My Story

My name is Liz and I’m the Cake Designer and Maker behind CakeBuds.

So, how did CakeBuds originate? Well, I’ve always been creative, but not knowing what to do with that creativity in the real world meant I ended up in the world of finance.

I went to university where I graduated with a 2:1 degree in Accounting and then completed the 3 years of training to become a Chartered Accountant. After qualifying I got a job as a Forensic Accountant in London working for a large accountancy firm.

But then kids came along!

Being the creative person I am, I took on the challenge of baking my daughters 1st birthday cake. This was back in September 2016 and I absolutely fell in love with cake decorating!

Friends and family started asking me to make cakes for them, so I taught myself to decorate cakes using books, Pinterest, YouTube and other online tutorials. They ultimately encouraged me to set up my own business. So when I went on maternity leave with my second child in summer 2017, that’s exactly what I did! 

I originally focused on celebration cakes and expanded into the wedding industry at the start of 2018. This led to many exciting opportunities such as styled photoshoots and becoming a recommended wedding supplier for several wedding venues across the south of England.

Only 11 months after entering the wedding industry, I went on to win the title of South Central Wedding Cake Designer/Maker of the year in the 2019 Wedding Industry Awards.

At the same time I was finding that more and more couples were breaking boundaries when it came to planning their weddings. Everyone was trying to be different in one way or another.

I soon realised that I too was being drawn to cakes which were a little different to the traditional wedding cake. Whether the cakes were minimalist, highly detailed, bold or modest, they all had a creative flair to them which made them stand out. That is when I started to experiment with different textures and colour and soon realised that I had a real passion for contemporary cake design.

After a successful rebrand in April 2019 I took the plunge and resigned from my accountancy job to focus on CakeBuds full time.

I went on to win the South Central regional award for a second year running, as well as being awarded National Highly Commended in the 2020 Wedding Industry Awards.

Fast forward a couple of years and I am now a Judge for The Wedding Industry Awards and have also started sharing my knowledge of cake decorating and running a business through private one to one classes.

So whether it’s through teaching or creating beautiful wedding cakes, I now get to be creative every single day and I am super excited to see what the future holds!