We were approached by an events company to create a fun gingerbread man decorating class for a pre Christmas event. It was for a law firms family day and it needed to be a simple workshop that event the little ones would be able to create. We made clothes and accessories out of rolled fondant. This allowed the kids to make really impressive father Christmas’, snowmen and elves without too much adult intervention. The kids were absolutely thrilled with their creations which we gift wrapped in red and green striped bags and cellophane for them to take home.
Family Baking Class
Ann and her daughters had so much fun at their half day cupcake baking class. They all live in different parts of the country now so this was a great opportunity for them to spend time together whilst learning lots of new cake baking and decorating skills. Not only did they find the baking workshop a great way to express themselves creatively, they also found the cake making class was a wonderful way to have a really good catch up. At the end of the baking class they were really pleased with the stunning results with their cupcake creations.
Dodo's Cake Making Hen Party
The ladies at Dodo’s cupcake decorating hen had the most fun. Her friends and family were an absolute blast laughing and joking and keeping me entertained. I should have known that they were going to be an ‘up for it’ crew when Dodo arrived wearing an extremely detailed naked lady all in one! Once we had got over the initial hilarity of that they knuckled down to learning all my expert cake piping tips. Before long they had mastered the art of cake decorating with buttercream swirls and even created some of there own experimental designs. One of the girls was so good I asked if she wanted to join the Cookie Girl team! At the end of the two hour cake making workshop they were absolutely thrilled with their cupcake creations. Dodo wasn’t sure where they were headed next (it was a magical mystery tour type of hen) but she was very excited to get home and share her little cupcake works of art with her husband to be.
Dinosaur Cake Class
When Morgan asked me if I could give her a baking lesson to help her make her little boys birthday cake I was thrilled to help. I thought that my dinosaur cake was the perfect model for him. I pre baked the cakes (one 4pt pudding basin and one 2 pint pudding basin) with a vanilla sponge recipe. (Here’s one I made earlier: http://www.cookiegirl.co.uk/blog/2016/9/20/dinosaur-cake?rq=dinosaur%20cake) . We spent the first part of the cake class assembling the sponged together (securing them with wooden skewers) to make a cute dinosaur shape. Morgan and I then set to work creating the eyes, tail, mouth and teeth out of rolled fondant. We made up a large batch of bright green buttercream and I gave Morgan a demonstration in using a palette knife to cover the cake with a thick layer of icing. We then added the eyes, teeth, mouth and tail to create a cute and friendly edible dinosaur. We managed to finish the whole thing within our 3hr half day private baking lesson. Morgan sent me a video of the cake which was a huge hit and she got lots of great feedback for her work.
Vineet's Cake Decorating Birthday Party
Vineet was celebrating a significant birthday and wanted to celebrate with her closest friends by having a creative time doing a cake making workshop with us. They were a lovely bunch of girls who couldn’t wait to get started piping buttercream swirls onto the delicious cakes I had made. There was time to have a glass of bubbly whilst they waited for the last couple of girls to arrive. They were soon getting stuck in trying out their piping skills on a variety of different buttercream swirl techniques. They were soon getting the hang of it and making professional looking cupcakes. They absolutely loved the vast array of decoration that we had, especially the rainbow unicorns and mermaid sprinkles. The girls found the cake class a great ice breaker and way to bond as not all the girls knew each other. They piped, they laughed and they got competitive. At the end of the workshop they agreed that they had absolutely loved learning a new skill and were excited to get practicing the next time they baked. In the mean time they couldn’t wait to take the cakes back to share with their families.
New Events Venue in White City
Introducing our fantastic new bright, light West London venue. It is a fantastic place for hen parties, birthday parties and cake classes. Basically here we can cover all your cake making and cupcake decorating needs. It is also a great environment for conference activities, team building and client events. So whatever your cake making related needs we are pretty sure that this is the ideal venue for us to host it in. We are also now offering cocktail making workshops alongside our cake making classes which have proved really popular with our hen parties and we plan to begin offering them to our corporate clients for their company events.
