Tasnuta Alam from Cake Topperz.
Couture Cakers International Sugar Art Collaboration is hosted by Heba M Elalfy of Sweet Dreams by Heba. This is the fourth annual celebration of couture using all types of sugar medium as created by an international team of Sugar Artists. The theme this year is Islamic / Hijabi Bridal Dresses.
For the next few days I will be interviewing sugar artists who are participating in the collaboration.
Here is my interview with Tasnuta Alam.
Tell me about yourself. How long have you been decorating? How did you learn to decorate? Do you decorate professionally? Have you taught any cake decorating classes? Have you competed in any competitions?
My name is Tasnuta Alam, graduate Accountant. I am also a British qualified cake Instructor and Judged so far two internationally online contest. I live in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK with my husband and 7 years old boy. But i born and brought up in Bangladesh, i spend most of my life in Bangladesh. From my childhood i used to work my Mom’s helping hand and I enjoyed this fun time a lot. My most favourite part was beating egg foam and whisked cream.
As my result was first class 1st in my graduation, my only dream was to be a Chartered Accountant. I never thought baking and cake decorating one day will be my proffession. Then i got married and came to the UK. In 2006 without anyones help I made a birthday cake for my Husband’s birthday for the first time. But i failed first two times and third time, i made it which was a perfect cake.That’s how my baking unprofessional journey started. After few months I joined in a full time job and with that, day by day people come to know about my baking and recieved lots of complements from all my friends and family and neighbours. My surroundings people are appriciated me a lot. Futher more in 2013 I had participated in a cake baking and decorating competition in my City Aberdeen, and i had achieved the first prize. And just after that in 2013 I have started officially a business and i named it Cake Topperz.
From the beginning i tried all the baking recipes from my Mom’s collections, you tube, cake blogs and cake magazines. Then i joined in lots of baking and cake decorating courses. In 2017 in London, UK, i have completed Masters of Cake Decorating from PME.
Now I teach in all areas of baking and cake decorating online and offline. So far I have achieved 2 first prizes in locally cake contest, 2 gold in online cake contest, 2 gold and 2 silver from Cake International at Birmingham and London. Also recieved one gold with trophy(Best in Class) from British Sugarcraft Guild. In past three years i have participated in many cake collaborations around the world.This is my third years with Couture Cakers and this collaboration is one of my favourite. Now I ran my own collaborations and this year we arranged an Internationally online cake contest.
What is the name of your business/bakery, where you are located, what area you serve, and what you specialize in.
My page name is Cake Topperz and it located in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Most of the time i served in Aberdeenshire but occasionally in a period of time we serve long distances.
Social Media Links
My instagram Link http://www.intagram.com/tasnuta
And my facebook page link https://m.facebook.com/caketopperz/
Tell me about your design.
In this collaboration my piece was inspired by a beautiful with eye-catching colours muslim bridal dress. Specifically the colour is my favourite and dress designs and sequences attracted me. How i planned for this beautiful bridal dress i couldn’t manage to complete the design due to shortage of decorating ingredients. I have done all over the cake royal icing hand piping and i followed the design sequence mave colour flowers. For these flowers i used wafer paper and i didn’t use any wafer cutter for that. All the flowers hand cut by exacto knife. Also the shiny bit middle of the flowers i used isomalt diamond.
I had to escape few detailing from my design which made me sad. Because i really loved the head dressed. Another part was the photography time i had no day lights for 2 days. With all difficulties i hope i have done justice with the bridal dress. I hope you all like my work.
What Do you do when you are not caking?
Without caking i try to give my full time to my family. Because caking kept me busy most of the time. I divided my family time and involved with it few fun things. Because my husband he loves my cooking, so i attatched with that Foodography. So this family time become more entertaining for me. I also spend a quality time with my boy. We make scientific project together and very often we go for a tour and do photography. I have a small garden where i planted different flowers and vegetables.
When and why did you decide that you wanted to create a business/hobby?
During my maternity, i was coping good with my baby and at the same time i was missing my job and all my colleagues. One day a friend of mine, she forced me to participate in a local cake contest and unbelievably i had achieved the first prize. From there so many ppl came to me, they said we want to try your cake, please take order. Which motivated me snd and i started my page Cake Topperz in 2013.
Favorite stories about your pieces.
I have few stories with cake related. But i still remember one of them which was very funny. I made a collaboration cake few years ago, which was a real cake and it was for a friends and family party. In this party people were hard to believe that was an edible cake. Then kids started eating biscuits, flowers from the cake which were a great fun.
Do you have a favorite story about a disaster?
Disasters gives us a lesson and also an experience. We all learn from it and move on. I have few. I am mentioning here one, it was a 1st birthday cake for my clients baby. We dropped off the cake and set up there. They had not provide us the main venue’s address. It was a tall 3 tier cake. They had relocated the cake and made a disaster during travelling time. So the cake broken before it reached to the main venue. After that we had long conversation. This story made me more stong regarding order receiving process, and gained good experience.
If one of the famous cake decorators offered to make you your dream cake, what would you ask for?
I would definitely ask to them to make for me a frozen Elsa castle cake.
Do you have a favorite superhero? What is your favorite superhero movie? If you read comics, what is your favorite comic or run on a comic? If you could be any superhero, who would you want to be? If you could have one super power, what would it be?
My favourite superhero is Spider man, which is my boy’s choice. Because I watch all his favourite movies and cartoon with him last 7 years. I like him because he solved all problem, rescue people from difficult situation. I used to ready few comics which are Tintin, Sipmson and marvel. If i could be a super here then i will choice spiderman.
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