I've always wanted to take a cake decorating course. This is NEXT LEVEL! I'm in Week 1/3 of the "Wedding Cake Class" at baking school, and it's pretty magical. I must admit that I am enjoying it more than I expected I might. I kind of used to think that gum paste flowers were (dare I say) a waste of time, and were cliche, traditional, dated... I obviously didn't know what the heck I was thinking. I suppose they could be all of those things, but now I have been exposed to a whole other world of magic and artistry! My cake decorating eyes have been re-opened! A creative flame in my brain has been ignited! I literally have been having a hard time sleeping this week because I am so excited and inspired and can't stop thinking about whimsical, artful cakes. This all sounds incredibly dramatic but alas it is my reality. Somebody please take my pinterest away. This first week we have been learning all about how to make edible flowers out of gum paste. I have learned a GREAT DEAL. This is most likely because previous to this week I knew next to nothing about this topic. I do not even recall ever touching gum paste before this class. And now I am making botanically correct replicas of flowers with the stuff. Or at least attempting to. Such a fine way to spend the afternoon. Below you can see me in the process of building a ranunculus flower, which is both as fun and tricky to build as it is to say. I therefore dubbed it the Ridiculous Ranunculus. Is this a culinary class? Or a botany class? Or a sculpture class? It appears to be all three, smooshed into one. AWESOME. We had to buy a specific tool kit for this class, which I was really honestly quite happy to do. Some programs make you pay MANY DOLLARS for text books that you might only use once. I would much prefer to spend those dollars on baking equipment that I can now call my very own. I like to think of it as investing in new art supplies. A lot of it is stuff that I would never buy for myself... but now that I have it I am incredibly excited/inspired to use it! Would anyone like a cake with edible flowers on it? Cuz I really would like to make one. In fact, I've been pondering the possibilities of how I might just try to put edible flowers on everything and anything. If you invite me to a potluck, don't be surprised if I bring a big bowl of salad garnished with sugar flowers. Roast Chicken with roses? It would be good practice! Somebody please stop me. CREATING NATURE OUT OF SUGAR! Life is literally quite sweet. My Chef gave us a list of some incredibly talented sugar/gum paste artists that are big names in "The Industry". I always loved it in art school when our teachers would give us lists of names of artists to look at for inspiration, this is kind of the same thing. Looking at these people and their work up online changed my perspective on sugar flowers and opened my eyes to a whole other world of art making... this stuff is incredible!!! One can definitely get carried away, but it is inspiring to say the least. I've fallen in love with cake decorating all over again. Here are a few examples Chef gave:
On the last day of classes this week we began to prep our cakes so that we can decorate them with all our sugar flowers later on. You can imagine my excitement when I learned that we would each get to make one larger, three-layered 6 inch cake, along with 15 MINI CAKES!!! I mean LOOK how CUTE they are!! Mini cakes are my new favourite, and now that's all I ever want to make. We cut the cakes, filled them with buttercream, crumb-coated and masked them. Next week, we cover with fondant and decorate! Happy Days. I was so stoked about my mini cakes that I had to take a photo. I needed to show their scale, so obviously I had to take a selfie. One of my Chef instructors was lurking in the background and made an excellent photo bomb, I love it. #pastryparty Can't wait for next week to bring these lil babies to life!
How fitting too that I just received a message of a potential wedding cake order... Life is sweet!!
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