80’s TV set for Celebrity Juice, ITV2 and Keith Lemon.

Last week we were rather busy. We had a great pleasure to make an 80’s TV set cake for ‘Celebrity Juice’. The well-known TV comedy show from ITV2 presented by Leigh Francis aka Keith Lemon.

We have been contacted by a TV company and commissioned to make them a 7th birthday cake for the show. And what a roller coaster it has been….

‘Celebrity Juice’ is a well-known comedy show currently airing on ITV2 on Thursday night at 10pm. The main host Keith Lemon – is a character played by super amazingly talented Leigh Francis. Along with him on regular basis also you can see such stars as Holly Willoughby, Fearne Cotton and one of our favourite chef’s – Gino D’Acampo. Also each week on the show they have some celebrity guests. This week they were Vernon Troy, the radio legend himself Chris Moyles, Dean Gaffney from ‘EastEnders’ and Tulisa Contostavlos.

So, how did this happen.

A week or so ago I have received a phone call from a TV company. They were asking if we are able to make a cake for ‘Celebrity Juice’ 7th birthday. As the biggest fans of the programme we got very excited. After quick cooling down some serious planning started.

Sat down and got drawing. Couple of hours later we had a design and the Celebrity Juice people loved it! We were looking forward to this ‘little challenge’ a lot because all of our work is very unique and bespoke. Apart from that this will be our biggest cake to be made up to date! No panic.

Building structure and baking for the TV birthday cake began.

The structure was quite simple job and went pretty smoothly. At the last minute we decided to change the design slightly to make the cake as a retro 80’s TV set.

The next step was to start baking.

We needed 2000 cake portions and only had two days to bake it all. That’s about 30 large sheet cakes. That would be around 24kgs of sugar, 15 kg of flour, 170 eggs and more than 11kgs of butter. Not to mention 15kg of chocolate ganache and a whole lot of the other ingredients!

While baking we were looking at the structure thinking… Can this really hold a quarter of a ton of cake? So Andy set to work strengthening what we had already made. After a rigorous testing session of all of us sitting and lying on the structure we were satisfied it would work.

In the meantime all the structure needed to be covered in white fondant and paint to look like an 80’s TV set. This proved harder than first thought. Especially to control such a big section of fondant in one piece. After some new, quickly learnt techniques, the TV set cake was starting to take shape! Along decorating the TV set cake and baking still going on we also had four caricature heads to make.  All of the them to look like the four ‘Celebrity Juice’ presenters Keith, Fearne, Holly and Gino.

Four and a half days to the D day.

Did we mention we only had four and half days to make and deliver the TV set cake?

After studying pictures of the 4 celebrity presenters, Aggy decided to make them out of our own modelling chocolate.

TV set cake Celebrity Juice ITV2 Keith Lemon part 1 Holly Willoughby

Preparing Holly’s Willoughby head for the TV set cake. It will be placed at the top of the cake for Celebrity Juice.

TV set cake Celebrity Juice ITV2 Keith Lemon part 1

Keith Lemon’s chocolate face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each caricature head had it’s own stand and board so they would fit on top of the TV set.

With only 1 day to go we started layering the cake in the support frame. When we placed all the layers filled with chocolate ganache we realised we were four cake sheets to short to make it the correct height!

So… Fire the oven up again!

Delivery day…

Well, at 4 o’clock in the morning we were still working away. Andy making the screen, Aggy finishing off the caricatures. At this point we have been working about 20 hours straight and decided we needed a little power nap! 4 hours sleep later we were back at it again.

There was still plenty to do before we set off but luckily our good friend Beccy arrived. She kindly tagged along in the morning and cracked on with some of the remaining jobs.

While building the cake we realised how big and heavy this set will be. To make it easier to move the set around the house we have built a rolling stand. Happily we  have managed to push the cake to the front door and onto the drive. However the biggest challenge of all was to lift 250kg+ of cake into our van.

We had to call in extra help from Andy’s uncle and with four of us lifting, we have managed to load it to the van. Seems like all those late gym sessions might of just paid off. Now, just need to pack all of us four and the chocolate heads. This was a massive squeeze but with Aggy’s packing skills we got it all in.

The time was ticking. It was getting rather late. We still had to drive over 100 miles to the TV Studio to deliver the cake before they start filming!

TV set 7th birthday cake for Celebrity Juice Keith Lemon ITV2

In the studio, Keith Lemon is smashing his way through the edible screen. Left to the TV set 7th birthday cake Holly Willoughby and Gino D’Acampo dressed as Fearne Cotton.

TBC in part 2.

Aggy, Andy & Zara

xxx

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