Kross' Bio

I was born in London, UK in 1948. My wife, Janet, and I renovated a country cottage near Wrexham, North Wales in the mid-seventies and we've lived there ever since.

I am a gold and silversmith and have always been interested in, and "dabbled in", various arts & crafts activities. If I was put on this earth to do anything, it was to "make things".

My cake-decorating activities began around my elder son, Walter's, 6th birthday, when I baked and decorated a cake-copy of his toy "Master's of the Universe" sword. The cake was a reasonable success, though it did turn out to be around 3 feet long by the time it was finished - I've since learnt to scale my efforts down!

Since then I've made birthday cakes for all of Walter's, and his brother, Alex's, birthdays. The cakes were usually based on, or were copies of, their favorite toys or possessions. My family's penchant for marzipan, and relative distaste for icing/frosting and sugarpaste lead to most of my cakes being covered and decorated solely in marzipan. The exceptions being when the design called for pure white or piping work. I have always used fruit cakes as i find these to be very precisely "carve-able"; and their "keeping qualities" mean i don't have to work fast!

In 2003 my son's engagement was announced and I realized I had to quickly learn how to make a "proper" wedding cake! Subsequent, searching of the internet lead me to a world of sugarcraft and cake-decorating I had never realized existed. This world, of course, included the excellent Ladycakes Web forum.

I've never had any formal tuition in the craft, but have learnt an enormous amount from other cake-decorators who I have always found wonderfully ready to help.

The joy of cake-decorating is, to me, the total freedom it affords to the imagination. You can do whatever you want, no rules, no limits, and if it doesn't work out, well,......you just eat it!

To see other cakes by Kross click on the link.

Chris