was a market for this, and I gradually got into the wedding business.”

Today, Trisha helps couples with all the details for a complete wedding and reception. The only part this company owner no longer takes care of is the flowers. “Catering is a last minute item, and so are flowers. I can’t do both, so I’ve chosen not to do the flowers anymore.” She also caters for church events, family and class reunions, and baby showers and takes care of all the details, including rentals.

Trisha’s main focus, however, revolves around “creative custom cakes for any occasion,” the company’s promotional items explain. “Whether you’re looking for an after dinner dessert or an elaborate wedding cake for that special day, we’ve got it. We don’t just make cakes for you — we create them with you, too. We turn your ideas into stunning edible works of art.”

Customers can choose from nine different cake flavors — white (vanilla), chocolate, and strawberry being among the favorites, in that order — as well as six types of fillings and buttercream frosting with or without fondant accents. “I don’t do complete fondant cakes, just an accent,” said Trisha. “I personally don’t like it, and most people just peel off that outer layer anyway.”

As for the designs, “I either get to do my own thing at the client’s request, or I follow the given instructions,” she explained. “It helps enormously when there’s a picture to design off of because it can be hard to fully comprehend what my client wants. I also draw ideas from napkin or plate samples.”

Wedding cake trends change every few years, and today brides tend to want very smooth, simple cakes. “What they don’t realize is that those are the hardest. At least with a flower detail you can hide a blemish,” Trisha laughed. “Smooth cakes require more time. It takes many hours to create something that looks so simple.”

Through the years, this brilliant cake artist has required very little self-promotion as her clients learn about her by word of mouth. “If I advertise, it’s to help out local schools,” she shared humbly. “I’m to a point now where I’ve had to turn down orders. This little person can’t fill them all. I even have birthday orders up to November.”

Her clientele have come from all over — as far south as Clarkton, north to the Cape Girar-deau/Jackson area, and west and east to Poplar Bluff and Sikeston, respectively. Facebook and social media attention have attracted a great deal of business, too. “People post pictures of their child with the cake, or I get to see their faces when they pick up their order,” said Trisha. “Seeing the excitement is what makes it all worth it. Watching the little kids — or even a bride who starts crying because she loves her cake — that makes you feel good.”

A typical week involves the creation of one or two wedding cakes and nine to 12 birthday cakes, which often demand more time because they require more colors and details. “I like challenges as long as I have time to work on it,” she stated, “and some projects have really been a challenge. There are times I think, ‘How in the world am I going to do this?’ But I find a way. There’s a way to do everything.”

“I turned a hobby into a business,” she continued. And all that practice substantiates her training. “I practice with wax paper — scrape it off, put it back in the bag, then practice some more. I really love when a customer says, ‘You can do whatever you want’ because then I get to practice a technique I’ve wanted to try.”

“Really, anybody can do it,” she added. “All you need is a bag of icing and two [decorating] tips and you can do wedding cakes. It just takes practice.”

She’s also taken a few classes in the St. Louis area, including ones led by a Food Network cake competitor. Also, when a member of the cake decorating guild ICES, Trisha took several two- to three-day classes in St. Louis, and the guild invited a professional to St. Louis or Columbia once or twice a year for demonstrations.

“Cake shows make it look so easy,” she commented. “But there are lots of shortcuts you learn through the years and you do things better than before. It’s just fun. Most mornings I can’t wait to get down to the kitchen and get going on my projects.”

Trisha also enjoys her grandkids’ reactions to her cake designs. “Matthew and Connor look at my sample books and want this or that,” she laughed. “It’s best to wait until the last minute because they change their minds constantly. They also flip through my cake supply books and look at them like they’re storybooks.”

Her grandkids might just have the right idea. For 19 years and counting, Trisha has been making dreams come true for area cake enthusiasts, and her precision, passion, and labors of love create something magical. Whether a simple project or a challenging design, she truly makes her works of art look like a “piece of cake.”

