We are announcing the category winners of this year’s Architecture Bake Off on Thursday 11 June.
For the first time, we opened up the Architecture Bake Off to non-architects with two additional categories: one for individuals and one for children under 13.
For the individual category we’ve got some budding designers who are giving the architects a run for their money! You’ll find a resume of entries below. We’ll also be publishing the submission from out other categories.
Join us on for the live results announcement by signing up here.
We had 30 submissions for our individual category.
Just press play on each entry to see more..
Colour Palace
Charlotte Qureshi (LFA29)
I chose the Colour Palace due to its bold colours and personal local significance. As I thought about construction I began to regret this decision when trying to support a heavy cake on four columns also made from cake – however luckily the brownie cake structure just about withstood the weight. I clad the cake with iced chocolate biscuits to replicate the timber louvres. Overall, I am quite pleased with the outcome and that I managed to achieve the column supports! I can definitely see a strong resemblance with the pavilion, despite some questionable icing!
Battersea Power Station
Emily Wilson (LFA30)
“I have had the most fun making this cake – although after the 14th straight hour, it did start to get a bit stressful. I chose to make Battersea Power Station as it’s one of my favourite London Landmarks.
My version is a Guinness chocolate cake, which I chose because it’s tasty, really sturdy and easy to carve and it doesn’t dry out. I measured out some templates, so that it was (a bit) easier to measure out and cut. It’s sandwiched together with cream cheese icing as a crumb coat and then covered in Swiss meringue buttercream to keep the shape. For the decoration, details and finishing touches, it’s covered with fondant icing, coconut grass and hazelnut gravel.”
Colour Palace
Lana Al-Shami (LFA32)
“I chose the Colour Palace as I was attracted to the vivid colours, bold geometric patterns and the way the light plays with the structure.
This has led to innovative ways to reflect these properties in bake form whilst incorporating a fusion of Asian and Western bakes in the piece.
It is comprised of three elements: the panels, the columns and the cube shaped cake that sits inside.
Each element is executed using a different baking technique. The panels are made of a delicate biscuit with different flavoured sweets inside to imitate the translucent quality of the pavilion.
Three coloured marbled effect cookies are stacked together to form each column, wrapped in red icing and finally I attempted the challenging geometric and colourful Malaysian ‘sarawak’ layered cake that sits in the centre.
The modular design also enables the piece to be assembled easily so friends can admire and taste it.”
St Paul’s Cathedral
Holly Brownlee (LFA35)
“Lack of normal ingredients and away from my usual baking things provided an interesting challenge, but in the spirit of Apollo 13 I found creative solutions using math and the tools I had!
The size of the equipment I had to make the dome dictated the overall size of the cake, a double espresso mug allowed me to make a scaled down and thus reasonably sized cake (14 eggs!), the challenge was then using the equipment I had to construct the overall shape of the building.
I used the cake of COVID-19, Banana cake, as a strong base to support the dome and peanut butter frosting as fabulous cement, and a lighter vanilla genoise sponge for the dome. I made spiced ginger biscuits for my roofs and pillars (never ending pillars) with homemade royal icing for detailing.
An amazingly fun challenge and the cake was thoroughly enjoyed by the household!”
St Paul’s Cathedral
Serena Malik (LFA37)
St paul’s cathedral out of cake! the base is a vanilla sponge cake filled with vanilla buttercream, the dome is also carved out of cake, the pillars are made out of modelling paste and decorated with royal icing, the cake is topped with an edible gold cross.
Colour Palace
Samantha Tse (LFA38)
“The inspiration behind my LFA bake is the bold, bright and unique Colour Palace
The ginger biscuit frame (with a snap and good kick of ginger) is cemented together with caramel. This gives the cube structural integrity to hang off each individual panel
To replicate the explosion of colour and light shining through the timber panels; I’ve cut out the geometric pattern on each biscuit and used boiled sweets to create a stained glass effect, decorating with piped lines
Chocolate cake covered in red fondant make up the red cylinders, which thankfully has proved to be study enough to hold up the entire structure
I’ve loved every minute of the bake, even through the mishaps (there’s nothing caramel can’t stick back together it seems) and have enough offcuts to build a whole new entry!”
