Capgemini 'Freshers Week'

How lucky are the graduate recruits at Capgemini? They got to do one of our cake making team building events for their ‘freshers week’ activity. They had a total laugh learning how to decorate cakes at this fun filled company event. It was a wonderful opportunity for the new recruits to network and do some team bonding with their co-workers. What better way to get to know your new recruits than by joining them to learn how to create stunning cakes in a fab cake class team event. It was a really great company event and by the end of the evening a lot of team bonding had been achieved!

Team Bonding with Expedia

Olivia from Expedia got in touch to see if we could host a team building event for her department at Expedia. Being a multinational with offices all over the world they work in the same department as co workers on all four corners of the world. So what they do is get together every three months to have some time together bonding as a team. Obviously we were only too happy to create a fun filled cake making activity for them to enjoy. We love doing company events. We took everything required for the cake event to their offices and set up in a conference room (one of the great things about our cake workshops is that we are fully portable). They had a brilliant time making cakes creating fabulous buttercream swirls. I was pretty impressed by the general standard of cake decorating. Then the speed cupcake decorating element brought out their competitive side and led to much hilarity with a couple of cakes ending up with so much icing they wouldn’t fit in the participants mouths! All in all it was a great team event. At the end of the 2hr cake class they decided to open up the meeting room to their coworkers for them all to enjoy the cupcakes together. This was a wise move as I’m not sure the cakes would have survived the flights home. It is always such a pleasure to work with Expedia and Egencia.

Kids Cake Making Birthday Party

Jessie is a really keen baker, so for her cake making birthday party she wanted to bake her own cake from scratch! As you can see she did a fantastic job doing every step herself (with a little help from her friends) weighing, creaming, mixing & beating. She basically had her own private baking class. I then taught her how to create a stunning pastel watercolour effect on the finished cake. Whilst the cake was baking I had the opportunity to teach her and her friends and cousins how to pipe gorgeous ruffles and swirls in a kids cake class. They did a fantastic job with their cupcake decorating. Especially considering some of them were only 6yrs old! They loved the taste of the buttercream icing and cream cheese frosting in a variety of gorgeous colours. They were super excited by the huge range of sprinkles we have. The unicorn sprinkles were a big hit! The girls left the class with a good bag of their own cupcake creation to take home and share with their families. They behaved beautifully and Jessie had the best time having learnt cake decorating as well as having had her own private baking class. And she had the wonderful sense of achievement of having made her own birthday cake to take home.

Brides Magazine Live

We were thrilled to be invited by Conde Nast Brides Magazine to do a cake making workshop at their live show as they thought it would inspire their visitors to do it as a fun hen activity. . I went to host the workshop myself and I took along a small film crew who are making a little promo for us. I really wanted to give the group of 16 a taste each of our different cupcake decorating levels. So they had the opportunity to work with cream cheese icing as well as buttercream. The girls applied themselves to the cake making lesson and got some amazing results. After piping a variety of swirls and leaves they did an amazing job on their buttercream ruffles and buttercream flowers during their cake class. Some of them were really keen on booking their hen parties with us. One girl wanted to know if we could come to Oxford for her hen do and I said that as long as it was a large group we would be able to do that. At the end of the cake decorating class they were very happy with their end results and we packed every ones cakes up for them to take home and share with their families. We are really looking forward to seeing ourselves featured in Brides magazine in a couple of months.

Ruffles, Flowers and Sugarpaste Private Lesson

Rosa really wowed me with her cake decorating during her cake workshop. She had just finished her patisserie diploma in Melbourne before she came to study with me. It was a real treat to do a cake class with someone so proficient. She really wanted to focus on advanced cake decorating rather that cake making and also to learn how to make fondant and sugar-paste roses and other decorations. So I created a bespoke cake class for her to cover everything in one go. She was able to get the hang of the buttercream roses, ruffles and petals very quickly and she loved the coffee, peach and pastels colour scheme that we worked with. She was also amazed by the technique we used for piping leaves just by cutting the piping bag into an appropriate shape. She was an absolute natural at piping buttercream flowers and quickly got the hang of the fondant and sugar-paste work. All in all I was totally wowed by what she achieved. As I’m sure you are when you look at these pictures. We had such a lovely time during her private cake lesson.

