My only instruction this time around was to make a pretty engagement cake for a room with blue walls. Well, the possibilities just flooded into my brain. Seeing as I had not met the couple, I wasn’t limited by their tastes or personalities. I truly had a blank slate.

Monet, the most famous of the Impressionists, spent the last thirty years of his life primarily painting his water lily series, using his home garden in Giverny for inspiration.

You can visit there today, and it feels as if you’ve stepped right into a painting. The flowers are lush and abundant and even the iconic Japanese-style bridge spanning the pond looks exactly as it appears in the artwork.

Many cake decorators use a tool called an airbrush. It works in a similar way to spray paint, although with more control over coverage and colour. One advantage is being able to create seamless gradations of colour without seeing brush strokes or drips. It’s also a much more time-efficient method of colouring a cake surface. However, in this case I wanted the brush strokes to be visible and to create a nuanced progression of colour up the sides of the cake. Even more importantly, I don’t own an airbrush.

The method I used for painting the greens, teals and blue shades was completely unscientific and imprecise – and extremely satisfying. I spent considerable time blending, sponging, and dabbing, mostly because I was having such a great time.

The water lilies in the paintings are almost all pink but I decided to stick with a blue theme. Next time – and I truly hope I get another shot at this one – I’ll give pink a go.

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