Pop Up Cake Decorating Stand

It was an absolute blast working with WeWork as a part of their brilliantly curated Christmas activities and experiences for their staff. The lovely Annick had done a terrific job creating a varied and inspiring range of pursuits for both WeWork employees and members as client events. We set up ‘Pop Up’ cupcake decorating area and we were absolutely inundated by people wanting to have the opportunity to try their hand at cake making. I was really impressed by the standard of cake decorating and their were a lot of really imaginative cupcakes being created. It always surprises me when people talk about cake decorating being a women’s thing. On this occasion there were definitely a lot more men than women taking part. And there was a lot of competition between them. I always find this when we are doing team building and conference activities, the guys always take it much more seriously than the women do. It’s such a great idea to create all these varied experiences for their member’s to get involved with and fosters a real sense of community and belonging as well as a great opportunity for some networking. I have worked for WeWork before hosting a cupcake decorating workshop as a team bonding activity for one of their monthly mixer evenings. It was really fun and they were a lovely group. I was really impressed by the London Bridge venue and loved the concept of what they do and how they do it. This time working at Devonshire Square I learnt so much more about the company ethos and discovered just why their employees love working there. They are a really young company and have such a fresh approach to running a business. They are really into sustainability and have a no plastics policy. They also support refugees as their priority charity. As you know this is close to my heart with my fundraising for help Refugees through my initiative #Bake4Refugees. A lot of businesses are wary of showing support for this cause as it has become so politicised so I really admire and respect them for this. We had such great feedback from everyone and they were so appreciative of what we offered we are really looking forward to going back to do more cake events with them soon.

Kids Cake Making Workshop

Aquaclean had a fab idea for the product launch of their new stain resistant sofa The Monica (Gellar, natch). They invited a group of kids to set up The kids Kafe! They wanted to prove just how stain resistant their sofas were and what better way than by small people spilling sticky drinks and dropping food all over them? I was brought in to supply a fun cake making workshop for the kids to take part in between takes (The whole messy experiment was filmed to be shared on social media). The mummy bloggers and kids customers were also able to get involved in my cake class. As you can see the kids did a fantastic job with their cake making. They got vey experimental working sweets and licorice string into their cupcake designs. They even managed to master piping buttercream swirls! At the end of the cake decorating lesson they were very happy to have their cakes packed up for them to take home. A lovely surprise was seeing the fabulous Scummy Mummies who were there to interview the staff and customers in their own inimitable style. It is always a pleasure when our paths cross at various family blogger days throughout the year.

Cake Making Birthday Party

Camilla wanted to celebrate her birthday by getting together with her best friends and having a cake making workshop. They had a great time. Firstly they learnt how to bake the cakes from scratch using organic eggs and real butter as well as fair trade sugar and flour. I explained how much better ‘mouth feel’ and flavour you get using real butter rather than margarine which I really don’t think is good for you. I try and use organic and free range whenever possible in my baking lessons. There was plenty of time do chat over a glass of bubbly whilst the cakes baked. We even put on Heart FM for more of a party vibe. They were a really interesting group of girls. All of them lawyers in different fields and at different companies. Some of them want us to go into their offices to host one of our popular cake making team bonding, client and networking events. We’ve worked a lot with law firms over the years. They seem to really like how well are events work as icebreakers and bonding experiences. Once the cakes were baked I showed the girls how to trim the cakes using a cake cutter (a bit like a cheese wire) and a bread knife. Then I demonstrated filling and crumb coating the cakes. Finally I taught them how to ice the cakes with a palette knife and some different styles of decorations they could finish decorating the cakes with. As you can see they each did something totally unique in the cake class They were really thrilled with the end results and excited to take them home to show to their family and friends. What a great cake making birthday party Camilla had. And who knows, perhaps I will be seeing her soon at a cake making company event in her offices!

