Icing on the cake

After spending days making elaborately decorated cakes, Drs Kym Hiern and Jayne Jones, co-owners of Duneba Dental in Pymble, NSW, give them away.

Dr Jayne Jones

Kym has always made beautiful cakes for everybody so for her 50th birthday, I decided to make her a special princess cake. Thanks to her inspiration I now enjoy making cakes for family and friends. If I’m panicking because I haven’t finished a cake, Kym will come to my rescue and lend a hand. I’ve made several 21st birthday cakes including a Tinker Bell, Pikachu and Cookie Monster. I recently created a sailing boat birthday cake for a friend’s 70th surprise party. When our lovely hygienist, Jen, got engaged, we made a Tiffany cake with cupcakes. It was the prettiest cake we’ve made and it was great to see everyone enjoying our creation. We make all our cakes from scratch as we want them to taste as good as they look. It’s so easy to go out and buy a gift but I like to put time and effort into making something lovely for someone. I’ve always thought of my cakes as edible gifts. We don’t enter competitions as our cakes are made to be given away and eaten. Our wonderful dental staff members are always keen to help with quality control and regularly test our baking efforts.”

Dr Kym Hiern

“Years ago, pre-children, I decided to try cake decorating at TAFE. It was in the days of fine-piped icing and I lasted a term. My only other training was working my way through the Women’s Weekly cookbooks. Once I discovered that the consistency of fondant icing is the same as composite resin, my love of cake decorating took off.

“Like Jayne, I make cakes as gifts. My goddaughter requests a different cake every year and some are quite challenging. One year, it was a Justine Bieber perfume bottle and the most recent was a globe of the world. A spherical cake is a little demanding as it relies on half spheres strengthened by layers of chocolate ganache. The end product looked great, even though my husband was quick to constructively criticise that the continents were out of proportion. I’ve also made a ‘Hoot the Owl’ cake for my nephew and several wedding cakes for friends and family. I’ve been known to use my loupes for detailed work.

“I really enjoy giving friends something I’ve made—it’s giving the gift of time. And when I see people cut into the cake and enjoy a slice, even better!

https://bitemagazine.com.au/icing-on-the-cake/

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Kym Hiern