Lifesize Shrek cake made by Walsall baker donated to food banks
Ms Mason, whose company is called Lara Cakes, usually bakes her own sponge for her creations, but with the time it takes to craft the models, this can sometimes lead to the cake becoming stale."In order to keep this cake fresh so it could be donated, we asked a bakery close by to bake the cake for us in bulk," she told the BBC. "That's a lot of cake."She has been making cakes for more than 13 years but said she has never made a cake this tall and wide in such a short time scale before and had to stand on ladders to do a lot of the decorating."So that was a real challenge," she said.However, after seeing the teasers for the new Shrek 5 film, which will be released next year, she said she knew she had to try and recreate it.
To make Shrek's face, Ms Mason covered it in chocolate ganache, which she used to sculpt the ogre's distinctive features.But she was shocked to discover the summer heatwave had caused the face to fall off overnight."That was an absolute fail," she said. "The face was far too heavy, and the ganache was far too soft, so I had to start all over again with that, and I used kebab skewers just to give the cake something to grip onto."I really was ready to give up when the face fell off as I was against the clock to get it finished, but I persevered and managed to finish bang on schedule."Knowing the cake was going to a good cause, I wanted to put my all into it, so I worked extra hard to get it finished."
Videos of her building the cake have been seen by nearly six million people across social media, and once she had shot all of her footage, the cake was cut up and delivered to local food banks to be enjoyed."Walsall North Food Bank in Pelsall and Cannock and District Food Bank in Chadsmoor were more than happy to take a big delivery of yummy cake," she said.
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