THE STORY BEHIND THE INVENTION:

Angelique Meyer is a 35-year old South African mom with three young children; she lives in Pretoria and she loves baking.

"I am sure every baker will relate to my story...

Most of our incredible pieces of art are made later at night, when our families are fed and in bed. So, late one night I was busy decorating a square 4-tier white wedding cake with quilting and a flower bouquet in the one corner. I started adding my dragées to the cake and every second one dropped on the floor, my fingers got sticky from the icing and edible glue and after a while this caused the balls to loose colour; the silver transferred onto the white cake and my nails poked holes in the cake every now and then... I had to get up and wash my fingers after every 10th dragée and it took me almost 2 hours to finish adding all the dragées; another 30 minutes were spent with a tweezer to remove the dragées that dropped into the flower bouquet and to clean the silver spots on my white cake...

Eventually I was done and my cake looked gorgeous; I could pack everything away, clean up and go to bed like the rest of the family... but then, every baker out there's worst nightmare happened... I dropped the whole container of dragées on the floor and those little balls rolled in everywhere. In South Africa ants love sugar and if your floors are not kept spotless then you will get an ant infestation overnight. So, I dropped to my knees and started picking up all these little balls... when it hit me - a tool to keep these balls in place!

The idea developed in my mind and after 2/3 months I decided to make my idea a reality. A prototype was designed and tested, some improvements were made, again some testing, another prototype, more testing, another prototype and more testing, and 36 months later I am finally satisfied that the design is a fault-free dragée applicator.

I decorated the same cake about 6 months ago and it took me less than 10 minutes to pop on all the dragées, with only two dropping on the floor, and not one dirty spot on my cake.

Angelique Meyer - Inventor of the dragéekíss™ 

DETAILS:

The 4th generation dragéekíss™ (dk) is optimised for 4mm and 5mm dragées and can also be used for applying decorative pearls or other ball shaped decorations to any arts and crafts project - quick and easy.

The dk can take c. 180 x 4mm balls with ease, and is easy to refill; the container at the top has a pop-on lid to make sure not one of your dragées will drop on the floor. It has a silicon nozzle that prevents it from damaging the fondant on your cake; both the nozzle and the device will be manufactured from food safe ABS/PC. If you are a baker, or any other decorator, or an arty person, then this will be the best investment you will ever make.

THE REASON:

THE REASON for this crowdfunder is that Angelique has now depleted all her personal savings and she needs YOUR help to bring this ingenious cake decorating tool to the market.

PAYPAL PROTECTION:

All pledges received are kept in our PayPal account and only once we've reached 50% or our target (£17,500) will we withdraw the monies from there to enable us to manufacture the first 10,000 dks. If at any time you would like a refund of your monies then it is as simple as sending an email to Gwen Powell with your request and she will oblige without any questions - please note that the 5% FundRazr Fee & 2.9% PayPal Fee (plus $0.30c per transaction) will be deducted from your pledge when we refund, as this has already been deducted by them.

PRODUCT STRUCTURE 

The first 2,000 dragéekíss™ tools will be released at heavily discounted prices to the general public and small retailers.

To the general public:-

at £9.95 plus P&P (more than 500 already sold!)

To retailers:-

batches of 48 at £8.95 plus P&P 

batches of 72 at £7.95 plus P&P 

batches of 100 at £6.95 plus P&P  

OUTCOME:

The RRP for a dragéekíss™ once the FundRazr campaign ends will be £24.95 - by taking part in this crowdfunder you can save on this price and assist Angelique in bringing her invention to the market.

SOMETHING SPECIAL

Watch this 6 min video of Angelique creating her Cake International Entry:

 Dragée Octopus

THANK YOU! 

Thank you for taking the time to read Angelique's story and please don't hesitate if you have any questions for us.

If you can take the time to share this campaign on your FB wall and invite your cake baking & decorating friends to take part, then that would be much appreciated.

Gwen Powell - on behalf of the dragéekíss™ CrowdFunding Team