I wanted a place where I could be creative, make beautiful things and be inspired. A place that was separate from my home life, yet still connected. When I moved to my home in Dorset 3 years ago (which was a dream in itself) I was presented with an opportunity to build onto the house using planning consent which had expired for the previous owners. There was a square of decking outside the house and an old utility room, it was the perfect area to demolish and create something new. I had ideas for what I would like but I couldn’t afford it.

It was way too expensive and I was just starting to build up my work again after covid had reduced it to nothing. So I waited and hoped things would get better, in the interim I taught myself how to pipe buttercream flowers, launched a new online cake school and my business slowly and steadily picked up again. People seemed to like what I was doing so started to ask if I could teach them too.

It seemed like a natural progression to make myself a creative and functional space where I could share my skills.

In February 2025 after one and a half years of planning, saving, worrying, saving, planning, saving more, deciding…. and more worrying. The works and demolition finally began. All stresses aside I was super excited to be finally getting the cake studio of my dreams, as well as a gorgeous extension to the house which would also house a beautiful new utility room at one end.

I planned it all meticulously and wanted it to have all the pretty little touches that would give it a unique character as well as a practical area to work and teach from. Ultimately I wanted it to be an inspirational place to be, with gorgeous views across the garden and flowers. I didn’t just want to build another kitchen, I already have a kitchen. This was going to be a beautiful creative space, not too huge, cosy and intimate with warmth, artistic twists and little nods to my quirky side.

I’m lucky enough to have the most wonderful views across agricultural land and a garden that I have been working hard on and I wanted to be able to look out on to the one thing that inspires me every day no matter what the weather.

For 7 months my house has been full of builders and dust, mostly men, I’m not complaining and its been rather lovely chatting away to them all about life whilst I’ve been working. Ive also fed them all lots of tea and cake and its been fab to have mouths to feed all the testers and offcuts. Watching the building works unfold has been utterly fascinating, I’ve also enjoyed being able to keep a close eye on proceedings to make sure nothing goes wrong.

A year ago I had made a little card model all to 1;25 scale and every day I looked at it hoping and praying it would become real. It had beautiful steel handmade doors, bespoke cupboards for all of my things and a mosaic floor made to my design with a floral motif in my corporate colours. Step by step brick by brick the space started to come to life and every day that I walked downstairs to the mess I couldn’t believe that all these people were building something for me just the way I envisioned.

It was really important that I used local companies to help achieve my vision, I wanted to create a really unique space and not a blank white room with no soul, so several items were handcrafted to my own design and I will pop links to them all as you read if you are interested.

I’m lucky to have a talented brother who runs London Mosaic they supply and create beautiful tiled floors. With a family member in the trade how could I not have one of their floors installed, so I chose a gorgeous mosaic hexagon design which I customised to fit in with my branding and colours.

I also chose a gorgeous solid oak beam to run along the roof, it was never actually needed to hold anything up, I just love a lump of wood, all 70kg of it! In addition I had beautiful oak windowsills from Dorset Design Works

My old dining room table was properly pimped up by Robbie from Interior Tailors a fantastic local company that revamps and repairs old furniture. For me it was turning an 25 year old solid oak John Lewis table into the cake decorators table of dreams. He raised it to working height, added a wipeable surface and inserted perfectly sized drawers at either end to hold all of my piping tips and pots of colours. It is utterly amazing, a joy to behold and totally unique to me.

A few gorgeous stools and it is the perfect table for teaching around. I also have a little vision of me when I’m older, getting out my flower press or painting easel and taking up one of the other arty hobbies that I love. Its also a place for lovely lazy family lunches and sharing a glass of wine with good friends.

Inbuilt cupboards

Doors

Plank Handles

Me doing the DIY

Built in cupboards at the far end were put in by my carpenter Andy and the whole build was completed by James Newsam Builders, a local Dorset company. I chose bobbin handles in an antique brass from plank Hardware which I fell in love with and these gorgeous cupboards were designed perfectly to house all of my boards, boxes, paper, tools, cake stands etc as well as a lovely little hidden desk at one end for me. Ohhhh and I also have a secret fridge and microwave in there too… for wine, and lots of buttercream!

Lastly, before I share a few of the finished images, this room was also all about the view. I kept things light and bright with large sliding doors to the outside decking. The perfect place for my students and I to sit with a cuppa and gaze at all the beautiful flowers, as well as sleek and slim profiled steel dividing doors. These gave me a gorgeous division between my home life and my studio life, but also allowing me to swing both the doors open on non work days and just enjoy the space. These were handcrafted by local company BOMEN who are just 5 minutes down the road from my home.

