Edible Illusions

Before becoming internationally recognized for his eye-popping cake creations, Ben Cullen asserts he has always viewed things a little differently than most people.

For as long as the U.K. artist can remember, he has seen the world as a blank canvas and wanted to creatively transform as much as he could get his hands on, but in the most spectacular of ways, even if that meant getting into a wee bit of trouble. “I couldn’t stand anything being blank, so I etched drawings on everything, including cupboards in my home,” the master baker said. Today, the “Bake King” is best known for his jaw-dropping, edible works of cake art that range from creepy desserts to optical illusions and everything in between that will leave you wondering if it’s real or fake.

While the social media sensation’s mind-blowing creations have garnered a celebrity clientele, some fans may not realize that Cullen was actually a tattoo artist at Kellys Tattoos in Chester, England, before testing the waters as a cake artist. Looking at his body as a personal blank canvas, he began designing his own tattoos. “As soon as I found out I could draw on myself, it felt like a dream,” he said. “My style is very much old school with thicker, bold black lines. I love all of my tattoos because they are all so very personal, all have meaning like the family crest on my back, and I love that I can explain all of them.”

The transition from tattooist to cake artist happened at the most unexpected time. Cullen said he was tattooing a customer’s ankle when her mother showed him an unbelievable cake designed to replicate Peppa Pig. “When she told me it wasn’t toys and that the cake was actual edible little sculptures, I had to try it,” he said.

From that moment 10 years ago, Cullen said he embarked on a fun journey “making a series of terrible cakes” that he was proud of before attending an international cake competition in Birmingham. “It opened me up to a whole world of talent and made me want to be the best at making these unbelievable sculptures,” said the award-winning baker. “As an aspiring tattooist, it would have been so good to be featured in Inked. I guess I have really come full circle.”

This past summer, Cullen introduced his debut cookbook, “Cake or Fake?” featuring 20 astonishing cake recipes ranging from a high-top sneaker creation to a pepperoni pizza, a stack of pancakes topped with maple syrup and butter, and a skull cake made with layers of vanilla cake and chocolate ganache. “It has been a massive dream and is very humbling,” he said, adding, “My mom died in 2022, and it was something she spoke about a lot. She lit up every time we talked about it and would have been so proud.”

In the cookbook that he dedicates to his late mother, he hopes to inspire beginner bakers to try their luck, offering step-by-step instructions on how to scrape, chisel, carve, airbrush, and paint their very own hyper-realistic cakes. “It’s like a game that everyone can play,” he said. “I always fail countless times before I succeed. You just have to be persistent.”

When it comes to challenging confections, Cullen said life-size characters take the longest time to create, but it can’t take more than “a week to make and a week to eat” to keep it fresh. This holiday season, he has lots of fun things planned up his tattooed baking sleeves.

“Halloween is my favorite season,” Cullen admitted. “Last year, I did Chucky and Michael Myers. In terms of illusions, I like doing gruesome things like legs and arms. For Christmas, I will do a life-size Santa and a life-size elf.”

His illusion cakes put Cullen on the culinary map, but he said now he faces many challenges to stay ahead of the curve despite breaking boundaries when he started. “It’s difficult to surprise people anymore,” he said. “Trends need to be jumped on immediately. Illusions are very difficult now because there is such a high standard. I always want to do something that is achievable but also surprising. I have always wanted to make a cottage that you can go into. Given the right budget, time, and space, I could achieve that.”