Cupcake Decorating Class At Our New Venue
Here is our first cake making class at our new venue in White City. When we decided to move back to our own flat for various reasons we knew that we would not have space to have anything other than small private lessons there. Initially, we put all our group cake decorating classes on hold. I really wasn’t sure what we would do with regards to a location. Then I remembered that when we had left the area 8 yrs ago the company that were building the Imperial College building at the end of our road, offered to build us a community centre. I went to have a look at it and I couldn’t believe how perfect it was for our fun filled cake making hen parties, team building events and cake classes. Now that we have done a few events there they seem very keen for us to book in as many cake workshops as possible. Also, because it seats up to 80 and even has a projector screen (perfect for powerpoint) it is ideal for conferences, networking and client events. I look forward to sharing lots more images of the various cake classes and workshops that we have planned there.
Conference Activity & Inspirational Speech
I was really excited to be invited by Amiculum to give an inspirational speech as well as a cupcake making conference activity. They wanted me to tell my ‘Start Up’ story which is the easiest speech I can give as i know it so well! They even prepared me slides to illustrate my story (me on my cookie rounds, on my cake stall on Portobello, my cakes and cookies being sold in Selfridges and my recipe book) so I could give a power point presentation. I wasn’t sure whether to use a mike or not to teach the cake decorating workshop as it would have been impossible to hold it whilst i was demonstrating. Luckily one of the delegates stepped in and held it for me so I could concentrate on the cake class. There were 90 participants none of whom had done cake decorating before. Although I’m not sure if I believe that as the general standard of their cake making was so high. Everyone learnt 3 different piping techniques during their conference activity. They then voted for each tables best cupcake. Then they brought all of them to my table and i picked the three winning cupcakes. One of them won a signed copy of my book and 2 of them won a Cookie Girl decorating kit. I really loved working with this company and think they did a great job in their cake making conference activity.
Sugar paste Roses and Fondant cupcakes Class
I had a lovely morning on Saturday teaching Aimee and Beejal how to make sugar paste roses by hand in our full day cake making class. They also used cutters and moulds to create a variety of different sugar paste flowers and leaves to create a stunning range of floral cupcakes. We also spent time working on their buttercream piping techniques and using rolled fondant to cover the cupcakes. Although both of them are keen bakers neither of them had any experience with piping icing or working with fondant icing or sugar paste. They were surprised to discover how straightforward it was to construct these beautiful adornments. It is really about knowing the correct equipment to use and having the process broken down into simple step by step instructions. The girls absolutely loved their cake making class and are looking forward to coming back to do more soon.
Hawaiian 8th Birthday Party
I’d had the idea ages ago to do a Hawaiian themed party for Cosy Mae’s 8th birthday party. The combination of palm trees, pineapples and Hula girls just seemed like an inspiring combination for a cake table. Also, being June I thought we were pretty much guaranteed sunshine- ha! In the lead up to the forecast every report I read predicted rain all day which was hardly surprising as it had pretty much rained every day leading up to the party. By some miracle the sun came out and we were blessed with blue sky and temperate weather. It was a big relief as we had 20 kids coming and had recently moved out of a house and into a flat with a huge communal garden. It would have been really depressing (and very claustrophobic) if we’d been rained off and had to be inside. We had some brilliant games; limbo, hula dancing statues, Hawaiian treasure hunt and of course parcel parcel, as my kids call it (when will they grow out of it?!). As usual, like a nutter, I spent weeks planning the cake table and then a couple of weeks prepping and making the contents for the cake table. On it we had; Hula Girl Birthday Cake (Oreo flavour), Tropical flower cupcakes, iced biscuits (Palm tree, Pineapple, Mermaid and Ice cream), Hawaiian Hula Bark, Tiki Cake Pops, Sea and Starfish Meringues. I used an orange cotton fabric to make a sunset colour back drop and table cloth (I finally got a piece of foam board to use as a backdrop base.) I was pretty pleased with the over all effect although I do always wish there was a professional photographer on hand to capture my hard work before it is all devoured and demolished by ravenous kids.