Designed to perfectly fit the space to the mm, the slim lines echoed that of older style warehouse buildings and helped to add a chic and elegant piece of character to the space.

Once the doors were installed all I needed was for the guys to deliver and put together my new table. Excitement doesn’t even begin to explain how I feel about my new space, I cant even believe its mine and that I have achieved it all by myself through hard work and determination. Building work is a stressful undertaking and it did break me just a little towards the end BUT the summer is over, the skips and porta loos gone and I now get to open my doors to you, my students.

I get to share my gorgeous new space and be creative with you, its the best job in the world. Oh and did I mention I have a fully installed air con system too so no more sweaty buttercream and hot hands. We can programme it to the perfect working temperature!

If you are wondering how to go about booking a course with me you will find upcoming group workshops here on the website Workshops

If you prefer a one to one Masterclass where you get all the attention then take a look here Masterclass

But don’t worry if you cant travel to the gorgeous county of Dorset, UK, I have online classes that you can follow from home wherever you are in the world. You can choose from over 100 buttercream flower tutorials right here in my Cake School

If you are travelling from far away I can even put you up in my little boutique bed and breakfast room at the house.

For now, I’m off to do some baking and I cant wait to meet you all soon.

Rachel x

I wanted to talk about the big bad buttercream debate…….

I’ve recently had some reels do really well on social media lately, huraghhhh. But what happens when things go viral is that all sorts of people get on board including those that are not really interested or understanding of what they are looking at.

It is also a lovely big open wide window for people to say whatever they like, which can happen on any kind of post or video in the social media world.

Very recently an argument started, on a comment where a follower stated something along the lines of

“YUK, too much frosting, heart attack on a plate”

” Nice to look at but disgusting to eat” (Have you ever eaten my cakes….urrrrr no!)

Now I’m ok with negative comments and everyone is allowed an opinion of course, but this comment then led to about 50 more comments where people were arguing with one another and then just being rude to each other or defending my little cuppy cakes 🙂

Now what you have to remember is humans like me put their heart and soul into their crafts/businesses. There are lots of things I don’t like, but I would never comment like this on someone’s business page. If it’s not your thing then just move on, or consider your comment a little better, like

” These look lovely but I’m not keen on too much buttercream”

“Gorgeous cakes but I find frosting too sweet.”

Its so funny what people feel they are allowed to say when they don’t have to actually say it to someone’s face. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not upset or offended at all, it just got me looking at my product and thinking a little. Because I get a lot of orders, comments on how delicious and amazing they are from all of my customers and I’ve even eaten my own cupcakes would you believe it! I thought they were pretty scrumptious too.

The thing is, to me this is art and food all rolled into a beautiful little bunch of flowers. A floral cupcake is just not visually the same as a pack of 6 with a blob of frosting and some sprinkles from the supermarket, albeit they might taste nice.

You are purchasing a totally different product here. I am making a cupcake look like a flower!!!

Some flowers are also going to require a little more buttercream than others in order to achieve that look.

I try my hardest to make them look like real flowers using this medium. Which is slippy slidy butter, sugar and a bit of vanilla pretty much (and my super method and years of skill of course)

So you are buying into yummy cake, food, art and something stunning and beautiful all at the same time. It enables you to give someone a gorgeous and unusual gift that they can eat, and at which point you hand over this gift they hopefully see flowers….. then you say “They are cakes”

And they say ” NOOOOOO, you are kidding me, really…I thought they were flowers”

That’s what’s so cool about this edible craft. The element of surprise and delight.

Not everyone likes cake, pretty much everyone likes flowers. Some people love the icing, I mean really love it and they will lick it all off and leave the cake, the ‘Lickers’. Then you get the ‘Pickers’, the ones that sort of pick at bits of icing and cake not sure which to go for most. After that its the ones who cut the cake part in half and sandwich all the buttercream, the ‘Sandwichers’

Of course there’s the ‘Shovellers’ who shove it in all at once, or the ‘Disecters’ slowly taking the cake apart bit by bit wondering if it really is edible at all. Finally the ‘Flickers’, the ones who love a bit of cake and icing but maybe don’t want all the icing, so quite simply flick a bit off. (That’s me!)

The ‘Dieters’…. shhhh I wont mention. They are hiding in the cupboard….eating cupcakes.

So there you have it. Its my job and I love it, everyone that purchases my cupcakes love them too. Whichever way you choose to eat yours do it with love and above all be kind. If you cant comment nicely don’t comment at all.

