NEED TO KNOW
- April’s Baker launched a video series turning iconic cities into stunning tiered wedding cakes
- Sisters Roxy and Corinne Mankoo, who run the London-based bespoke cake studio, tell PEOPLE that they’ve transformed eight cities from around the world into wedding cakes, but have “more cities in the pipeline”
- Cities that have been featured so far include: Athens, London, Kyoto, New York, Marrakesh, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Jingdezhen
A bakery is going global, one wedding cake at a time.
While promoting their London-based bespoke cake studio, April’s Baker, on social media, sisters Roxy and Corinne Mankoo came up with the unique idea of creating a video series of wedding cakes inspired by different cities around the world.
“The theme was a fun idea we came up with together,” Roxy and Corinne tell PEOPLE. “Wedding cakes can be these beautiful works of art to mark such a special occasion. The thought of translating cities into wedding cakes was an exciting project to showcase our creativity and try new designs and techniques.”
Each video whisks viewers away to a different city through intricate cake design. From Athens’ historic ruins to the shimmering skyscrapers of New York City, global inspiration has been turned into towering confections worthy of a wedding.
So far, they’ve featured Athens, London, Kyoto, New York, Marrakesh, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, and Jingdezhen. But they aren’t planning on stopping there.
“We have a couple more cities in the pipeline which we’re looking forward to showing everyone, so make sure to keep an eye out on our social media to see which cities are next,” the sisters say.
The women introduced their “Cities around the world as wedding cakes” video series in August, starting with Athens. Their ivory piping mimicked ancient Greek architecture, and featured edible seashells, pearls and busts. Two tiers were held up by four white columns surrounded by sugared purple and green grapes.
After their first video amassed nearly 200,000 likes and more than 1.5 million views on TikTok alone, they were inspired to keep going. As the creative director, Roxy was the one to design and decorate the cakes. Meanwhile, Corinne, who is the managing director and handles day-to-day business, created the accompanying content.
“It’s been amazing to work on and we really appreciate everyone’s support and enthusiasm on social media across both our April’s Baker and April’s Baker Sisters pages,” the duo shares.
Roxy and Corinne explain that the inspiration for their cake designs comes from a variety of places.
“It’s a mixture of mood boards, and our own personal ties and experiences in these cities,” they say. “For example, our Athens cake is inspired by our Greek heritage, our Kyoto cake was influenced by our travels there, and New York is where Roxy used to be based for culinary school.”
They continue: “Each cake design is researched and concepted to make sure we capture the essence of these wondrous locations as well as the personal sentiment we hold for them.”
With approximately 175,000 views and 21,000 likes, the London-inspired cake featured ruffled piping with black accents, a domed top tier, black bows and miniature relief portraits.
Next was Kyoto with over 172,000 views and about 30,000 likes. Icing on the five-tiered pastel pink cake mimicked Japanese roof tiles and cherry blossoms.
Fittingly, “Theme from New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra played in the background for the New York City-inspired wedding cake, the clip of which gained nearly 900,000 views and 130,000 likes. The four-tiered cake was entirely silver and piped in what appears to be an art-deco style. “It kinda looks like me,” the official Empire State Building account commented.
The next four cakes, which also had thousands of likes and views, were far more colorful.
Marrakesh was in a base shade of coral with green and bright pink floral piping. Rio de Janeiro was adorned in yellow, blue and green, and Paris lived up to its City of Love title with romantic red frosting and cupid decorations. Jingdezhen featured blue birds and flowers native to China.
The amount of time it took to complete each cake depended on each specific design.
“From sketching to designing to decorating, on average, for just the piping decoration, this would take between two to three hours, dependent on the design,” Roxy and Corinne say.
The sisters clarify that while the cakes were made out of styrofoam because they were just used for content creation purposes, it doesn’t mean that can’t be made edible.
“Should someone be looking to order, we can certainly recreate them or are open to create a design for a city of their own choosing,” the pair tell PEOPLE.
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April’s Baker evolved into a sister-run business after its inception six years ago.
“Roxy launched April’s Baker in November 2019 after deciding to pursue her dream of running a luxury bespoke cake business,” according to the bakery’s website. “Having trained at Le Cordon Bleu, and learnt from bakeries across London and New York, she wanted to dedicate her skill set and eye for detail to creations that blended playful color palettes with classic charm, for cakes that are so much more than just cakes.”
Eventually, Corinne became co-director.
“Corinne studied Event Design and Business Management, bringing even more to the unique creativity that makes April’s Baker something so special,” the website states.
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