ABOUT LYDIA KRAITMAN
I'm Lydia, a pastry chef and wedding cake designer, working from a kitchen in Somerset. What a cake looks like and what it tastes like are given equal weight here, developed together from the very beginning.
Before pastry, I studied science, and it still comes in useful. When I'm working out a new flavour combination, I want to understand why it works, not just that it does. But the training that shaped everything since started at pastry school in Vancouver.
From there I worked in five-star hotel kitchens, where consistency, precision and attention to detail were simply part of the job. Eventually I came home to Somerset, spent a few years at The Newt, and then decided to start something of my own.Lydia Kraitman Cakes is what came out of that: a place where flavour gets just as much attention as how a cake looks, built around whatever's in season and grown nearby.
Approach
​
A design usually starts with something small: a flavour a couple can't stop talking about, a colour from somewhere they've travelled, a fabric swatch, a dog neither of them would dream of leaving off the cake.
From there, the details are worked out properly: size, tiers, finish and all the small decisions that bring the idea together.
​
Somerset has incredible producers, and I'd rather build a flavour around what’s growing well here than force an ingredient that isn’t at its best.
I work from home, in a Somerset cottage, with my husband and two dogs, who join me on foraging trips when the hedgerows are worth it.
Red Seal certified and named Wedding Cake Designer of the Year at the South West Wedding Awards 2025, Lydia’s work has also been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Wed Magazine, Bouquets & Bells, Quirky Weddings and South West Weddings.