Nicholas Lodge

Chef Nicholas Lodge (born 12 June 1962) was a pastry chef, master cake artist, author and instructor.

He was the co-owner of the Atlanta-based International Sugar Art Collection, a retail gallery and school teaching all levels of cake decorating and sugar arts.

He was best known for creating botanically correct gum paste flowers.

Lodge was an instructor at the French Pastry School in Chicago, Illinois.

He was a recurring judge on Food Network Challenge, he judged annually at the Omni Grove Park Inn National Gingerbread House Competition and other regional competitions (Lodge judged pastry competitions on the regional, national and international level).

He died on August 9, 2022, of unknown causes.

Lodge was born in Essex, England.

He decorated his first cake at the age of ten, for his parents' wedding anniversary.

Around the same time, while recovering from a tonsillectomy, Lodge's grandmother gave him an Australian cake decorating book.

Using this book, he made his first sugar flowers, white carnations.

At age 11, Lodge went to Moulsham High School in Chelmsford.

The school facilities and curriculum divided boys and girls, boys received training in woodworking and engineering, while girls took home economics.

Lodge knew he wanted to become a chef (an uncommon career choice for a boy in England at the time), and asked to take home economics.

The headteacher was hesitant to grant permission, but his parents supported his choice and insisted he be allowed into the class.

At 16, Lodge enrolled at the National Bakery School in London.

He was in class Monday to Thursday; on Friday and Saturday he worked at a bakery, and Saturday afternoons he worked at a flower shop.

He often dissected flowers, and by making detailed notes and templates, Lodge was able to work out how he might recreate the flower exactly using gum paste.

On graduation, Lodge was awarded the distinction of Most Outstanding Cake Decorating Student.

After graduating from the National Bakery School, Lodge was offered the position of principal wedding cake designer at Woodnutts, one of England's top sugar arts schools.

While at Woodnutts, he created cakes for Harrods, the Savoy, and The Ritz.

Lodge next held a teaching position at Mary Ford's Cake Artistry Centre in Bournemouth.

At this time, he was commissioned by the royal family to make a cake for the Queen Mother's 80th birthday.

Lodge was accepted by the royal family to create one of the 24 official wedding cakes for the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles.

The cake was nine feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds.

Three years later, Lodge was once again hired by the royal family to create a christening cake for Prince Harry.

The cake was finely detailed with swans, water lilies, and a miniature baby in royal swaddling clothes.

Lodge traveled to the United States in the 1980s to demonstrate at the International Cake Exploration Societé (ICES) convention.

At the time, most American cakes were covered with thick buttercream icing.

Many of the students in Lodge's classes had never seen the techniques he was using to decorate cakes with royal icing and rolled fondant.

Feeling like the cake decorating field had become saturated in England, Lodge decided to move to the United States and teach classes on cake decorating.

During a two-week class in Atlanta, Georgia, he decided to make the city his new home.

The two-week class turned into a three-year teaching position.

In 1985, Lodge was commissioned to write his first book.

More books followed along with instructional videos and international teaching tours.

After the publication of his fourth book, Lodge returned to Moulsham High School with a gift of approximately $30,000, books, sewing machines and other equipment for the home economics department.

In 1992, Lodge and his business partner Scott Ewing opened their own school and retail gallery, the International Sugar Art Collection (ISAC) in Norcross, Georgia.

Teaching kept him so busy that in 1993 he was unable to accept an invitation from the Clinton White House for a one-year presidential fellowship.

There is also a Nicholas Lodge International Sugar Art Collection Japan sister school in Tokyo, Japan, which opened in 1995.

Lodge taught classes at ISAC as well as across the United States and abroad.

To date, he has instructed cake decorating classes in 26 different counties.