Celebración mañanera por el cumpleaños de Anita Lloyd

Las damas de la sociedad llegaron sobrias y elegantes para compartir con Anita de este ameno festejo mañanero donde todas las invitadas le expresaron los mejores deseos y muestras de felicitaciones en este día que celebra su aniversario. El grupo de amigas llegaron cargadas de obsequios y de los mejores deseos de felicitaciones, para Anita quien es la esposa del presidente de Cervecería Hondureña don Boyce Lloyd. Anita Lloyd manifestó sentirse muy feliz por la amistad de cada una de las presentes invitándolas a levantar su copa y brindar con espumosa champaña por la amistad que las une.

Casa Jardín y más fue la encargada de la decoración, luciéndose con   sendos centros de mesa con rosas y hortensias. Las damas degustaron de una desayuno tipo brunch; al finalizar degustaron el delicioso pastel que fue elaborado en Cake Designs.

Mirtza Rivera
Fotos
 

Marilú Pineda y Ana María de Delgado.
Paola Bondy y Reina Caraccioli.
Elizabeth Yague, Ana Ramírez  y Karla de Ayala.



Karol Zummar y Clara Jarufe.
Carolina Soto Avaria y Carolina Sánchez.
Mónica Córdoba y Anabel Larach.



La cumpleañera Anita Loyd  y Vivian Chahín.
Margarita Hawit y Vanessa Córdoba.
Marisol Álvarez y Rosemary de Andonie.



Ana Clemencia Arguello, Anita Lloyd y Claudia Canahuati.
Anita Lloyd y Sandra de Kafati.
Ana Cecilia Barletta de Crespo, Lourdes Hawit y Androla Mitri.

‘Does it come in size 7?’ Master cake artists create edible shoes

LEESBURG

THERESA CAMPBELL | Staff Writer

theresacampbell@dailycommercial.com

Master cake artists Norman Davis and Zane Beg whip up elaborate cakes for celebrities, politicians and are popular on the Food Network and TLC’s Ultimate Cake Off competitions.

On Sunday, the talented pair from Washington, D.C. was in Leesburg sharing their expertise in making edible high-heel shoes.

“You won’t find these at J.C. Penney,” Davis said to a small crowd of professional cake artists who came from all over Florida to the Leesburg Center for the Arts for a hands-on learning class on how to make sweet footwear cake toppers.

The art of making sugary, colorful-patterned shoes happened on a whim last year, after a client requested a special one-of-a-kind cake.

“He wanted a cake topped with an edible Gucci shoe for his wife’s 40th birthday,” Beg said. “When I looked at it, I thought there was no way. I wasn’t making any shoes at that time, but it was a well-known person, and we said ‘yes.’”

The cake masters not only demonstrate their talent on TV, but they fly all over the globe with their cake-decorating supplies, patterns and ideas to share with other professional cake bakers who want to hone their skills. After recent world travels to Africa, Middle East and Canada, the duo will be heading to Idaho next, where they’ve been asked to judge a cake show and host some classes.

“The most enjoyable part is seeing the particular items that we come up with and how the students turn it into a different look; they put their own spin on it,” said Davis, who baked his first cake as a teenager to help his distressed aunt in the kitchen when she was overwhelmed with screaming kids. “She said, ‘You take over.’”

He has taken the custom cake-decorating business over by storm for more than three decades as owner of The Sweet Life Inc. Noted for his White Chocolate Curl Cake and three-dimensional chocolate figurines, Davis has demonstrated at the Smithsonian, taught at Stratford College School of Culinary Arts, penned cake books, and was once commissioned by the Washington Post to make a cake for President Clinton.

“The cake for Clinton was actually very embarrassing. It looked like it came from any grocery store and was just a boring sheet cake,” said Davis, who made the cake exactly as the newspaper requested. “I went with what they wanted even though I wanted to do a four-foot cake with eagles and capitols.”

Davis told his Sunday class that they will never find a picture of the Clinton cake, yet the shoe cakes often appear on Facebook.

