Interview: Georgia Green of Georgia’s Cakes

Making beautiful cakes for a living sounds like a dream and we got to meet the girl living this dream! Georgia Green, owner of Georgia’s Cakes, is a talented 25-year-old who combined her love of food with her creative skills. She tried out various fields before she found her passion for baking and has created a concept that continues to rise from success to success.

With over 40k followers on Instagram and a catalogue of celebrity fans under her belt, we spoke to Georgia before Valentine’s Day and found out what cakes she has planned for the day of love, her take on healthy baking and the most famous person she’s made a cake for…

“Someone asked me today, ‘Are you bored yet?’ Definitely not! Even now, I’ll put a batch of macaroons on and I still want to see if I’ve done it perfectly!”

Taylor Magazine: So… tell us about your baking. Why and when did you start?

Georgia: I wasn’t ever sure what I wanted to do career wise – I was good at art, maths and my Dad was an architect so I thought maybe I’d be an architect but I didn’t actually like it! I did an art foundation in Leeds instead. I was there for a year and ended up doing animation, because who doesn’t love cartoons? Then, I did a year at the London College of Communication but the reality, which I didn’t realise at first, is that it’s all computerised now. There is still creativity in it but it’s mainly just looking at a screen for 8 hours straight and I can’t do that!

Taylor Magazine: It takes away the creativity a little, doesn’t it?

Georgia: Yeah exactly. It’s a shame. Technology is amazing but I also love hands on creativity. I’ve always loved food and never thought I would do it as a profession but during this journey, I came across Cordon Bleu. I saw that and thought, ‘Oh my god – you can actually do this as a career!’ It just looked amazing. I managed to convince my parents, again. They were a bit fed up of me by this point but I guess I proved them wrong!

I worked at a couple of places in London, finished my training and then realised that I would much rather work for myself. I was lucky enough to have the database of customers who were already ordering from me, more word of mouth was happening and it just branched off from there.

Taylor Magazine: What do you love most about the industry?

Georgia: I love baking specifically because you can’t go wrong. If you do, then you have to do it again. I think that comes through from my maths and logic way of thinking. It’s almost like a science – you have to do X, Y and Z and if you don’t, it won’t work.

Taylor Magazine: We’re big fans of the Great British Bake Off and it’s so true, if they get one tiny thing wrong it can ruin the whole cake. It’s so scientific when you break it down!

Georgia: Yeah! It keeps it exciting. Someone asked me today, ‘Are you bored yet?’ but definitely not. Even now, I’ll put a batch of macaroons on and I still want to see if I’ve done it perfectly! Everyone makes mistakes – the oven temperature might be slightly off, or the sugar syrup might not reach the right temperature but that keeps the excitement going. From my mistakes, every single one is different. It’s nice, each one is something new.

Taylor Magazine: Who is the most famous person you have made a cake for?

Georgia: Probably Cara Delevingne!

Taylor Magazine: What was your reaction when you realised you were baking a cake for her? Excited or nervous?

Georgia: It was at the time when she was just becoming big, so I knew who she was but I didn’t actually realise how big she was! I got to the event and there were hundreds of people, paparazzi and all sorts. Everyone said, ‘Georgia, go and give her the cake!’ There were all these flashing cameras, people shouting and Cara was going crazy over it. It was really exciting – it was like an out of body experience!

Taylor Magazine: What is your favourite cake to make?

Georgia: Ooooh, I have a new favourite every time I do something new! I’ve been trying a few things out for Valentines Day. If you look on my Instagram, I did this cake where it looks like a tree trunk. I experimented with the texture of chocolate – I didn’t want to do a heart shaped cake or something pink and fluffy, I wanted to do something different for Valentine’s. I try to think outside of the box – I thought of this idea of engraving your initials on a tree. It’s quite cheesy, but I had never seen that done on a cake before! 

Taylor Magazine: Valentine’s Day is usually associated with hearts and teddy bears but everybody has seen it all before! To do something different for Valentine’s Day must catch people’s eyes?

Georgia: Exactly, and it did! I finished it and because of the way the chocolate had dried it really looked like wood. I polished it off with a bronze powder so I was like, ‘Oh my god – this is amazing!’ That was the most recent one I was excited about, but I get excited about most of my cakes!

Taylor Magazine: People are obsessed with health kicks at the moment. Do you try and incorporate healthy ingredients into your baking? Or do you think that cake is cake, so why should it be healthy?

