‘The cake took two months and didn’t fit in the car’: Ekka cake winner reveals baking toll

One of his most impressive cakes stood 120cm high and weighed 70kg. A top Brisbane baker shares the extraordinary effort and time it takes to be an award-winning cake maker.

Daniel Greensill

37, pastry chef and cake decorator

I’ve always had a love of baking. I’ve actually got a photo of my sister, Ashlie, and I baking when I was about 12 years old. I used to bake things like jam drops and coconut slice in the afternoon after school.

But I’m the only one in my family who has gone down that path – Ashlie is a nurse and my brother, Chris, is a mechanic. For me, it started out as more of an interest in the bread side of things when I was younger and it wasn’t until more than 15 years later that cake decorating became a hobby of mine.

When I was 16 years old, I left school to do a pastry chef and baking apprenticeship but I didn’t enter my first cake decorating competition, which was at the Ekka, until 2019.

I created Thanos’s infinity gauntlet from the Marvel Avengers franchise and placed third. That really changed things for me.

Baker and pastry chef, Dan Greensill with his Buzz Lightyear cake he has created and is entering in the 2022 Ekka Cake Contest. Picture: Zak Simmonds

Over the years, I had begun watching all the cake shows on streaming services like Netflix.

At every family party or gathering, I’m the go-to guy for the cake. Although, once when I was strapped for time I just went to Woolies and got an ice-cream cake and that got it sorted.

The realistic looking style of cake fascinates me. Not everyone is doing that and I like to be different.

A realistic cake is an artwork but it’s also about the structural engineering of it. Plus, you can eat it at the end. I work at Nodo in Newstead as a bakery supervisor and chef and I have been there for the past four years.

I love it – the people there are like nothing I’ve ever encountered before, it’s so family oriented and there are lots of opportunities to grow. Decorating is a creative outlet for me but it’s also a lot of work. My cakes are usually inspired by pop culture such as Marvel and other relevant movies.

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, it gave me time to think about the future and give the decorating a real go and it worked out.

I started my own business called Dan’s Creative Cakes. I was making five or six cakes a week as well as working at Nodo full-time so I would go to work in the morning, get home and nap, then work on a cake for two or three hours every day.

I love to create. The reward is seeing that end product and seeing the customer’s face and the enjoyment they get when they see what I created for them. Kids always have the best reactions.

One of my favourite cakes to make was the life-size Black Panther bust I created for the 2021 international cake show, which was held in Brisbane. It was made of cake, chocolate and fondant and stood at about 120cm high and weighed 70kg.

It took two months to make and it almost didn’t fit in the car to get it to the show so I learnt the lesson to always measure the hard way but I won first place.

Then, this year I entered into the biggest category in the competition called the Battle of the Sugar Giants, which is a 3m by 3m display. I created a Marvel inspired display which consisted of Thanos sitting on a chair, which weighed 130kg alone, as well as a Spider-Man bust, an Ironman bust, Thor’s old hammer and his new hammer.

Dan Greensill with his Buzz Lightyear cake. Picture: Zak Simmonds

It took four months to make and was made out of 40kg of cake, 150kg of chocolate and 120kg of fondant and had to be delivered by a truck. Spider-Man fell over on the way there and all the detail was damaged but I improvised and made it work and it turned out better than it was before. The category was judged by the public and I won first place.

I have also entered the Ekka competition this year. I grew up in Brisbane’s northside and I’ve been going to the Ekka for as long as I can remember.

The cake displays were always a must-see for me. Now, I take my own family. I have five kids. My eldest is my daughter Whitney, who is 16, and then I have Noah, who is 15, a set of twins called Tyson and Cruz, 13, and my youngest is Grace, who is three. So I have my hands full. I try to get my kids into cake decorating but they just like watching and eating.

The Ekka is a great platform for amateur decorators to showcase their talent, learn, grow and gain confidence.

This year, I wanted to challenge myself and made a Buzz Lightyear cake, which is 45cm tall. The end goal is to do this full-time but that is a long way off. To own my own cake shop one day, that’s the dream.

Daniel won first place in Class 12 – Cake Decorating – Intermediate Novelty Cake at the Ekka, which is on August 6-14