"i'd have called maisie fantaisie"

Maisie Fantaisie is recommended by the events team at Claridges and we have supplied numerous wedding cakes and birthday cakes for weddings at Claridges and private events. The events team will help you plan your day ensuring that every requirement is met to a very high standard. I have spent some lovely evenings with friends in Claridges bar and the service and atmosphere is really special and I can thoroughly recommend the hotel to host your wedding event.

Claridges is a traditional grand hotel located in a terraced block in Mayfair, central London. It has old connections with royalty and it’s reputation in terms of elegance and prestige was cemented in 1860 when Queen Victoria was entertained during an extended visit by Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III.

Over the years the Claridges has been popular with Actors and entertainers including Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock and Mick Jagger. The restaurant is currently run by Gordon Ramsay and offers an exquisite array of menus and a history of state banquets and royal receptions ensure it’s function rooms offer outstanding facilities making them perfect for a very special London wedding or civil partnership.

On arrival you enter the hotel through the impressive main lobby….

The Art Deco Ballroom is a luxurious wedding venue and it has been the setting for many society weddings and balls. It is exquisitely decorated and flooded with natural daylight through five floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s capacity is 192 but caters for up to 240 when used in conjunction with the mirror room…

Alternatively The French Salon is perfect for cocktail receptions and weddings and also ideal for dancing and evening entertainment. The room features an impressive mural of a dancing couple, uncovered during refurbishment…

There are also numerous other rooms available, you can book weddings at Claridges here.

The weekend saw me delivering another wedding cake to a wedding at The Ritz hotel on Piccadilly. It’s such a wonderful hotel. Opened in 1906 by the Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz, it was designed to resemble a stylish Parisian block of flats. Mr.Ritz personally managed the hotel’s operations for many years. The high standards to which he held his staff and luxury which provided his guests had previously been entirely foreign to Victorian Londoners, and the sensation he caused in the hotel industry began a change in the industry’s focus.

I was supplying the cake for an intimate wedding reception in the hotel’s William Kent room. The William Kent House was renovated and opened in 2006 as an extension to the hotel and has a wonderful function area including the Burlington room, the William Kent room…

and the Queen Elizabeth room..

Although I’ve been here quite a few times now I was thinking to myself, whilst setting the cake up, that it is always such a treat to see the room’s opulence up close and personal and that I’m lucky to have these opportunities while supplying some of the best hotels in London. I remember first seeing this room whilst watching the film’ The September Issue’, Anna Wintour (editor-in-chief of American Vogue) was having a meeting and I remember thinking that it was an amazing room that I had no idea existed within the walls of the Ritz Hotel and there I was standing there myself!

So here is a picture of the lovely little sparkly cakes I delivered, I think I might have to think up a reason to book out the room myself! You can book weddings at The Ritz here!

I always think that come winter things might slow a little in the Maisie Fantaisie cake kitchen, but this winter has been our busiest to date, so please accept my apologies for neglecting my blog.

When production designer Bruce French commissioned a cake from Maisie Fantaisie for this year’s 30th birthday Brit awards, his single request was that it was fabulous! We had some discussion about the aftershow party area and I was told that it was going to be a classic birthday party with a dress-up area, crazy golf, karaoke, tarot, dodgems, balloon makers, bingo and a dancefloor. The tables would be covered in pink gingham, with metallic balloons in the ceiling and glitter drapes everywhere. So, with that in mind I set about designing the cake. It needed to be tall, so we went for a five tier with a large base, and in keeping with the eclectic party theme I decided to make each tier of the cake a different design with a lot of pink glitter. I didn’t want it to be overly music themed as it was primarily a birthday cake, but the music notes on the middle tier were the perfect gesture.

When I arrived at the venue with the cake Robbie Williams was soundchecking, especially for me! I have a soft spot for Robbie and it put me right in the mood for the show later, for which we had been given tickets. My friends and dapper chaps Laurence and Wolfgang who have a company called laroache brothers were there taking photos of the impressive backstage area which Bruce had designed, and the cake fitted in just perfectly so we were all very happy.

My husband and I went to the show with our friends Olly and Rachel Knights. Olly is the singer in a sublime band called Turin Brakes, who make beautiful music and deserve a Brit themselves…maybe next year! My assistant Emily came along with her fella and we all danced the night away - a great time was had by all….I went to get some cake….but it had all been eaten. Perfect!

Earlier today I was thinking about the next recipe I’m going to post and I thought I might like to make something with apricots, one of my favourite fruits. I’m not quite sure of the combination of the recipe yet (apricots and chocolate, apricots and almond, apricots and orange), but I’m certain that I want to include the delicious Amaretto liqueur. So I’m preparing some dried apricots in Amaretto. I half filled a jar with apricots and I’ve covered them in the liqueur. Seeing the fruit soaking in the jar made me think that this would also make a lovely Christmas treat or gift. These great storage jars can be picked up in most kitchen shops, I got mine in the kitchen department at John Lewis. Name and date the jars with a sticker or tie a label to a ribbon. Whilst I’m deciding what to make, these apricots will soak up the liqueur and are going to taste fantastic! Recipe coming soon (Maybe I’ll add it to my range of wedding cake flavours). x

I wanted to show you what we’ve been up to in the Maisie Fantaisie cake kitchen this week. One of our wedding cakes is to be decorated with an abundance of these beautiful sugar roses. They’re just so pretty I wanted to share them with you! The inner layers of petals are made with individual petals and the 2 outer layers are made with a 5 petal cutter. We’ve left the roses to dry overnight after adding each layer, this makes them a lot easier to work with and a lot less fragile. When the cake is finished, I’ll post a picture!

Update: And here is the finished cake!