The Cake Decorating Weekend

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity of taking cake decorating classes with both Eric Lanlard and Mich Turner who are, in today's words, epic cakemakers. I have books by both of them and whenever university work gets a little more stressful than usual, I plonk myself in bed and flip through the books whilst daydreaming. I'd rather be making cakes than taking politics notes that make no sense, really. (No, I still love my major.)

Eric, Mich, and Peggy Porschen have been the three people who have inspired me to create tiered cakes and glamourous/couture-y cakes like these mini rose cakes, this three-tiered cake, and the first one of them all- the one I decided to make one midnight: a simple two tiered imprinted cake. Their creations are the prime example of eye-candy and are awe-inspiring in their level of detail, elegance, and beauty.

The class that I took with Eric was the Cupcake Masterclass (Info for classes can be found here.) We learned how to work with gumpaste (Which I had never done before!- Gumpaste is slightly different from sugarpaste/fondant in its texture- it hardens fairly quickly), we used the gumpaste on silicon moulds to get desired shapes and then learned to how to color the figures and use glitter. Eric also showed us three lovely techniques to ice cupcakes (a wonderful swirl, petals, and one that was absolutely gorgeous and sort of looked like petals and leaves) Sadly I didn't manage to the last one really well. It was great since I tried a lot of things I hadn't tried before. The session was followed by a wonderful afternoon tea. Each of the sandwiches and pastries were presented soo beautifully that all of us gasped everytime they were brought out.  Only after I took the pictures did I realize that they were blurry- I was so excited to eat all of the goodies haha.

The class with Mich was a crowncakes and cookies master class at the beautiful Langham hotel on Regent Street. We learned how to ice and flood a cookie (I FINALLY learned how to flood a cookie- now I can use all my cutters to their full potential!) and then learned four wonderful designs for the crowncakes. I was quite proud of them- they looked so pretty I didn't want to eat them! But, also in this case, there was one technique I didn't quite master which was the candy striped cake. My lines were really squiggly and shakey :( But it was the design I loved best. The one I was happiest with though was the monochrome lace with pink icing in sashes and bows and drops. It was a great class ALSO followed by a wonderful afternoon tea. I hope I can recreate something like this on my own because my main issues seem to be getting the royal icing the right consistency and covering the cake neatly with fondant. More info on the classes here.

the squiggly cake.... but I made the rose myself!

I'm extremely glad I got to take both these classes and the icing on the cake (pun not intended) was that they were on consecutive days. I conquered my fears of gumpaste and royal icing and I'm ready to work with both of these mediums a lot more extensively than I previously had.