For many men, their interest in cooking extends no further than the barbeque, a beer and a pair of tongs on a sunny afternoon. Others will boast that a roast is their choice of speciality; some will proudly attest to having a signature dish.
While the modern-day Aussie bloke is as comfortable in the kitchen as he is in the shed, I do have one question for you: how many of you have tried your hand at baking some type of dessert?
Even if you show remedial cooking prowess (and by this I mean the ability to produce a dish without setting the house on fire), the truth is that baking a dessert is no longer a skill restricted to females or Michelin-starred chefs. If you look a little deeper, you’ll find that a growing number of men across the country will happily swap the wrench for a whisk long enough to create something to satisfy the sweet tooth of family and friends.
It’s a very wise move. Baking isn’t easy – but it’s sure to pay dividends.
From a female’s perspective, I can tell you that if you’re looking to earn some brownie points with your significant other, whipping up a cake or a batch of cookies is a sure ride into the good books. People love to be surprised, and you can’t beat the pride that comes from serving a tray of home-baked goods. If you manage to produce a delicious concoction, it will result in instantaneous admiration; if all they can taste is baking soda, you still get points for trying.
Basically it’s a win-win situation.
With a little practice most people should be able to master a batch of choc-chip cookies, but it takes motivation, dedication and practice to engineer a multi-tier cake with marzipan icing to boot.
For Greg Cleary, this is just an average day in the office. The baking gene has been a part of his DNA since childhood, possibly from the time he was first able to reach the kitchen counter and take hold of the butter, flour and sugar.
“I was always ‘baking mad’. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember, even before I went to school. I always said when I grew up that I wanted to make cakes,” he recalls.
Born and raised in Mt Isa, Queensland, as the youngest of five children, Greg never took an interest in the family transport business which has been their livelihood for half a century. For him, the kitchen was his calling and, like many who are handy with a bowl and spatula, much of what he knows was passed down from his mum.
“She’s a really good baker and cook. Mum made everything for us; hardly anything was store-bought. We had homemade biscuits, tarts, jams, chutneys and all the sweets like coconut ice and toffees. We thought it was quite nerdy at the time, but as we grew up and looked back we realised how lucky we were.”
Greg first began to profit from his baking skills when he was a teenager in high school.
It was here that he realised the true benefits of turning his passion into a profession. The business venture that began in the schoolyard has since blossomed to become Sweetums Designer Cakes, which has earned an enviable reputation for creating beautiful and innovative cakes.
To be fair, there were times in Greg’s life where he dabbled in other professions – he’s worked as a florist and a roadhouse cook; there was even a stint in a hospital surgical store – but his true passion for baking and designing cakes has remained intact for more than 30 years now.
“I taught myself to decorate and got an apprenticeship when I was 17. By the time I was 21, I was a qualified pastry chef. I’ve worked a few different jobs in that time, but I’ve always been doing cakes on the side,” he says.
Greg uses his knack for design and colour to create cakes that are truly stunning, sophisticated and stylish. While wedding cakes are his forte, he can also conjure up a celebration cake to suit most client requests.
In a nod to his past experience as a florist, Greg’s signature creation is none other than handmade sugar flowers that are so lifelike you could be forgiven for thinking they were the real thing. I should note here that Greg works solo; every cake that you see alongside this story has been created with no help whatsoever (and that’s an impressive feat in itself).
“You can spend days making flowers and if it’s a big job it might be a week – 40 hours plus. It’s often a three-day process in the assembly of the cake, but that depends on the decoration of the cake and the filling. If it’s a fruit cake you can start baking weeks in advance. If it’s a non-fruit cake you can only start the week of the wedding or celebration.”
No doubt this particular line of work is most suited to those with a lot of patience, a steady hand and a great eye for detail. Greg’s success in the industry is evidence that he possesses all of these traits and more, and he can find his inspiration in the strangest of places.
“I’ll see something in a shop, or patterns, or colours, or plates, or teacups, or a piece of fabric. Anything can inspire you. A picture, a piece of furniture – anything can trigger a thought that you can adapt into a cake design or a cake colour combination.
“I’ve also noticed that the styling of cakes is changing at a much more rapid pace that it was 10 years ago. As fashion changes, cakes will change as well – a lot of wedding cakes will incorporate elements of the bride’s dress or invitations. The hardest part is finding something that you can interpret in a way that gives you an edge over everyone else.”
His ability to create custom-made cakes with an ‘edge’ has certainly led him down a bizarre path in the past. One of his craziest creations was a wedding cake with two nude torsos on the top (depicting the bride and groom, of course).
“I got to the reception to deliver the cake and they had nude mannequin-style torsos as table centrepieces so it must have been the theme. Another one was a bride in a claw-footed bathtub on top of the cake, with the dog and cat,” he laughs.
“Needless to say I don’t do anything like that anymore.”
The interesting part about Greg’s work is that it’s not only about the taste of the mixture and the intricate detail in the decorations – consideration must also be given to the engineering of the cake and the impact of external elements as it is being assembled.
“I once made a wedding cake that was about 1.3 metres high. It was the tallest cake I have ever made and one of my proudest moments. It had an absolute tonne of flowers on it – ones that I had made by hand to match the style of the wedding. It was quite a challenge to assemble such a tall cake, get it to the venue and reassemble it again. It was about 100 hours worth of work,” he says.
“You also need to remember that sugar is very much affected by the elements, especially the rain and humidity that we have here in Queensland. I have drying cupboards for all of my sugar work so there can be rain, hail or shine and all of my work will by dry, safe and secure.
“Even if you have the best air conditioning and transportation in the world there will still be some hiccups, which makes it very trying at times. There are times when things go wrong, but six days out of seven I love what I do.”
Such ‘cake-tastrophies’ can be likened to something straight out of a cheap comedy. As Greg can tell you, there have been a fair few times where his cake creations have come off worse for wear in scenarios that weren’t necessarily his fault, but he was left to clean up the mess and produce a suitable replacement in a limited amount of time.
“One of the worst disasters was when I delivered a large four-tier wedding cake to a reception venue and the band started setting up after I had left. They wiped out one corner of the bottom two tiers of the cake and I had to go back to pick it up. Within a couple of hours, I had to race it back home, fix it up as best I could and return it to the venue without anyone finding out.
“It was lucky that it wasn’t a very detailed cake, but it was still stressful enough! It all went well and the bride and the mother of the bride were none the wiser that the cake had almost been trashed earlier in the day.”
For Greg, one of the best parts of his job is seeing the finished product come together after putting in so many tedious hours of work, as well as witnessing the client’s reaction.
“Exceeding the client’s expectations is the greatest feeling,” he says.
“I love doing my work so much that I don’t see it as a job. I simply can’t imagine my life without it. I don’t understand how people can go to work and not love or at least enjoy what they do, because I could not go to work and do a job where I wasn’t happy. That would be like a prison sentence to me.”
So, men of Australia, maybe it’s time to do yourselves a favour and bake a cake… if you’re man enough, of course.