“We get the comments of ‘Does it come in size 7?’” he said. “Fashion has a lot to play with cake designs, whether it’s bows on cakes, brooches or edible jewelry.”

Creating edible jewelry and shoes has become Beg’s passion. He knew Davis for more than 25 years before joining The Sweet Life 16 years ago, where he enjoys working with fondant, which reminds him of clay.

“Zane bought into cakes when it became more fun to play with it,” Davis said.

The cake masters also strive to make cake business fun for their students.

“The way they teach is so doable; they just make it so much easier and certainly pleasant,” said Terri Stillwaugh of The Villages, who experimented in making a fancy leopard shoe while joined by classmates from West Palm Beach, Sanford, Leesburg and Indialantic.

The Villager believes a shoe-topper cake will be in demand by customers and shoe fanatic friends. And she understands the passion for new pair of shoes.

“You can never have too many shoes,” Stillwaugh said.

Rolling in Dough

Local bread, cake and pastry icon Pastian’s Bakery hit a landmark 40th anniversary this week.

Pastian’s ovens and bakers have been turning out breads, cakes, buns and pastries for retail and wholesale customers around town since 1972.

That was the year Harry Pastian bought the Winrock Bakery at Winrock Mall.

Pastian’s Bakery
WHAT: Family owned and operated retail and wholesale bakery, products include cakes for special occasions, breads, buns, muffins, doughnuts and pastries
WHERE: 3320 Second NW, south of Candelaria
HOURS: 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday
PHONE: 345-7773
WEB: www.pastiansbakery.com

As business expanded, he bought a former sheet metal workshop at 3320 Second St. in the North Valley and transformed it into the hub of the baking operation.

Over the years, the bulk of Pastian’s business has shifted from folks who stopped in to buy their regular doughnut or Danish fix to wholesale accounts like restaurants, hotels and nursing homes who buy breads, rolls and buns.

Pastian’s supplies the metro-area Dairy Queen, Quarters BBQ, Sadie’s and Hooters restaurants and will soon add the local Five Guys hamburger eateries to its more than 100 wholesale accounts, Pastian said.

The bakery still has a small retail store with shelves of tempting pastries and a display room where customers can view cake designs for weddings, birthdays and other special occasions.

Behind the retail store is the heart of the business, where bakers weigh and mix the ingredients, feed baking sheets into room-size ovens and packers place golden-brown loaves, buns and pastries into bags and boxes.

Drivers start their workday at 4 a.m. crisscrossing the region in delivery trucks bearing the business name alongside a smiling face with a floppy baker’s hat. Pastian’s delivers throughout the metro area and to customers in Rio Rancho, Bernalillo, Cedar Crest, Moriarty, Edgewood, Los Lunas and Belen.

Pastian got his start in the bakery business when he was in high school in Missoula, Mont.

“I wanted a car, and if I wanted anything I had to go to work for it,” Pastian said.

From cleaning pots and pans, he graduated to making doughnuts. After high school, Pastian served in the U.S. Air Force from 1956 to 1960, working as a baker. Back in civilian life, he tried being an electrician but returned to baking when he moved to Albuquerque and went to work for Jill’s Bakery at 1008 Coal SE.

During his 11 years at Jill’s he became production supervisor. When he heard that the Winrock Bakery that had opened in 1961 was for sale, he jumped at the chance, took a loan out against his home and gave it his all.

Pastian still runs the business, with help from his wife, Miriam, daughter, Sheri, and nearly 30 employees.
— This article appeared on page 3 of the West Side Journal

Icing on the cake for a perfect day

And it means our couple could not be in better hands as they chose another important aspect of their biggest day.

Mandy runs Mollys Cakes, which will be providing a three-tier wedding cake for Deborah Langley and Andrew Mullen.

They’re the couple who lifted the Bride of the Year title in the competition run by the Hartlepool Mail in conjunction with Robert Usher Photography.

This year has been a busy one for Mandy. She also now runs the bridal gown shop, Peaches, with her business partner Julie Kelsey, in Park Road.

