Peony Cake at Miss Biscuit Beginner's Cake Decorating Class

Happy Mother's Day to all the lovely mums out there!! 

I thought it would be appropriate for today to show off a cake that I decorated at a Miss Biscuit Beginner's Cake Decorating Class last weekend, which could have been given to mums today to celebrate.  (My mum is too far away and doesn't like cake that much, so my cake went to work.) 

This beginner's cake decorating course involved learning how to level and tort a three layer cake, stack and assemble the layers and fill and cover with buttercream, work with gold leaf and gold paint, and how to create a beautiful gum paste peony to crown the top of the decorated cake.

We were taught by the lovely Miss Lisa, who runs a wedding cake decorating business but who has chosen to also pass on some of her skills to us:

 
Lisa was very patient, helpful and kind throughout the class, happy to answer countless questions, and to assist the "all thumbs" people like me without judging.  (For the record, the balling tool and I were not friends, nor were I and the cake scraper used to level out the buttercream.)

Here is Lisa demonstrating how to roll out the gum paste and cut it into petal shapes:

 
We made three stamens, 4 x small petals, 5 x medium petals and 7 x large petals.

After veining and wiring the petals (wiring is not for the faint hearted!), you curl the edges using a balling tool - not my friend:

 
After the petals have been dried (we cheated and used a dehydrator for time reasons), you dust the petals and stamens with petal dust for colour and movement:

Then you bind the stamens and petals together using florists' tape: 

 
Et voila - your very own gorgeous peony:

 
While the petals were doing their drying thing in the dehydrator, we cut our commercially made mud cakes into three layers using both a knife and a wire cutter (to see which one suited us best), filled the layers with Over the Top brand buttercream, did a crumb coat, and finally covered the outside of the stacked cake with more buttercream and levelled it out with a scraper (yikes!).

Then we got to be arty again, and painted the deliberate rough rim on our cakes with gold paint (made from gold lustre dust + rose spirit), and carefully brushed some gold leaf onto the sides of our cakes (great for hiding the imperfections): 

Finally, we bent a hook at the end of the wire stem of our peonies and stabbed them into the top of our cakes, like a fairy queen atop a float: 

At the start of the class, I had a few moments where I wondered at the wisdom of putting myself through it all, but at the end, I was very proud of my cake.  It's far from perfect, but it looks very pretty, and I did it myself - under the patient guidance of Lisa.  My colleagues who knew the story behind the cake were very impressed with the end result - and so was I.

Miss Biscuit

65a Charles Street

Seddon VIC

Ph: 9687 2916 

 

(Note that there is also a store in East Balmain in Sydney)

TWD - Christmas Spiced Greek Honey Dainties plus Miss Biscuit

For the last Dorie's Cookies Tuesday with Dorie this year, the recipe is Christmas Spiced Greek Honey Dainties.  I looked at the photo of these in the book and wasn't taken with them, but the photo does not do them justice - these cookies are delicious, if a little fiddly.

First up, you make the dough, which is surprisingly sturdy.  You can leave out the Christmas spices for other times of the year, but there was no way I was not going to make the Christmas spiced version.  The smell of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves is just devine.  The dough is shaped into little eggs and baked.

The cookies have holes poked in them before baking so that after they have baked and cooled, you can drench them in a honey syrup.  After applying the syrup, you put chopped walnuts on top of the cookies, which adhere to the sticky honey syrup.

These cookies were fabulous - I had two in a row.  I would definitely  bake these again.

On Sunday, I attended a Christmas cookie decorating class at Miss Biscuit in Seddon.  I did one of her courses over two years ago, but was intrigued by her Christmas cookies and wanted to know how to make them.  

A few things have changed since the first class, with the equipment becoming a little fancier - a Joseph Joseph rolling pin instead of two dowels to measure cookie dough thickness, and proper cookie tools for the whole class instead of skewers.  At home, I'll be doing it the old way!  I don't make decorated cookies enough to worry about things like a dehydrator, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun.  

