TV baker Frances Quinn creates cake for alumni exhibition
Great British Bake Off winner and NTU alumna Frances Quinn created a show-stopping cake to celebrate 170 years of the University's School of Art & Design.
Frances graduated in 2006 with a degree in Textile Design. She showed the nation how she successfully merges the creative skills she learned then with her culinary flair by winning the BBC show The Great British Bake Off in 2013.
Frances returned to NTU for the opening of the Since 1843: In The Making exhibition which features work from more than 100 alumni, marking 170 years of the School of Art & Design.
She brought with her a stunning chocolate button and marzipan decorated cake in the shape of the dome on the top of the Waverley building – the purposefully built home for the School of Art & Design constructed 150 years ago.
Frances said: "Originally I was going to do a tower of cakes similar to the wedding cake I produced for my final show stopper piece on the TV series. Then I looked at the top of the Waverley building and the shape of the tiles and their colours reminded me of chocolate buttons and I thought, 'that's it, that's what I'll do.""
Layers of different coloured chocolate buttons make up the rows of tiles on the roof while with biscuits used for the brickwork. Frances painstakingly placed individual chocolate shards to become the Roman numerals on the building's clock face.
She said her studies at NTU are part of what has made her a star baker.
"When people ask me what I prefer, design or baking, I can't separate them. For me they are interlinked," she said. "When I'm doing pieces like this, design and baking flow together."
Since 1843: In The Making runs until 7 February 2014. We will be celebrating the end of this exhibition with a special alumni lunch on Saturday 1 February 2014. Find out more and book your place.