Buttercream Swirls Private Class

It was hard to believe that Rebecca had never tried piping buttercream swirls when she did cake making before. She was an absolute natural! She really benefited from the focus of a private one to one cake decorating lesson. We covered the swirl piping techniques that we would do in our usual beginners cake class as well as some of the sugarpaste work we do in the full day decorating class. She absolutely loved creating the sugarpaste roses and as you can see from the photos she did a brilliant job with them. She spent time experimenting with the different fondant molds to make a variety of edible adornments including; broaches, bows and flowers. She also decided to use this cake class to experiment with two tone icing colours. I showed her a variety of different ways to get good effects without having to invest in a two channel bag (which I personally don’t think look very good anyway). We had such a great time working together and I’m looking forward to her returning to learn intermediate and advanced piping techniques at her next cupcake workshop.

Private Couples Baking Lesson

Rami Khleif

I had such a lovely morning teaching Rami and Selina the art of cookie baking. As you know there is nothing I love more than giving people baking lessons. It is always fascinating to me the different reasons people come to me to learn how to bake. Sometimes they just want to learn baking skills to treat their friends and families. I also have people come from all over the world because they want to learn to bake cookies and study cake making to set up in business. Rami has a business selling Dutch pancakes in stores in the middle east. He wanted to add cookies and ice cream to the menu and thought that I was the perfect person to teach him how to bake the perfect cookie. We made a classic American style, soft, chewy chocolate chunk style as well as a oat cookies. I showed them my secret method to ensure the chocolate stays melted even when the cookie cools down- I know impressive huh! They had a great baking lesson and were amazed by how delicious there freshly baked cookies were. She is also an instagram expert so gave me some great social media advice, which I really need to put into practice. They are such a fun couple and I really enjoyed spending time with them. I look forward to working with them again in the future. Perhaps they will come and learn cake baking so that they can extend their menu even further....

Hen Day Cake Making

What a brilliant time we had hosting a cupcake making hen party for Bhavini. It was a big group of 20 hens for the hen do, including family and friends from all over the country. They had a great, bonding time learning how to ice and decorate 8 cupcakes each. It was a great cake making ice breaking event and despite the fact that most of the girls were meeting each other for the first time there was soon a great atmosphere with everyone laughing and joking together. Most of them couldn't resist tasting their cupcakes during the class and were thrilled to discover that as they were hand made (by me) they tasted delicious. I even made some vegan versions for those with special dietary requirements. At the end of the cake workshop they were thrilled with there end results and happy to be taking home their cupcakes as well as a fantastic new skill set! All in all they loved there hen activity.

Team Bonding Event For We Work

We Work wanted to do a fun corporate event that gave the opportunity for staff members from different buildings to get together. Needless to say we were happy to oblige with one of our cupcake decorating team events.  It was during a World Cup game and we took it as a good sign that three of the guys who were in the bar to watch it couldn't help but watch our cake workshop instead. We invited them to get involved and they had a great time- surprising themselves with the professionalism of their end results. At the end of the 1hr workshop we headed out onto the deck to capture the stunning London back drop in a pic. (We were in the London Bridge building) They were a lovely group who really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of our company event. It was a perfect icebreaker and the group really bonded during the session.They had a fantastic time at the cake making workshop and were excited about the prospect of us returning to do the next level cake class. 

Corporate 'Festival' Event

Rolling up at Amber Lakes we knew we were in for an amazing day of cupcake decorating fun. It is the most stunning location with a beautiful wooden building set on a picturesque lake (obvs). The organisers had created a really special day out with lots of different activities. As well as our fun cake making workshop there was; hula hooping, gin tasting, flower headdress making, glitter face paints, zorbing, beach volleyball, football and a climbing wall. As well as some fantastic food stalls including the delicious pulled beef from 'Bills', well stocked bars a live music stage and some great DJ's. Our cake class was hugely popular. Event after hosting 2two packed classes we had more people wanting to get involved. In the end we set up a 'pop up' cake decorating area whilst we packed up allowing us to teach cake decorating to an extra 20+ people. This really felt like the future of corporate away days. The company employees were clearly having the best time and thrilled to be so appreciated by their employers.