I learned from the last time that when flooding cookies, you are better to go big, otherwise your flooding won't have a smooth finish.  

I think you will agree that these cookies are just gorgeous.  These cookies are iced gingerbread, whereas last time, I did a vanilla cookie selection.  And yes, they are easy enough that this was the selection from the beginner's class.  The white Christmas tree with roses was done more to show us the technique (which is nifty and very very easy.)

If you are interested in learning the art of royal icing cookie decoration, or just want to learn some new techniques, I highly recommend taking a Miss Biscuit class - she has shops in Sydney and Melbourne but also travels to Brisbane to host classes.   

Miss Biscuit

65a Charles Street

Seddon VIC 3011

Australia

Danish Christmas Cooking Class at Gewurzhaus

Last Sunday, I did at Danish Christmas cooking class at Gewurzhaus in Hawksburn Village.  Our class was led by Danish chef Marie Sanderson, who has worked for Heston Blumenthal, among others.

Marie started by preparing the duck.  Here she is stuffing it with apples, onions and prunes before putting it into the oven to roast:

While we were waiting, Marie's helper made Gluhwein: 

This is Marie stirring the cream through the cold rice pudding: 

The first course was a warm rice pudding, which is not sweet and contains no sugar - in fact, it can be eaten for breakfast:

Here is the gluhwein, which makes you very cheerful at 11am: 

Here, Marie is caramelising kipfler potatoes as a side dish:

This is the duck, roasted and out of the oven:

These are trays of the duck all cut up.  Danes traditionally roast their duck the day before, then cut it up and reheat it and take it to the table like this:

This is Marie is putting together the roast dinner for all of us:

And here it is: Roast duck with apple, onion and prune stuffing, port wine gravy, braised cabbage, pickled cucumbers and caramelised potatoes:

Dessert was a cold rice pudding served with cherries in port syrup:

It was a very rich, very satisfying meal.  Personally, I'd take some of the elements rather than serving them all together so it is a little less overwhelming, but I enjoyed the meal very much.

Miss Biscuit Beginner's Comprehensive Cookie Decorating Class

On a rather cold, wet Saturday a couple of weeks ago, I made my way to Seddon to attend a Beginner's Comprehensive Cookie Decorating Class at Miss Biscuit.  Miss Biscuit's new premises have only been open for a month, so they are bright and fresh and new:

Miss Biscuit, Julia Day, sells decorated cookies, decorating supplies and  homewares at the front of her premises.  Here are some examples of the gorgeous decorated cookies that you can buy at Miss Biscuit for ~$5 each:

In the beginner's class, there are places for 12 students.  The class runs from 10am to 3pm, and includes morning tea (tea/coffee/juice/water and cookies) and lunch (wraps, fruit, chocolates).  You learn to decorate 9 different pre-made cookies.  The price of the class (currently AUD$225) includes all materials, a leaflet with three cookie recipes (including a fabulous "no chill" vanilla cookie dough), a royal icing recipe and a piping tip guide covering three different brands of tips.

Here is the class attentively listening to Julia's tips on rolling out the cookie dough evenly: 

Here is Julia demonstrating how to put a wing on her bird cookie design - see how much fun she's having:

On the day, we learned how to decorate 9 different cookie shapes with Julia's designs.  Here is my completed set of cookies:

I think that all of the cookies are cute, but my favourites are the bird:

and the icecream: 

I bought cutters for both of these from the Miss Biscuit shop, which also sells everything used in class.  I am lucky in that I already have a fair collection of equipment from my own adventures in cookie decorating.  I have made flooded cookies before - see these Lovebird Cookies, these crazy hearts, and these butterflies.  However, I learned some new tips and tricks from Julia that I know I will find invaluable.  I especially like how she creates definition in her cookies by sectioning and layering.