Buttercream is sweet. Everything in moderation. I’d love to know your thoughts!

Over and out.

Rachel x

PS. If you’d like to see more of my work see my website Rachelles

PPS. If you’d like to learn this gorgeous tasty craft see my Cake School

I wanted to write a little post on Social Media….that thing that we all have to do as small businesses to get noticed. You know, that new job that we have all had to train ourselves in as well as the usual day job.

That thing that we are expected to be amazing at, graphics, film making, photography, editing, showing our faces, being amazing all the time, posting new content every day. Do you run your own business and use instagram and face book as a platform?, well it can be exhausting.

Have you ever heard of Imposter Syndrome?

” It is a psychological occurrence in which people doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments , those experiencing this believe they do not deserve their success or luck”

Instagram can be horrible for making you feel this, especially with its erratic algorithm that we all have to adhere to. Its a funny world that we now work in, where we need to show up, show our faces, be cool, be amazing, jump around to silly music, speed ourselves up, slow ourselves down.

Then some days no matter how hard we try or how amazing we are being, social media hates us. No one sees our fabulous content and we feel deflated. This saps our energy and we feel like pants.

How come Janet down the road is producing wonderful content every day?….well I can assure you that Janet is hiding behind a big screen because I can bet your bottom dollar that she’s feeling it too!!

Its also very easy for people to be mean on social media, harsh flippant comments with no thought to who they are speaking to. These in particular I have learnt to scroll on by, quickly execute and remove. Its not worth my mental space and can put you in a low mood.

I made a point of saying at the start of this year (2024) that I would not let myself be ‘effected’. By that I mean to focus more on being me and what I aspire to be, rather than looking at others and wish I was doing things as well as they are, or I think they are…. (or appear to be!)

I think its really important on the socials to just be yourself. If you are not the person that wears a silly dress and dances round the garden with a cupcake, then don’t try to be them.

Since I started up my life in the country 2 years ago, a side of me has come bursting out, its always been there I’ve just not had a chance to fully tap into it.

That person is not in a white apron, in a perfect kitchen with perfect nails and hair all the time. That person is me, the mother, the business owner, the twitchy creative, flitting from planting flowers in the garden to rounding up the chickens, fishing in a stream with my son or digging up an apple tree. In between all that I’m dreaming up the next cake design, wondering what I can create from buttercream next…. flicking through garden magazines, ordering new flowers for my cutting patch and drawing pictures of my next edible bouquet with my colour pencils.

Let your followers see who you really are, and if that’s not what instagram likes then hey ho!

I’m always itching to come up with new ideas for my cakes and strive to be unique and original in my own work. We all have competition out there, but that is a healthy thing and spurs me on to be myself.

But why are we a part of all this new craziness? For me it gives me a buzz that you like what I do, it also gets me business which is important. I can use it as a marketing tool, for advertising and I like chatting with someone in the day and showing you what I’m up to. Its valuable feedback too and Ive made some great instagram friends Ive never met.

BUT… all this aside, do try to avoid clicking on your engagement every day…. DO NOT DO IT!

Just be you, keep doing what you do well. Who cares what Janet is doing….she’s just sapping your creative energies. She’s probably peeking at what you are doing every day too and wishing she was as good as you are!

Does it really really matter if you have 50’000 followers or 1 million followers. What really matters is that you stay true to yourself. What’s the point in having random robots following you if they don’t engage or give you business. I have some really lovely followers and its important to me that they receive my support and that I inspire them daily with what I love.

My followers are my virtual office, cake making as a single parent can be lonely but I love my virtual office and your support spurs me on daily, I thank you deeply for that.

Last year I used to wake up in a bit of a panic that I hadn’t done my instagram post, or made yet another reel,….

Whilst its important to remain current and keep followers engaged I’ve tried to step back and only post content I really want to when I want to, not what I feel I should post just to keep Instagram happy. Otherwise its exhausting.

Its important to me to show who I really am too, what motivates me to bring out my creative soul. And that the life I live is the one I share with my son in my house in the country with my animals, after all it is my surroundings and beautiful garden that I find the most inspirational for my baking work. So if you really don’t like the odd story with a chicken in it, or me digging and showing you the flowers I’ve grown then I’m not the baker for you.

I urge you to stick around though as great things are coming, and I’ve got hundreds of dahlias ready to grow in the garden to inspire my buttercream blooms and if I can’t show them to you guys who on earth will I share them with!

Stay true to you.

Rachel x