Georgia: Pretty much the second thing you said! I’m quite passionate about the subject because I am aware that too much “bad food” isn’t good for you. I do genuinely believe, because I do it myself, that everything in moderation is absolutely fine – as long as you get a balance of everything. For my typical day of food I’ll have porridge for breakfast, some pasta or salad with tuna for lunch and pizza for dinner! I try and do some dance classes. I recently joined a gym and I go once a week to keep my activity up. Then again, that works for me. My sister, for example, works at an office desk – she sits down all day so she has to be more conscious.

When it comes to my cakes, I try not to mess around with ingredients. I don’t use margarine because I think it’s a bit dodgy – it has too many ingredients in it that you can’t pronounce basically! I make everything myself – butter cream, the toppings. I know exactly what is going in my cakes. I just try to keep it as real as I can. It does have sugar in it and all of that but you’re not going to have the whole cake to yourself, are you?

Taylor Magazine: I guess you could say that cake is not meant to be healthy. If you’re going to have cake, you’re treating yourself.

Georgia: 100 percent! Also, my cakes are for celebrations. It’s not for every day – I mean, by all means, order from me every day but it’s unlikely that you have a slice of cake every day. I hardly eat cake funnily enough even though I’m surrounded by it! My friends think I’m really weird, they wonder how I’m not obese! If there is a spare macaroon going I’ll have it – they are my FAVOURITE. Salted caramel popcorn is my weakness too, I try not to have it because if I start I won’t stop!

Taylor Magazine: What is the one ingredient you can’t live without?

Georgia: I would probably say butter. I don’t eat it straight, but it literally goes in everything. Like I was saying about the margarine, I use butter but it’s always unsalted so I can control the amount of salt that goes into the cakes. Butter is amazing – it makes everything better! The other ingredient I can’t live without are eggs! People say you can replace eggs with banana or apple cider vinegar. I guarantee it’s not going to be the same.

Taylor Magazine: What is the biggest challenge you face?

Georgia: I actually think it’s along the lines of this healthy eating thing. It might be a phase, a trend, whatever you want to call it. Lots of people ask if I can make vegan cakes, but I can’t! I’d love to try and do vegan stuff, but I don’t have the time to start experimenting because I’ve always got orders to do.

Taylor Magazine: Success came really quickly for you. What’s your secret and how did you deal with becoming successful so quickly? It must have been really overwhelming!

Georgia: I probably couldn’t have done it without my sister, Louisa, to be honest. She basically runs my Instagram – I owe a lot of the success to her. Louisa is 21, so she’s in that prime age of this social media focused world. She’s quite mature so she’s good at writing the quirky captions, she knows who to tag, what to tag. It’s been those little things that have made a big difference. She once tagged Whole Foods for example and they re-posted me. Someone may have seen me on that, and something else will have led from it. She’s been amazing!

It’s been word of mouth as well, and luck. With the cake for Cara Delevingne, I knew someone who was working with the PR company and that’s how that happened. It’s that saying, ‘It’s who you know’ but at the same time, if I wasn’t as good, I wouldn’t have been put forward. It’s a mixture of things: hard work, luck and good relationships with people.

Taylor Magazine: We know that you’re really creative. Apart from baking, what other creative things do you like to do?

Georgia: When I have spare time, I like art. I love painting pottery! You know those cafe’s where you can go and paint pottery? I could spend the whole day there! I dance as well. My boyfriend dances so we do that together. I play guitar, even though I’ve not actually played for ages, but in general I’m known as a very creative person.

Taylor Magazine: You can definitely tell you’re a very creative person – it comes through in your work! What’s the next big thing you have planned that we should look out for?

Georgia: Hmmm. I work with Tastemade. They’ve just launched their new studio so now there is the possibility of doing lots more things! I don’t know any specifics, but I’m one of the main faces so they’ve said they have plenty of plans for me .

Taylor Magazine: Tell us a fun fact about you!

Georgia: Oooooh. I suppose a fun fact is how many brothers and sisters I have! I have three sisters and two brothers, so I come from a pretty large family.

Taylor Magazine: Christmas must be pretty crazy at your house!

Georgia: Yeah, we decided on Secret Santa this year – purely because we all have boyfriends and girlfriends! I have another fun fact, I can solve the Rubik’s Cube.

Taylor Magazine: That’s a really fun fact! We’ve not met anyone that can solve the Rubik’s cube…

Georgia: Maybe that that should be my new selling point!

“I love baking specifically because you can’t go wrong. If you do, then you have to do it again. I think that comes through from my maths and logic way of thinking. It’s almost like a science – you have to do X, Y and Z and if you don’t, it won’t work.”

You can check out Georgia’s Cakes by visiting Georgia’s Cakes, Twitter or Instagram.