St Paul’s Cathedral
Natassja Stiles (LFA39)
One week to respectfully recreate Sir Christopher Wren’s architectural masterpiece, what could go wrong? Shopping list was made, blueprints sketched and a schedule drawn up to build the delicious and structurally sound Cathedral confection. Owing to work and other factors, the days slipped by. My carefully constructed idea with time to spare quickly evaporated and I was left with just the remnants of the weekend and a mammoth task ahead of me. I embarked on making my Union Jack inspired base; blue sponge with a white Swiss buttercream and strawberry jam. Next obstacle, the sponge turned out green, scrap the flag idea! Inspired by pop art and my love of colour I set about recovering what I could of this less than perfect pastel. St Paul’s has had its fair share of unexpected architectural changes throughout history, I couldn’t expect anything less in this process.
Colour Palace
Kevin McKeon (LFA40)
“I made the Colour Palace because I live close to Dulwich Picture Gallery and I enjoyed seeing the real Palace regularly, I even voted in the competition to pick it! I love it because it is so joyful and sat so beautifully beside the gallery and gardens.
My inspiration was two favorite flavours; Strawberry Daiquiris and Black Forest gateau. That became a Chocolate, Strawberry and Rum Cake with strawberry shortbread.
The Palace is made with chocolate squares mounted on a frame of cake rods. On to this I’ve put painted & collaged paper with the colourful pattern of the building. The pillars are strawberry shortcake with strawberry buttercream covered in red icing. The stairs and platform are made of shortbread covered in pink icing.
I thought showing the context of the Palace felt important. The trees are made of poured sugar and the scaled human figures (and dog) are carved Matchmakers!”
Colour Palace
Jessica Bramwell (LFA43)
“Vibrant colour has always had significant power to change moods, express identities and bring people together. In the current crisis, the most powerful symbol I’ve seen has been the rainbows drawn and displayed in windows around the country. As a newly qualified nurse, the Colour Palace stood out to me with its vibrant rainbow colours which have stood for so much for so many.
The architect of the Colour Palace says that the outside timber helped shield the inner beauty of the markets it reminded him of. This is also central to the design, with crunchy white chocolate biscuits protecting the colourful and tasty sponge inside.
I hope that my cake has the same ability to inspire and encapsulate, not only the physical structure of the building, but the vision behind it too.”
Colour Palace
Freya Currie (LFA44)
I chose the Colour Palace because it was a grey weekend in London and the bright colours are such a contrast! Setting out, I had no idea if I could make a cake that would stand up, but at least I could make it tasty. I chose fresh and zingy flavours for the cake to match the beautiful colours – lemon and raspberry, with fresh raspberries in between the layers. To make the pattern, I used a technique that’s used for making Swiss roll. First, I piped the patterns in bright colours onto parchment, then froze it. Then I spread the Swiss roll batter on top and baked it. I tried to use the patterns to show how the building changes before your eyes as you move around it, so each side is different. The cake floats on its pillars with the help of some short dowels. A fun challenge!
Colour Palace
Holly and Joe (LFA46)
It didn’t come out as we’d hoped but we had great fun doing it! Two cakes – blueberry & vanilla and coffee & walnut – two walls for each flavour, placed around a hollow centre. Supported on peanut rice crispie feet, decorated with fondant and topped with a blue sugar glass ceiling.
Colour Palace
Elisa Brandelli (LFA49)
Colour Palace
Victoria Flintstone Skillen (LFA51)
I was inspired by the colour palace for many reasons but mainly I really wanted to make something bright and fun during this pretty tough time! I chose the most colourful and creative cake I could think of, the Sarawak layer cake. It has 18 egg yolks, 18!! Flavours are orange, almond with salted caramel ‘glue’. I coloured the batter and grilled each layer then cut the cake into strips/bricks to assemble in the pattern. I had to do volume equations and I can honestly say I haven’t had to calculate the value of x in about 13 years! I originally was going to make 4 thin slices but there was no way it would stand up so I made the walls thicker and went with an open plan design which is great because then you can see the boiled candy/biscuit stairs etc. The base is all biscuits and royal icing, totally edible! It took me 2 days, but I loved the challenge. Thank you for this experience!
