Extreme Cake Makers

Welcome to the world of extreme cake making, where bakers dream up ever more elaborate creations. Will sugar craft specialist Eloise's gravity defying cake turn into a cake-tastrophe?

Cornwall-based team Phil and Christine hope to scale new heights with a five foot long lemon and elderflower cake designed to look like a leaping fish using over 17lbs of sugar paste.

Michelle is producing a six foot long miniature steam train made entirely out of cake, and Karisha has been commissioned to make a wedding cake with nearly 900 edible iced flowers.

Molly Robbins embarks on a cake designed to be the same shape - and size - of a Shetland pony, while wedding cake specialist Suzanne Thorpe is tasked with a cake that's over two foot tall.

Molly Robbins like to push the boundaries. She's been asked to create a five-tier cake themed around Alice in Wonderland, complete with an edible Cheshire Cat and a pouring teapot.

Designing and baking unique cakes for showbiz parties isn't out of the ordinary for extreme cake makers and in Lancashire Molly Robbins has a very tall order - a celebration cake for a flamboyant customer to help him celebrate 35 years as a drag artist. The cake will be a life-size ball gown, complete with 50 edible peacock feathers and 3000 gold flowers. Elsewhere chocolatier Tracy Kindred has been asked to produce a four-tiered wedding cake covered in over 30 kilos of chocolate and decorated with hand painted, edible scenes from the bride and groom's lives together. Celebration cakes really don't come more extreme than this!

The popularity of baking has left us a nation clamouring to try it ourselves, but for those show-stopping cakes only a few can rise up to the challenge. For one lucky little birthday girl, Extreme Cake Maker Michelle Wibowo is creating a five foot edible Wizard of Oz mural out of Genoese sponge and covered in painted icing and sweets. Meanwhile, Nastassja Lusengo is bringing out the bling - decorating one of her famous red velvet cakes in edible gold leaf while Cornish based bakers Phil and Christine Jensen are creating a four-tier cake inspired by the Queens House in Greenwich, complete with 28 edible tulip decorations.

When it comes to extreme cake making you have to think outside the box, and for chocolatier Tracey Kindred the more imaginative the better. She's been tasked to produce a gruesome two foot tall wedding cake that pays tribute to the bride and groom's love of all things Gothic. With four tiers, copious amounts of chocolate wrapping and covered in hand painted Halloween themes, creating this cake could be a thing of nightmares... Also, in London Nastassja is producing a cake for an 11-year old to include the colours of the Nigerian flag, a hand-carved, sugar silhouette of the London skyline and a secret compartment for her favourite sweets.

At the heart of any extreme cakes lies a brilliant idea and, when it comes to dreaming up these original designs, 31-year-old Nastassja Lusengo knows the sky's the limit. She's been commissioned by a client to produce a cake for her brother's wedding, inspired by a geode rock and will split open to reveal shimmering sugar crystals carved into the cake's interior. Essex's Eloise Durrant has a totally different challenge on her hands - producing cake for a Hawaiian themed party that includes a fully working cocktail dispensing water feature, four tiers of cocktail flavoured sponge cake and is decorated to look like a Pacific volcano.

The pinnacle of baking is the wedding cake and nobody beats Karisha Pithwa when it comes to designing the most elaborate wedding cakes of all. She's taking inspiration from Bollywood to create a seven-tiered wedding cake for a dance instructor who wants everything just right for her special day. Covered in 1000 fresh and silk flowers, the cake will also feature a hand-piped henna design specially created by the bride and groom. Meanwhile, Nastassja Lusengo is helping her clients celebrate the expansion of their website. They want a four foot tall cake that will celebrate motherhood and have left the design entirely up to Nastassja.

Sugar craft specialist Eloise has received an order with 'wow' written all over it - a four foot tall replica of the Statue of Liberty made entirely of cake - but with over 10 kilos of icing for the famous gown, will this lady be able to stand on her own two feet? Meanwhile, in west Wales, chocolatier Tracey is commissioned to produce a surprise 21st birthday cake that will feature edible, chocolate sculptures of all the important places from the birthday girl's childhood.

Molly, who's 25, runs her own cake business in Lancashire. Her best friend and cat lover Liz is turning 30 so Molly has come up with the purr-fect birthday surprise - to bake her a cake that will look identical to her two favourite cats. Meanwhile, in West Wales Tracey and her assistant Jess are planning a wedding cake that's personal to the bride and groom who want their cake to display a storyboard of the 12 years that they have been together.

To be an extreme cake maker you need bags of skill and even more passion: traits of sugar craft specialist Eloise Durrant. And in Chelmsford, one of Eloise's returning customers has a very different dream - a cake that is edible for both humans and dogs - but can Eloise avoid this tricky task turning into a dog's dinner? Meanwhile, in London Karisha has had one of her most extravagant commissions to date - a towering seven-tier wedding cake that will include 150 handcrafted sugar flowers.

In Lancashire, Molly Robbins is focused on bringing her latest commission to life - a two foot square beach scene complete with jelly sea, crispy marshmallow rocks and dozens of hand carved bathers enjoying the seaside. Elsewhere, Michelle has received a commission for a portrait that's good enough to eat. For a forthcoming birthday party, she must bake a two foot by three foot cake canvas on which she will create an identical portrait of the birthday girl using her icing and edible inks.

Londoner Nastassja's latest commission is from a record producer who has ordered a salted caramel cake with waffle pieces - and the trickiest bit of all will be a super-sized fist made from rice cereal and marshmallow that will burst through a drum that's also made from cake! Meanwhile in Saddleworth, Suzanne has been invited to display her cakes at a prestigious wedding fair. With so many potential clients in attendance, she must bake a show stopping cake that will wow them all.

Cake bakers replicate the island of Santorini for a wedding reception.