Covered in tattoos and with an engaging Brummie accent and a nose ring, Ben Cullen is the very antithesis of beloved Queen of Cakes Mary Berry. But while the former tattoo artist may be a far cry from the genteel world of Bake Off, his magnificent creations certainly give the doyenne of desserts a run for her money.
In fact Ben, aka The Bake King, has become one of the world’s most celebrated and creative cake makers in the space of a decade. His extraordinary culinary creations – including Hogwarts, Beetlejuice, Buckingham Palace, teddy bears and trainers – show there is pretty much nothing he can’t recreate in cake form.
Indeed, Ben’s hyper-real cakes include pizzas, burger and chips, watermelon and even raw chicken breasts so realistic, he confesses: “Even I was repulsed when I bit into it – and I’d baked it.”
The 35-year-old married father-of-two has around a million social media followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, plus a host of big-name clients and brands like Sainsbury’s, having built himself a many- tiered baking empire from scratch.
Now he has compiled his first book, featuring his 20 favourite creations as the proverbial icing on the you-know-what.
“If social media goes down, then the book will be there forever which is what any artist wants,” he chuckles.
“I think the burger and chips is my favourite cake in the book because it is just so colourful and detailed and one of my most popular, along with the pizza. It takes me a few hours to do that one.
“Some cakes can take me a few days but I don’t let anything go over a week though because the cake will go stale. What it tastes like is just as important as what it looks like so that means 6am starts in the studio, working until 2am.”
At the moment Ben is working on something a little closer to home, a two foot Disney Castle for daughter Willow’s 4th birthday. Last year was a 6ft tall Ariel mermaid so he has toned it down a bit this year size wise due to the intricacy of the castle.
“I’ve had to because I’m also making my sister’s wedding cake.” Family cakes aside, Ben has baked for a host of big name stars including Rita Ora, Little Mix and Jurgen Klopp although he keeps his prices under wraps. But he isn’t from a cookery background and has had no formal training.
After a degree in fine art graphic design at Chester University, he ventured into the world of tattooing. The cake making came after being inspired by a cake design shown to him by a client he was tattooing.
So he swapped his ink and needles for some flour and icing sugar and whisked himself up a brand new career.
“I never baked as a kid although my mum made me scones every day and made birthday cakes. But I have always loved art, graffiti, drawing, painting, sculpture from cardboard boxes, I just like making things.
“After my tattoo client showed me the cake pictures on her phone and said the whole thing was edible I just knew I wanted to have a go at it.The first time I made a cake I had to ring up my mum and get her to talk me through making a very basic Madeira sponge.”
He started to create exhibition pieces to hone his craft and get to grips with the baking as well as the fancy finish. He has won a gold award at Cake International every year since 2015 and was named one of the UK’s top 10 cake artists at Cakemasters in 2019.
Thanks to Channel 4’s Extreme Cake Makers, his profile grew and you can currently watch some of his early sculptured cakes on Extreme Cake Makers on Netflix. But it is on social media where he has really found fame with his illusion cakes.
“Social media has such a huge reach so I concentrate on that and my videos. I’ve had my fair share of disasters though. The thing with social media is you only see the perfect end result but behind the scenes I would have had to make that cake several times and it will have inevitably gone wrong. You just don’t see the mistakes.”
“Not so easy to hide them in real life though. When I had my shop it would be a nightmare in the summer, delivering cakes to customers or going to exhibitions in my little Vauxhall Corsa with no air-conditioning.
“They would just melt and I would have to rebuild them when I got there.”
Other baking disasters included spending hours making a replica brown briefcase a woman had requested for her husband’s birthday. I was really proud of it.”
Unfortunately a miscommunication was thrown into the mix and what she had really wanted was a cricket bat and ball on grass with the brief case as a little extra decoration.
“Her face when I opened the box. I had to ring my mum, who didn’t even know I was back in Birmingham, tell her to clear some space in the kitchen, and I raced round there and made a new one. Talk about stressful but I had never let anyone down before and didn’t want to.”
Ironically for a man who spends his days knee deep in sponge and fondant icing, Ben doesn’t have a sweet tooth.
“I don’t actually like cake which is just as well else I’d be massive. I don’t mind a flapjack.Having said that the other day my little girl offered me a bite of her Mr Kipling angel cake and I thought ‘God that is really nice.”
* If you want to try and recreate some of Ben’s hyper-illusion cakes, his new book offers a step by step illustrated guide. Cake or Fake? Ben Cullen AKA The Bake King is published on 12th June in hardback by Welbeck for £25.