No1 Poultry
Stela Stojić (LFA52)
“I have opted for 1 Poultry Place taking a challenge in creating cream and cinnabar layers, interplay of forms and colours
The plan was divided in 3 parts for the ease of handling, baked total of 18 squares, 300x300mm
I have learnt a lot about the building and it’s components and kept reminding myself that i am making a cake not a model to scale
In addition to buildings undergoing planning applications and being “green” and sustainable I would suggest that a final test of good design is building it as cake to start with :)”
Colour Palace
Toby Smith (LFA53)
“During the lockdown the Greenwich+Docklands International Festival has been working with people all over Woolwich on ‘Weaving Together’, a creative project that brings different communities together through a shared appreciation of colourful fabric and craft. Seeing these ideas reflected in the Colour Palace, tackling a baked version was our obvious choice, with lots of opportunities try out new techniques and experiment.
From the ground up, my soil is a rick fruit cake, an adaption of my mum’s Christmas Cake recipe. Next, a thin layer of marzipan and a green fondant icing lawn. The Colour Palace sits on four coloured and moulded chocolate pillars. Its four walls are made from rolled sugar paste, hand-painted with edible food colouring. There’s even a little staircase inside, and finally a gingerbread roof protects the hollow structure from the elements above.
Colour Palace
Alice Gorman (LFA56)
Gravity elusion. Structural baking. Intricate cookie cutting. Colour . . . (and sugar burns) are just a few phrases to describe my experience paying homage to Yinka Ilori’s Colour Palace. It was such a joy to celebrate such a beautiful structure in this *delicious* form!
Palace of Westminster
Jennifer McNeill-Moss (LFA59)
Seated on the River Thames, for me the building has always been the ultimate portrait of London and national power. To create a firm, reliable structure I made 9 sponges, before carving and ‘cementing’ them together with buttercream icing. All are encased in fondant icing, before being ‘gilded’ with gold spray paint. The windows are stunning feature of the building which I really wanted to replicate. For this I made a stencil of the actual windows from a photograph, before adding it to the fondant with edible black paint. Gold leaf also features throughout the cake for extra decoration, as well as meringue mimicking the River Thames. I added blue food colouring, and piped it to create a variety of shapes. By placing them chaotically against the building, I wanted to gesture towards our rocky political climate.
St Paul’s Cathedral
Fiona Ferguson (LFA60)
For a Gal that’s only baked two cakes prior to this one, this Peanut Butter, Strawberry and Chocolate Cathedral extravaganza is a miracle! Thanks to my Family, my Boyfriend Ryan and 360 Architecture for the support and encouragement.
St Paul’s Cathedral
Roseanna & Sherene King (LFA62)
“Despite lockdown rationing and multiple queues for icing sugar, mother daughter duo recreate what feels like a life-size version of St. Paul’s.
Conceptualisation entailed..layout and elevation research online; no intention of a site visit during lockdown!!
Decided to take on the whole building to show off the grand scale of the cathedral focusing on the dome as the centre piece.
Alternating layers of decadent chocolate and tangy orange sponge have been sandwiched together with homemade zesty orange curd for the main body of the building. All surrounded by coffee flavoured butter cream grass – just to trick your senses!
The pièce de Résistance – the dome – is sponge encased in marzipan, covered with a white chocolate outer casing, painted to resemble the original.”
Palace of Westminster
Catriona Martin-Lennie (LFA65)
“My bake is a vanilla sponge with salted caramel flavoured icing and lemon biscuits. I decided to take part to challenge myself and practise new techniques. I’ve always been a keen baker, but about a year ago I started investing in better equipment and skills as I want to bake my wedding cake!
Why Westminster Palace? Its beautiful building with wonderful architecture, and I knew it would be a challenge. It has also been in the in the background of many happy memories from my time visiting/living in London, especially walking along South Bank,- from Borough Market to Westminster, one of my favourite walks ever which I’ve done a million times, with both family and my fiancé who I met in London.