Vanilla Cupcake Class

This was a lovelys small cake making class. The ladies had a great time learning how to bake delicious vanilla cupcakes from scratch. This gave me the opportunity to work with each of them individually giving them tips and guidance on how to improve their cake baking and decorating techniques. Michelle was originally planning on bringing her 9yr old daughter as she is a passionate cake maker and really wanted to have a baking lesson. Unfortunately the daughter ended up double booked so she brought her friend instead. Michelle enjoyed herself so much that she is now planning on bringing her daughter back to do the same class! They did a great job with their baking and all turned out to be fairly proficient at piping buttercream swirls and by the time we finished they were getting to a near professional level of cake decorating. We spent a lot of time focused on creating beautiful buttercream roses. These are the one time of buttercream flowers that we cover in the beginners class. I love the fact that people can move from beginners to a high standard in a short time when it comes to piping swirls on cupcakes. They were thrilled with the end results. We even made a few extra cakes so that they could sample their creations and still take home a full box of a dozen of their gorgeous cupcake creations. What a great cake class!

Healthy Granola Recipe

It’s been ages since Ive posted a recipe. The thing is I’m so busy keeping you up to date with all the team building and conference activities, hen parties and cake making lessons there just aren’t enough hours in the day!

However, I’ve come up with this recipe and I just think it is too good not to share with you! It’s really healthy and we have it most mornings. Also the kids love it which is great as there is no sugar in it! Feel free to use whichever milk, nuts, seeds and sweetner you have in the store cupboard.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp Agave

1 tbsp Sunflower Oil

300 ml Rice Dream

500g Organic Rolled Oats

100g Cashew Nuts

2 tbsp Pumpkin Seeds

1 tbsp Chia Seeds

1 tbsp Desiccated Coconut

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees

Mix together the Agave, oil and milk. Pour into a large bowl. Add the oats into the bowl and mix until all oats are covered in liquid. Tip the oats into a large baking tin (it doesn’t need to be oiled) and spread evenly. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 minus until it’s golden around the edges. Take out the tray and turn the mixture, pulling the edges into the centre. This will allow it to cook more easily. Bake for another 10 mins. Take the tray out and turn the mixture again and then spread on the nuts, seeds and coconut. Bake for another 7 minutes. Take out and allow to cool. Once cooled keep the granola in a kilner jar. It should last for a good couple of weeks although it doesn’t hang around for long in our house! Serve with yoghurt, rice dream and berries.

Red Velvet Cupcake Class

For her birthday Dan wanted to bring his wife Ellie for a private cake baking class with me. She was already an able baker but wanted to learn to lift her cake making skills to a more professional level. It was such a thoughtful present and she was thrilled that he had splashed out on a private lesson rather than a group cake making lesson. We had a really fun 3hrs together. She had never made red velvet cupcakes before so was really excited to try the recipe out. They came out absolutely perfectly which was a great boost to her confidence. As Dan was not sure about that flavour and much preferred good old classic vanilla cupcakes we made those as well! Dan got involved with the swirl piping too. They were very happy to be taking home two dozen cupcakes and a signed copy of my recipe book. What a great couple!

Conference Activity for 'What's Possible' Conference

The Specialist Works were having a conference for their clients. So, Channel 4, asked us to create a ‘Great British Bake Off’ inspired cake making area to remind the brands what great advertising potential the baking show created. It was a fantastic conference. As we were right next to the stage I heard most of the speakers. My favourite was the one called ‘Be More Pirate’. It was all about being a disruptor and creating ‘good trouble’- right up my street! Our cake making conference activity proved to be a big hit with the delegates. They had a brilliant time bonding with colleagues and making new connections whilst piping buttercream. The pop up cake decorating area was perfect for people to wander up to during breaks throughout the day. The guys from Channel 4 were great fun and embraced the cake making workshop wholeheartedly. In fact they really got quite competitive with their cupcake piping techniques. There were people from lots of different brands there and loads of interest in us providing cake making team bonding, networking and client events for them. The guys from The Specialist Works were absolutely lovely. I made sure I took plenty of cupcakes over to the reception area to give them a little lift at the end of the day. I had to leave before the party kicked off but they had gone to so much trouble with everything that I’m sure it was great bash. I did manage to see the brilliant ‘rap battles’ where opposing companies battled it out to see who had the ‘best game’. What an imaginatively curated conference it was.

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.