It has been open since January and Mollys Cakes is run from the same premises,

Mandy said: “Business is good. We have had a good response since we have been there. Everyone is coming in and looking.”

She has been designing and making cakes for more than 18 years. Mandy, a former cook in a residential home, was based in York Road premises since 2006, and is the perfect person to help guide our couple through the choices available to them.

She said: “We are in new premises but I have got a lot of previous customers which is nice.

“The word is getting out there that I am in a new shop. People don’t immediately realise that the cake shop is there but it is doing well and it always has.”

The choices of cakes this year are really traditional, said Mandy. “It does not seem to change a lot from year to year.

“People tend to go for three or four tiers.”

While much of her clientele is in the Hartlepool area, she also gets business from areas including Wynyard, and further afield in places such as Lumley Castle and Barnard Castle.

Mandy explained how her love for cake making and designing started.

“I used to do it while I was doing other jobs, and became self employed.

“I had people asking me to do birthday cakes and it built up from there.”

Mandy still has great plans for the cake side of her operation, and added: “I want it to get bigger. I have lots of big ideas which I want to put into practice.”

For our happy couple, the plans for their big day are coming together fast.

They tie the knot on September 7 on board HMS Trincomalee.

Groom-to-be Andrew said: “The wedding cake is always a centrepiece to every wedding and an important part of the reception.

“All your guests watch the happy couple cut the cake and then share it. So the look of the cake is very important, as is the actual taste.”

Deborah, 44, won the Bride of the Year competition after she was entered for it by fiancé Andrew, 39.

A devastating health condition has left Andrew mostly confined to a wheelchair.

But as a thank-you to his “lovely princess” he entered her into the Bride of the Year competition – and won.

Deborah has been there for him ever since he first developed the string of related conditions – degenerative spinal disease, facet joint arthritis, mechanical back pain and nerve damage.

Planning round-up: August 2012

It was a busy month at Cardiff Council’s planning committee last week with applications for a major redevelopment of St Fagans National History Museum, more student housing, and the latest in the Splott incinerator row all up for discussion.

But just two applications were given the go ahead last Wednesday, with the rest either deferred until next month’s meeting or withdrawn.

Waste firm Viridor’s attempt to push ahead with its plans for a new incinerator in Splott suffered another setback after an application to have 16 conditions attached to its planning permission discharged was withdrawn from the committee’s agenda at the last minute after new information came to light.

A Cardiff council spokeswoman said it was withdrawn after the committee received a response from an interested party.

“The document raises a number of relevant points which need further consultation with the Environment Agency and Pollution Control,” she said.  “As a result, the committee has decided to await and consider the appropriate responses.”

A controversial application to allow the Lidl supermarket on Maindy Road to take Sunday deliveries was approved, but only for a two-month trial between 10am and midday. Councillors imposed the trial after listening to residents objections.

And proposals for a £24m redesign and expansion of St Fagans National History Museum – the biggest in its 63-year history – were give the go-ahead. National Museum Wales director general David Anderson said the Making History at St Fagans Project would see a huge overhaul of the site and create hundreds of new jobs.

Committee members heard the project has a capital value of £25.5m, with 290 people employed over five years.

The museum is aiming to raise visitor levels from the current 620,000 annually to 850,000.

Income will increase by 25%, including an extra £500,000 in extra activities and enterprises, while the museum will spend up to an additional £260,000 in the local economy, members were told.

The plans include upgrading the visitor facilities in the main building and making space for two new permanent exhibitions.

A new environmentally-friendly building in the heart of the site will house a gallery covering the story of Wales from 230,000BC to the present, looking at the ways in which people have lived.

Two new historical structures based on archaeological remains will also be built – an Iron Age farmstead from Anglesey and Llys Rhosyr, a 13th-century court of the princes of Gwynedd.

There will also be a new building on the site of the current Celtic village, which will be moved to another site at the museum.

Details of all the decisions that were made last week can be found below.

View Planning round-up: August 2012 in a larger map