I really enjoyed the process of making this cake, and I can’t wait to share the cake with friends and family – 2m apart of course!”
Colour Palace
Victor Urzola (LFA67)
I truly enjoyed baking and building The Colour Palace. It is a symbol that brings people and families together into a journey of new experiences and good moments, and with the support of my family, baking this iconic building did the same for me.
Battersea Power Station
Lauren Sager Weinstein (LFA69)
I combined two of Claire Ptak’s recipes from The Violet Bakery Cookbook– Lemon drizzle loaf for the structure of the Power Station, and then Mandarin, ginger and rye shards to build the chimney stacks and for the taller elements of the building. The rough texture of the building represents the time when the building sat abandoned and with the roof removed. The white lemon drizzle imagines what the building would have looked like after a snowfall.
No1 Poultry
Tejal Dave (LFA71)
Recreating the iconic No 1 Poultry was as big a feat as constructing the blocks at Cheapside itself! This four-tiered lemon sponge cake, stacked between a filling of lemon curd and vanilla buttercream, was striped with strawberry and beetroot buttercream to convey the famous stripes of the building. Once the Bournville chocolate button clock took centre stage, the cake began to take shape, and although fiddly, the electric blue courtyard and brightly coloured windows were a must, and were created using icing fondant and decorating pens, completing this tasty treat both inside and out.
Colour Palace
Lisa Perez (LFA72)
“The Colour Palace cake by Lisa & Harvey
Panels Coloured merengue piped onto wrinkled foil and parchment and held together with yellow icing sugar
Staircases and interior walkway – blue and pink merengue
Pillars – layered chocolate sponge iced with red buttercream
Base – chocolate sponge
Grass – crumbled green merengue
Roof – a square, flat fortune cookie with sugar icing squares”
Colour Palace
Luke O’Donovan (and family) (LFA73)
“Having visited the Colour Palace and experienced it’s magic first hand last year, seeing the brief I knew that I had to give it a go recreating it in edible form.
Unsurprisingly, after a family effort with my younger sisters and a very late night before the deadline, our gingerbread version did not come close to replicating this magic, and we were just glad that it stood up. But we had fun along the way, and most importantly, it tasted much better than it looked!”
St Paul’s Cathedral
Rhiannon Jenkins (LFA74)
Combining cake and architecture is a building surveyor’s dream. Having never really ventured beyond the basic sponge, what better time to ease myself into cake construction than for the LFABO 2020?! A brilliantly messy week of melting, mixing and baking later, I’ve somehow managed to recreate one of my favourite buildings, St Paul’s Cathedral. Mostly made from sponge, rice crispies, melted chocolate, butter icing and sweets for the stained glass windows!
St Paul’s Cathedral
Lucy Atwood (LFA77)
This colourfully layered sponge cake is separated every two layers between sheets of gingerbread biscuit. This gives it structural integrity that Christopher Wren showcased so effortlessly with St Pauls. The solid structure then reveals itself, under a hidden void beneath the chocolate dome. Running through the entire length it displays the internal brightly coloured layered cake, representing the colourful and ornate mosaics that were added to this stunning cathedral after queen Victoria’s commented describing the cathedral as ‘cold dull and dingy!’.
Battersea Power Station
Jon Quinnell (LFA78)
“Layers of history – Jon Quinnell
This was a real treat and a delight to create this iconic structure in cake form. One of my personal favourite buildings in London, I have visited it on tours on so many occasions during its life span. From first seeing the derelict shell to regularly observing the transformation during the current redevelopment. Having previously documented Battersea Power Station as a cardboard sculpture in 2015, I took upon this challenge with very minimal baking experience.
During the process, I had to learn from my own successes and failures as I went. As a graphic designer and sculptural artist, my intention throughout was to capture and celebrate the architectural details and patterns which I have always been very fond of. The base shape is formed from three layers of chocolate sponges adorned with confectionery decorations and the important chimneys have been moulded with melted white chocolate.”
