Nicholas Lodge facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nicholas Lodge
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Nicholas Lodge holding an arrangement of gum paste flowers that he created.
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| Born | 12 June 1962 Essex, England
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| Died | 9 August 2022 |
| Education | National Bakery School |
| Occupation | Pastry chef, cake artist, instructor, author, business owner |
Chef Nicholas Lodge was a very talented pastry chef, a master at making amazing cakes, an author, and a teacher. He was born on June 12, 1962, and passed away on August 9, 2022.
Nicholas Lodge co-owned the International Sugar Art Collection in Atlanta. This place was a shop and a school where people could learn all about cake decorating and sugar art. He was especially famous for making incredibly realistic flowers out of gum paste. These flowers looked just like real ones!
He also taught at the French Pastry School in Chicago, Illinois. Many people knew him from TV because he was a judge on the show Food Network Challenge. He also judged the yearly National Gingerbread House Competition at the Omni Grove Park Inn, and many other baking contests around the world.
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Early Life and First Cakes
Nicholas Lodge was born in Essex, England. He started decorating cakes when he was only ten years old. His very first cake was for his parents' wedding anniversary.
Around the same time, after he had a tonsillectomy (a surgery to remove his tonsils), his grandmother gave him a book about cake decorating from Australia. Using this book, he made his first sugar flowers. They were beautiful white carnations.
Nicholas Lodge's Education
When Nicholas was 11, he went to Moulsham High School in Chelmsford. Back then, schools often taught boys and girls different subjects. Boys usually learned things like woodworking and engineering, while girls took home economics.
Nicholas knew he wanted to be a chef, which was not a common career choice for boys in England at that time. He asked if he could take home economics. The headteacher wasn't sure at first, but his parents supported him. They insisted he be allowed to join the class.
At 16, Nicholas enrolled in the National Bakery School in London. He went to classes from Monday to Thursday. On Fridays and Saturdays, he worked at a bakery. On Saturday afternoons, he also worked at a flower shop. He would often take flowers apart to study them closely. By taking detailed notes and making templates, he figured out how to perfectly recreate each flower using gum paste. When he graduated, Nicholas was named the Most Outstanding Cake Decorating Student.
Nicholas Lodge's Career
Working in England
After finishing at the National Bakery School, Nicholas Lodge became the main wedding cake designer at Woodnutts. This was one of England's best sugar art schools. While there, he made cakes for famous places like Harrods, the Savoy, and The Ritz.
Next, Lodge taught at Mary Ford's Cake Artistry Centre in Bournemouth. During this time, the royal family asked him to make a cake for the Queen Mother's 80th birthday.
He was also chosen by the royal family to create one of the 24 official wedding cakes for the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles. This amazing cake was nine feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds! Three years later, the royal family hired him again. This time, he made a christening cake for Prince Harry. The cake had beautiful details like swans, water lilies, and a tiny baby in royal swaddling clothes.
In 1985, Nicholas Lodge was asked to write his first book. He wrote more books after that, and also made teaching videos. He traveled around the world to teach. After his fourth book was published, he gave about $30,000, along with books and equipment, to the home economics department at his old school, Moulsham High School.
Moving to the United States
In the 1980s, Nicholas Lodge visited the United States to show his skills at the International Cake Exploration Societé (ICES) convention. At that time, most American cakes had thick buttercream icing. Many students in Lodge's classes had never seen the techniques he used with royal icing and rolled fondant.
Nicholas felt that the cake decorating field in England was becoming very crowded. So, he decided to move to the United States to teach cake decorating classes. During a two-week class in Atlanta, Georgia, he loved the city so much that he decided to make it his new home. That two-week class turned into a three-year teaching job!
In 1992, Nicholas Lodge and his business partner, Scott Ewing, opened their own school and shop. It was called the International Sugar Art Collection (ISAC) and was located in Norcross, Georgia. They also opened a sister school in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995, called Nicholas Lodge International Sugar Art Collection Japan.
Lodge taught classes at ISAC and all over the United States and other countries. He taught cake decorating classes in 26 different countries. He was so busy teaching that in 1993, he couldn't accept an invitation from the Clinton White House for a special one-year fellowship.
In 2001, Nicholas Lodge was honored by being added to the ICES Hall of Fame. He was the youngest person ever to receive this award. Starting in 2003, the annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, invited Lodge to be a guest pastry chef. This led to him teaching special classes just for the pastry chefs at Walt Disney World Resort.
The Food Network asked Lodge in 2005 to be a judge on two seasons of Food Network Challenge. At the same time, he was offered another yearly judging job at the National Gingerbread House Competition at the Omni Grove Park Inn. He later became the head judge for this competition.
From 2009 to 2014, Lodge was a spokesperson for Albert Uster Imports (AUI). He hosted roadshows across the United States, showing off AUI's rolled fondant and other products. He also demonstrated different techniques for wedding cake designs. In January 2015, Nicholas became the brand ambassador for Renshaw, a company that makes rolled fondant and gum paste.
Lodge taught classes at many well-known schools, including Le Cordon Bleu, Johnson & Wales, the Art Institute of Atlanta, and the French Pastry School. He first taught the gum paste part of a 24-week program at the French Pastry School. In 2010, he joined the teaching team as a chef instructor for their 16-week L'Art du Gateau program. This program was for people who wanted to become professional cake decorators and sugar artists. For many years, Lodge was a judge, demonstrator, and guest instructor at the World Pastry Forum. In 2013, he was invited to be a regular judge and demonstrator at Pastry Live Atlanta.
Honors and Awards
Nicholas Lodge received many special awards for his amazing work:
- 2001 – He was inducted into the International Cake Exploration Societé Hall of Fame. He was the youngest person ever to get this honor.
- 2003 – He received the Distinguished Visiting Author Award from Johnson & Wales on October 23, 2003.
- 2009 – He won The Sweet Life Award: Hall of Fame at the National Capital Area Cake Show.
- 2010 – Dessert Professional magazine named him a Top Ten Pastry Chef and a Top Ten Cake Artist. He was the first person ever to receive both honors in the same year!
