Susan Bridgeman, of Alexander, has been decorating caked since the summer of 2013. Bridgeman uses different mediums to make her astonishing cakes. She has been known to make multiple tiered cakes using rice crispy or puffed wheat cake.
Bridgeman is the creative type, she has a background in graphic design and video game art. She currently is a graphic artist at the Virden Empire-Advance newspaper. Bridgeman has no formal cake decorating education, stating that it comes naturally to her and if she gets stuck she looks online for ideas.
Bridgeman’s unicorn cake was an 18 inch cake, stacked with four layers of chocolate cake and 3three layers of puffed wheat cake. It was fully covered in buttercream and mostly decorated in buttercream. The horn and ears were fondant painted with edible gold luster dust mixed with an alcohol based vanilla extract.
“I enjoy the creativity cake decorating allows me to express,” says Bridgeman.
“I have developed a creative process which I use when creating my cakes,” Bridgeman says, “ someone gives me a request and I mentally figure out how to dissect the whole into smaller more manageable pieces.” She adds, “I decide what kind of structure it needs, if it is going to be buttercream, fondant or a mixture; and, if I need to do research to ensure the process is executed properly.”
Bridgeman’s most memorable cake was a large, three tier Lion King cake, with five fondant character figurines, over 150 tiny flowers, countless leaves, and large accessories made out of rice crispy cake which were molded and covered with fondant. Bridgeman says it was her most time consuming cake, working on it for over one week.
Like many artists, Bridgeman says she gets satisfaction from the joy her cakes give people.