I highly recommend Julia's class.  It was well organised, there was no mad rushing to complete the tasks, and everyone had enough equipment at their own bench - there was no Lord of the Flies type behaviour that I have experienced in some classes in vying for scarce equipment.  Julia is also very approachable and friendly, and was not hung up about how you held your piping bag and whether or not you did a perfect job.  In an adult education class, this is just as it should be.  If I ever practise enough to become more skilled, I would definitely go back to Miss Biscuit for the advanced class.

Miss Biscuit

65a Charles St

Seddon VIC  3011

Cupcake Decorating on a School Holiday Weekend

Recently, I hosted a cupcake decorating workshop one Sunday afternoon for a friend and her daughters during the school holidays. 

We made chocolate cupcakes together, and I had made carrot cupcakes in advance using the Crabapple Bakery cookbook recipe.

We then iced the cupcakes using a variety of techniques, including piping buttercream roses, swirls and ruffles, decorated with edible glitter, cachous and sprinkles:

then using buttercream and fondant, including colouring the fondant, moulding, rose making and using plunger cutters:

A sample of the end results is pictured at the top of this post.

The previous afternoon, I had attended the opening matinee performance of Strictly Ballroom The Musical at Her Majestys Theatre in Melbourne:

It was glittery, sparkly and fun - I couldn't help but come out with a big smile on my face.  If you liked the movie, or if you like good old fashioned fun, I recommend seeing this musical.

Cake Bake & Sweets Show, Melbourne

On Sunday, I attended the Cake Bake & Sweets Show, Melbourne at the Melbourne Convention Centre.  Basically, this was a bakers paradise, with vendors of cake decorating supplies from around Australia present. 

I bought some cool new cake decorating supplies, before taking a priority seat at Adriano Zumbo's show for the Food Network.  During the show, a Food Network guy decided that Adriano should don a bright pink wig taken from  an audience member:

For her trouble, she received some free Cake Boss accessories.

Adriano's show lasted for just under an hour, during which he made this spooky Halloween eye frozen dessert:

Hidden inside the icecream are some frozen carrot entremets.  One lady from the audience won the right to eat one of these desserts by doing a cartwheel in front of the crowd, but it looked like it was a difficult dessert to eat because it was both large and frozen.

In the afternoon, I attended a four hour cupcake decorating course with Janet O'Sullivan, who came from Adelaide to do the Show.  Here's Janet showing us how to make her Freddy (frog) cupcake topper:

The course featured piping, modelling and moulding.  I was especially interested to learn how to use tylose, which I have never used before.  Here is my box of cupcakes from the course:

My favourite was the snail topper:

 
Isn't he cute?

We also made a quilted topper:

 
A ladybird:

 
A heart on a stick:

 
A cherry:

 
A blossom cake:

 
A daisy topper:

And a moulded lego topper:

I learned some new things in this course; in addition to the use of tylose, Janet corrected my piping technique (although I think I got by just fine doing it "wrong" previously), showed me how to use an embossed fondant rolling pin, and introduced me to the use of foam domes to create perfectly round dome toppers. I also liked her tip of colouring fondant by using a small blob of pre-coloured fondant instead of gel colour for certain applications - that was a neat idea.  I enjoyed modelling the snail and the cherry, and I am a little sad that we didn't have time to make Freddy in class.

Janet's class was lots of fun, and proved that there is always plenty to learn, even if you think you know a fair bit about cupcake decorating.

I enjoyed the Show overall, and lapped up the chance to buy from vendors that I wouldn't normally get to visit from interstate.  However, as is always the case with these sorts of events, I can't stand the pushing and shoving from the crowds, all falling over one another to be the first, to get the sample, to grab the bargain, to see the show.  It turns me off going, so I will have to weigh up whether I could be bothered playing survival of the fittest again next year.  Maybe I will centre my visit around classes and prebooked events at the Show and leave the scrum in the vendor stands to those who enjoy the fray.

