Our Friday Feature this week not only rebels against the idea of not playing with your food – she’s actually internationally known for it. Proving gingerbread isn’t just for Christmas (but is is pretty special at this time of year!), and creating architectural masterpieces using icing and other edible materials… it’s the ever so talented food artist, Emily Garland.
Let’s get to know more about the creative woman behind the small business…
I grew up in a very creative household. My mum’s a retired music teacher and my dad’s a retired architect. We were all endlessly making, baking and playing throughout my childhood so it’s just always been a part of everyday life. I think it’s an inherent need, like an outlet. I have a choice about what form it takes, but I don’t think I could ever not be doing something creative!
There were some specific artists and artworks that really captured my imagination actually. I remember coming across Carl Warner’s other-wordly food landscape photography years ago and I still love it to this day. And Peta O’Brien’s large-scale work, especially her famous Skoda cake car, made me dream of doing something similar.
I love that it is simultaneously strong and fragile. And the temporary nature of creating with food is my favourite thing really. Spending hours (or weeks!) building something knowing that it will only be enjoyed for a short time might sound silly or disheartening, but to me it’s the best bit about it. It stops you from becoming too precious about it because it’s just biscuit. And yet, you can create the most amazing things from this simple material.
I baked for fun a lot when I was younger, often making cakes for friends and family. And I’ve always loved gingerbread; we used to make houses together for Christmas when I was growing up, but creating a business out of it happened quite by chance really. I was back home visiting my parents, found the old family gingerbread house templates and decided to adapt them to make different things. Everything I made went down really well, so when I had to leave my job in 2010 (due to health reasons) I decided to try to give it a proper go, and it’s all grown from there.
There have been many highlights, but two of my favourites were creating a 6ft tall gingerbread house for The Ideal Home Show. And presenting on TV as the official Gingerbread Judge for Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas.
People seem to underestimate the amount of time it takes to work out the templates before any baking can take place. Often for large projects I spend days translating photos or images into 3D gingerbread-able templates, just endless measuring, drawing and refining of the component shapes. The actual baking bit is perhaps the shortest phase of any project!
I’ve tried my hand at soooooo many different creative hobbies and ideas over the years. Despite enjoying crochet a lot, I just cannot get on with knitting. Somehow it just doesn’t work in my head and I make a pure mess every time!
It’s changed hugely and is still evolving now. It started off very small and part time and I was making mostly 2D biscuits, then I finally became known for my 3D work, but I was doing a lot of wedding commissions still back then. I had just moved into full time commercial gingerbread work when Covid hit and I pivoted into teaching online and selling letterbox biscuits. I’ve been slowly getting back into the large-scale work following the impact of Covid (my mental health and bank balance both took a while to bounce back!), and now I do gingerbread projects alongside my other baking business, Ministry of Baking, which specialises in products that help people make their own baking creations, like baking spice blends and printable gingerbread templates.
I get inspiration from a lot of sources, some quite unusual! I absolutely love patterns, and for years I’ve been taking photos of interesting patterns on tiles, windows, and floors. For example, a while ago, I spotted a coal plate in central London and immediately fell in love with its circular, symmetrical design and thought it’d look perfect on the top of a round cake, so I had to make one. I then created a whole series of cake designs taken directly from coal plates I’ve come across.
More generally, I spend a lot of time looking at design in lots of other disciplines so I’m inspired by paper artists, modellers and graphic designers, especially their use of shape and colour. I’m always looking for new, interesting, different ways to build and decorate with gingerbread.
A dedicated kitchen studio space. Without the pressure of commercial kitchen rent, I’d be able to justify creating more for creativity’s sake rather than having to focus on the income or saleability of everything, which I think would propel the business further in the long run. I’d also love to be able to let it out at really low rates to help new small businesses take that leap from kitchen table to dedicated space, which is such a difficult step to take when you’re starting out.
We told you she was talented, didn’t we? The detail Emily gets into her replica buildings is just incredible. And how amazing that her business started by chance… thank goodness she dug out those old family gingerbread house templates!
If you’d like to see more of Emily’s edible works of art, or even commission your own delicious creation, head to her website: emilygarland.com – or for behind the scenes content and the stories of her builds, take a look at her Instagram: @emilyemilygarland
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