When it comes to your wedding day, there are so many factors to consider to ensure that the event is as perfect as the one in your dreams. Will the weather be good, will the bridesmaids behave, and will the musician fluff his notes? And of course there is the cake, that ultimate celebration of sugary happiness – will it taste good?

With thousands of airtime hours dedicated to baking cakes, today’s wedding cakes are becoming more personalisedand creative than ever before. No one knows this better than the cake makers at Busy Bee.

Since 1933, Busy Bee has titillated the island’s taste buds with delicious savouries, desserts, pastries and, of course, wedding cakes. Today it is Geoffrey Friggieri, together with his brother Brian and sister Diane Ellul, who run the family business. As Friggieri explains, when it comes to wedding cakes, times and trends are changing.

“Eight or nine years ago, when someone would come to order a wedding cake, we would sit down with them to discuss their tastes and show them our cake portfolio, which could be further personalised through various colours and decorations. We still do that but nowadays, thanks to television and the internet, many people come to us with a very definite idea of what they want.

The most popular choices are the rich fruit cake, bacio cake and almond cake, which is made with specially imported Italian almonds

“The problem is often in the practical aspect. For instance, clients may have watched an American cake baking show and would want a particular cake – however, in Malta, for instance, we cannot use butter cream because of our weather. That said, we always strive to please and nearly always manage to achieve the design that our clients want by using different ingredients.

“There are various challenges but the most important thing for us is that our clients are happy with their wedding cake.”

While the weather may dictate, to some extent, the use of ingredients, when it comes to taste, there is no compromise. At Busy Bee, the most popular choices are the rich fruit cake, bacio cake and almond cake, which is made with specially imported Italian almonds.

Friggieri says that the demand for wedding cakes is constant although the busiest months are generally May and June, when they have been known to make as many as 30 wedding cakes in 10 days. This is quite an achievement considering the many hours of work that each cake involves. As hundreds of cakes are made every year, a weekly schedule tells the cake makers and decorators what orders are pending along with special instructions. A photo of each finished cake is then added to the portfolio for future reference.

Not surprisingly, tastes vary considerably and every cake is unique in its own way.

Also the number of cakes can vary, depending on the size of the wedding, with as many as 20 often being made for a larger wedding with one or two actually cut on the day and the others used as witness cakes.

Watching two of the cake decorators at work, the standard of workmanship is extraordinary with each wedding cake being almost a work of art in its own right. Apart from the decorators’ talent, this is also due to the training: the decorators learn a lot just by watching decorators such as Paul Agius, who has been working at Busy Bee for 39 years and who is a master at his art. The company also gives its staff opportunities to attend courses and will shortly be bringing over a specialist from the UK to train staff members.

Of course there has to be an aptitude for such work in the first place, as decorating cakes like these requires far more than just a steady hand. Cliff Falzon has been decorating wedding cakes for just a year and he particularly enjoys the creative aspect. His sugar paste figures and his ability to make edible sugar flowers are quite remarkable. Indeed, it took some convincing on my part to believe that the flowers I saw on the cakes before me were not made of silk.

So what makes a great cake?

First it would appear to be the design, which today is as much a reflection of the couple’s character as well as of the style of the wedding itself. The Busy Bee cake decorators tell me that to date, they haven’t had any requests to produce anything as

outlandish as those seen on some television shows. That said, there has been something of a move away from the traditional white with requests for more vivid colours and intricate designs becoming more commonplace.

Creating a perfect cake may be far from simple, but Busy Bee pride themselves on a good product and a high level of finish that has seen the business grow to such an extent that they now supply third parties.

“For us, it’s really about getting it exactly as the client wants and making a cake that tastes as good as it looks,” Friggieri tells me.

“We also pay a lot of attention to the level of workmanship. For instance, creating a sugar base that is totally free of cracks is quite a feat in itself. Some people may not notice it, but as professionals we know that attention to fine detail like this is what gives us the edge and is the standard on which we have built our reputation.”

He certainly has a point. After all, isn’t a wedding all about making dreams come true or, in this case, having your cake and eating it?