I had the great pleasure to attend a sugar flower demonstration with Alan Dunn from London on rainy Thursday evening. Alan has over 20 years of experience in demonstration and flower making; in fact he started when he was only 14 years old. Alan, re-told many stories of how when asked what birthday presents he wanted growing up he would always ask for cake decorating equipment, and that his teachers often asked him to make family birthday cakes which were surprisingly more impressive than they expected.
Alan is certainly an eccentric character, he taught the class with no shoes, and was sweating profusely; I don’t think he was prepared to how humid Melbourne was that evening. Alan spoke about all the trade shows he had attended in Australia as well as how much he loved the name “Myrtle” and if in fact he was to buy another cat, he would name her so. A little of topic I realise, but funny.
Alan is renowned for creating realistic flowers from sugar, he has published a number of books and had a new book soon to be released in 2012. To be honest I didn’t realise how well known he was until I sat with the 70 year old ladies from the club (yes I was the youngest in the room) who acted like teenage girls at a rock concert. The ladies were all asking me to work out how to use their Nokia mobile phones to snap pictures, it was absolutely adorable.
There is certainly a cult like following with Alan’s work and seeing him in action, I can certainly appreciate why that is. He demonstrated a Chinese Hibiscus and Orchard in 2 hours and used traditional technique to colour the fondant to bring the flowers to life. Alan was truly amazing and his work is simply beautiful, he is certainly a true artist.
Until next time happy baking-decorating
xo
KB
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