An Essex cake baker has gone viral after making a cake version of the iconic cottage from the Christmas film The Holiday.
The clip of Bridie West, 30, meticulously piping buttercream over a cake shaped as Rosehill Cottage has garnered more than 1.2m views on TikTok and 46,700 on Instagram. Though the clip depicts mere seconds of
“To be fair, it wasn’t too bad,” West told the Guardian. “I don’t really plan in advance – once I have the base and shape of what I’m going to create, I just go for it. The magic is in the moment, and I just let my hands do the work.”
said it took a day and a half to bake and decorate Rosehill Cottage, which features in the festive movie starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black.
West said the vanilla sponge cake – complete with detailed decorations such as a picketed gate, foliage in the garden, a Christmas wreath on the door and a dusting of snow – was originally made for display purposes on her Instagram and TikTok social media platforms.
But she said it was “so lovely” when one of her customers requested to buy it with the intention of using it as a Christmas decoration for years to come.
“As soon as I put it on Instagram, someone messaged me asking if they could buy it – but she’s not going to cut into it, she’s going to keep it as a Christmas decoration instead,” West, from Brentwood, told the PA news agency.
“She said: ‘If I have it out over Christmas and then put it in a box and store it somewhere cool, can I keep it for however many years? – it’s so lovely.’”
West added that the “most fiddly” part of creating the Rosehill Cottage cake was the intricate decorations, such as the chimney and the door, which were created using florist paste – a firmer alternative to fondant icing.
“The entire cake is edible, even the little fence with Rosehill Cottage written on – they are the most fiddly aspects. There’s so much you can do with cake, there’s literally no limits.”
West’s video on TikTok, which shows the Rosehill Cottage cake before and after the decoration process, has received more than 135,000 likes and more than 8,000 saves.
“I’ve not had that happen to that degree before,” she said. “I’m not the best posting on TikTok so it’s definitely shown me the reach you can have. It’s actually really lovely – it’s quite nice to see people from all over saying that they like it.”
She has also made cakes resembling Luke’s Diner from the TV show Gilmore Girls and the dream house that features in the 2004 movie 13 Going on 30 starring Jennifer Garner – the latter of which she made to celebrate her own 30th birthday.
“I really love the idea of these building cakes, you can still tell it’s cake, but there’s such a likeness to what you’re making,” she said.
West said she started her own full-time business of decorating cakes in 2018 after leaving her office job in London. “I just decided to go for it,” she said. “I used to draw cakes on post-it notes in the office and my boss said: ‘I feel like you need to give it a go.’”
West said she then began working in a cake shop but she “only lasted four days” because she “couldn’t bear” being directed on how to decorate the cakes. “I had this idea of how I wanted my style to be so early on,” she said.
West said she has been “really lucky” as she is now able to operate her business from a studio at her parent’s house in Brentwood which she calls her “cake room”. There, she decorates cakes for customers every day and holds classes for others on how to make and decorate baked goods.
“It really suits me, I love having that space – it feels like a dream. I’ve got so many repeat customers, I’m really lucky. I’ve got people that are already booked in for Christmas next year.”