Whimsical Cakehouse - Introduction to Designer Cupcakes

Yesterday, I attended a two hour Introductory Designer Cupcakes workshop at Whimsical Cakehouse in Malvern.  I have done cupcake decorating classes before, but they are all different, and you learn new things at each one.  I was also lucky enough to pick up a bargain by only paying $50 instead of $140 for the course as a special introductory offer.

We decorated 6 cupcakes in different ways with fondant.  Our teacher was Michelle and our facilitator was Anita.

During the first hour, we prepped the pre-made cupcakes.  First, we had to cut the tops of the cakes away to produce a dome shape and a dam around the edge of the cake for sealing the cuts with ganache.  The trick was to "peel" away the cake like an apple until the desired shape was achieved.

Next, we sealed the cut cakes with white chocolate ganache.  Whimsical's white chocolate ganache is 3 parts chocolate to one part cream, while their milk chocolate ganache is two parts chocolate to one part cream. After getting the ganache as smooth as possible using a spatula, we "hot knifed" them using a cranked spatula - ie dip the spatula in hot water for around ten seconds, then effectively press the ganache smooth with the warm knife.

Finally, we brushed the top of each cake with a mixture of apricot jam and water, and placed a circle of white fondant on top of each cake.  The trick was to place the circle "good" side down in your palm, then place the cake in the centre of the circle.  Smooth the fondant over the top of the cake so that it comes right up to the paper case, first using your finger tips to lightly massage it over the top of the cake, then using a thin piece of book binder's perspex or OHP transparency to buff the fondant on top and around the edges so that the fondant surface is smooth.

Having prepped our cakes, it was time to decorate them.  One of our first decorations was to make an outline on the top of the cake using a small cookie cutter, then to paint the outlined shape with piping gel.  The top of the cake is then dipped in silver cachous, and any gaps in the shape are filled in by hand with more cachous:

Our next cake had a quilted look. You start by making a faint line down the centre of the cake with the back of a small knife.  Next, you make two evenly spaced lines to the left and the right of the centre line with the back of the knife.  Next, you make a line from the top of the furthest left line to the bottom of the furthest right line.  This then becomes your new "centre" line, and you repeat the process of marking two lines on the left and right of the new centre line.  Your cake top should now have a faintly marked diamond pattern.  Next, take a small pattern marking tool, and run it lightly down the lines you have marked.  In each diamond intersection, use the handle of the paintbrush to lightly make a small indent, and pop a silver cachous into each indent.  Tap the cachous in lightly using the side of the blade of a small knife:

Our third cake involved cutting out shapes from coloured fondant (in my case, hearts), and "gluing" them to the top of the cake by brushing the back of the shapes lightly with water.  The silver heart was made by painting a white fondant shape with a mixture of lustre dust and cake maker's alcohol:

The little present cakes were made by taking small strips of fondant made by rolling fondant through the fettuccine setting on a pasta machine.  Using part of a strip about 5 cm long, "good" side down, paint a small dab of water in the centre of the strip, then flick each end of the strip into the centre of the strip with the blade of a knife to just join.  Then take another small strip of fondant and paste it with water parallel to the join, and cut each overhanging end of it off with a knife at a 45 degree angle to make the "knot" of the bow.  Take another strip of fondant and paste it onto the top of the cupcake with a little water painted onto the cake, and lay the strip over the top of the water, and cut off the overhang at 45 degrees.  Finally, glue the bow on top of the strip with a little more water:  

The next cake repeated the same techniques from the last, but this time, we piped royal icing dots into the centre between two strips of fondant "ribbon":

Finally, pre-made flowers (cut from coloured fondant with a blossom cutter and rounded with a balling tool) were glued onto the cake using royal icing, and little dots of royal icing were then piped into the centre of the blossoms:

All of these ideas were simple but effective - just the kind of cakes I like to make.  I also loved the flavour of the ganache against the fondant on the cake - it is a delicious addition to the cake flavour.