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ACD_June_StoryofCake
1. STORY OF A CAKE
What would it take to make a truly
gravity-defying cake? That’s the
question that temporarily upended the
lives of Christine and Phil Jensen of
Peboryon cake studio, leading to months
of late night experiments, brilliant
discoveries and a magnetically strong
relationship with a tiny green man…
LESSONS
INLevitation
BY JUNITA BOGNANNI
2. JUNE 2016 americancakedecorating.com 53
Peboryon of Penzance
Peboryon is a boutique cake studio run by Christine and Phil
Jensen in the small, impossibly beautiful town of Penzance.
Perched at the tip of the United Kingdom’s County
Cornwall, Penzance is surrounded by the sea on three sides,
home to stunning beaches and majestic cliffs. At just over 18
months, Peboryon is a young business, but it springs from
Christine’s many years of experimentation. “It all started
with some pretty tragic birthday cakes for our children,” she
joked. “The first 10 years were just about growing as a baker
and decorator, and as my skill grew, I became more curious
and got a little more adventurous.”
Realizing they couldn’t make a living by selling muffins and
cookies at local markets, the Jensens quickly shifted gears.
“We decided to use what we had—my experience of making
really special celebration cakes, and access to the best
dairies and farms you can find at this end of the world,” said
Christine. “We began focusing on designing and creating
gourmet wedding cakes and cake sculptures.”
Inviting Yoda In
Christine’s curiosity could not be suppressed. After
delivering their most challenging cake to date (a life-sized
loggerhead turtle cantilevered off of a fondant coral reef
as if swimming in mid-air), Phil and Christine sat down to
a cup of tea and got to talking about what it would take
to create a truly gravity-defying cake. “We researched
how to suspend a cake from a helium balloon, along with
many other crazy schemes. Cakes hung from wires. Cakes
floating on magnets… Once we eventually worked out how
(theoretically) we could make a cake levitate, we started
thinking about how we could design a cake-story that
could really showcase the floating cake element,” said Phil.
With the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the
answer soon dawned on them. “We thought it was best
to invite Yoda into the story because if anyone can make a
cake levitate it’s him!”
Levitating Cakes
Making a cake lighter than air was challenging to say the
least. After much trial and error, magnets seemed to be the
way to go, but don’t let their simplicity fool you. “Magnets
don’t balance on each other. They really don’t. Seriously.
They like to flip around and stick to each other and throw
cake on the walls, floors, and ceilings. Our studio was cake
Armageddon for a while,” said Christine. “Since we made
Yoda we have had a few people walk up to us and say ‘oh
yeah, floating a cake, I did that last week.’ Show me your
scars my friend, then I’ll believe.”
The Jensens quickly realized the kind of science they
needed was well beyond anything they could find on
Amazon. They found a company in Europe that had nothing
at all to do with cake and after several conversations and a
significant investment, they took a deep breath, and bought
a special device. “We nervously unpacked it from the box
when it arrived. Kind of like Christmas, but with a whole
heap more riding on it,” said Phil. “We plugged it in and
there it was, hovering with two tangerines sitting on
top of it.” It worked!
Soon after their experiments started up again, resulting in
even more cake on the floors, walls and ceilings. “It turns
out your cake needs to be really well balanced if it is not
going to end up redecorating your house,” said Christine.
LEFT: Peboryon's latest levitating creation TOP: Phil and Christine
Jensen of Peboryon
“ “
OH YEAH, FLOATING A CAKE,
I DID THAT LAST WEEK.
SHOW ME YOUR SCARS MY
FRIEND, THEN I’LL BELIEVE.
4. JUNE 2016 americancakedecorating.com 55
After many attempts, there it was… “A lovely 8-inch round
carrot cake with orange cream cheese buttercream hovering
lazily in mid air. It was like we had just landed on the moon:
cheers, high fives, sighs of relief. Then we realized we
needed to make it work stuck on top of a crazy tower of
objects as part of the overall Yoda cake.”
Cake International
Before the Jensens could present Yoda at Cake
International, the world’s largest sugar craft fair, they had
some major work to do. “To make things exceptionally hard
for ourselves (because who would want to do it the easy
way!?), we decided to make the wedding cake balance on
top of a tower of rocks and Star Wars stuff, all precariously
balanced on top of each other,” said Christine. They also
wanted the levitated cake to be just as impressive as the
Yoda sculpture doing the levitation.
“The first time we put the whole cake together we just could
not get the cake to level. The metal pole that held everything
up flexed, and so the cake was way off,” said Phil. They
were also trying out some new techniques with modeling
chocolate to create Yoda’s head and cloak. “Our first
attempt was good, but not good enough. It was sickening,
but we took the whole thing off and recovered it. There was
no way we were going to present a cake if we weren’t 100%
happy with the quality of the work.”
LEFT: Photo credit - Henry Nicholis | Lift off! Yoda in the midst of
his Jedi trickery. TOP: Phil in the process of sculpting Yoda.
Want to see more images of how this
incredible cake came together? Visit ACD+
via AmericanCakeDecorating.com.
