Are we painting today?
It looks like a scene from an arts class doesn’t it? But it’s not. I was recently invited by Couture Cake Classes to come along to a Christmas cake decorating class. In the future I would love to own a business where I’d spend my days creating wonderful wedding/birthday/christening cakes, but for now I can only dream. I don’t have any experience with cake decorating with fondant so it was going to be interesting to see how I go. It’s like playing with play dough right?
We started off the class by learning how to make a few figurines for the cake; these included a Christmas tree, penguin, polar bear and presents. Although it may look like the easiest thing to do, I think everyone (including me) had a slightly difficult time getting the perfect Christmas tree. To make the branches, you have to make snippets in the fondant; the trick was to cut it very deep and at a 45 degree angle but I was afraid of cutting it too much. The other figurines were easy to make as it was a matter of making a few different shapes and sticking them together. I liked how everyone’s figurines had slightly different characteristics and seeing the different presents that everyone made.
Then we moved onto learning how to cover the cake. We were provided with a fruit cake each and besides making sure the cake was levelled, the first thing we had to do was plug up all the holes with marzipan. The marzipan was then used to cover the entire cake before a layer of fondant was placed on top. It is essential to ensure that when you are covering a cake that there are no lumps and bumps on it otherwise it would show when you cover it with fondant.
The covering of fondant was new to me; I had always wondered how cakes were covered so perfectly with fondant. We rolled out the fondant and working as fast as we could to prevent the fondant from drying out we draped the fondant over and smoothed it onto the cake, any air bubbles found underneath the surface were gathered and burst with a pin.
Now here comes the fun part; the decorating. Snowflakes were cut and dusted with sugar crystals, presents were laid near the tree and polar bears and penguins were doing their bit to help out. Everyone’s cakes looked so pretty. It was fun spending the day cake decorating; a few students were parents and were happy to have some quiet time to themselves away from their kids.
I love the idea of having a white Christmas but as we all know, that is impossible here in Australia, so I thought I’d bring that magical white Christmas feeling to my cake and decided to cover my cake blue with snowflakes falling all over it. I’m quite proud of my cake decorating efforts and enjoyed the class.
If you’d like to find out more about Couture Cake Classes, they will be at stand N4 at the MasterChef LIVE event starting today and continuing onto the weekend. They will be running free cupcake decorating demonstrations and selling cake decorating tools.
Thanks once again to Sharon and Lilia for being so helpful on the day and for hosting a fun class.
Thanks to Couture Cake Classes, they are giving a 10% discount on classes to Phuoc’n Delicious readers. To redeem this discount, simply enter ‘delicious’ when you make a booking for a class (for further details, check here). This code will be valid until the end of March 2011.
your cake is so adorable! naturally the penguin is my favourite 🙂
Your cake is so cute! I bet you were proud of your work 🙂
Oh! Jorge and I have been wanting to make a fondant cake for ages! you’ll have to teach me!!! 😀
Really cute decorations, nice work Phuoc ! interesting class, I like anything that gives me an opportunity to be creative but, after 30+ Christmas days in the snow, my cake would have big waves, dolphins and surfers decorations 🙂
YOU GO PHUOC COCO!!! Awesome work on the fondant – that stuff makes me implody because I can never get the consistency right. Penguins are gold 🙂
Eeeee that is the coolest!!! I love the penguin and polar bear!!!! Your cake looks awesome and so pro!
The whole cake looks adorable, love the fat little Xmas tree! Did they give on any tips on where to buy or make fondant?
Aww top stuff Phuoc! So cute =)
I adore your cake! Well done!!
naww that penguin is the cutest!
Your adorable cake is so well made. Squealing at the cuteness!
The fondant penguin is so cute – too cute to eat! Looks like real Ace of Cakes stuff.
This cake is just perfection! You are a pro Phuoc!
Its just Christmas Cuteness!
OMG Phouc that is the cutest cake. Going to take this up professionally?
Nawww, that cake is adorable!!! Great job. You’ll be making them for others in no time 🙂
What a stunning cake – nice work! Very Christmassy indeed 🙂 Glad to hear you had such a great time.. Sharon is wonderful teacher, isn’t she ?!
Jacq: Ha! Of course you’d love the penguin 😀
Kristy: I was quite proud, it had fun creating something beautiful 🙂
Isis: One day m’dear…
Dario: Funny how we want the things we don’t have hey? And your santa would me wearing sunnies and boardies no?
Margaret: Hehe thanks! Did you make the fondant or buy it? Because the fondant we used were bought…
Trisha: Thanks darl!
Minh: Thanks! No, but I can find out for you…
Angie & Cathy: Thanks! 😀
Chocolatesuze: Everyone seems to adore the penguin, Mr Polar Bear is not feeling the love… 🙁
OohLookBel: Thanks Bel!
MelbaToast: Hehe thanks! Was nice to meet you at the picnic. Go team fondant penguins! lol
Gianna: Thanks!
Sara: Thanks, I hope to take it up one day..
Emma: HAHA I have had requests made already for my bf’s nephew’s 3rd birthday!
Ladybird: Thanks. I saw your post for the birthday cake class. So cute! Yeah she is a wonderful teacher 🙂
Wow ! i love your cake ! i think you’re right, having a white christmas is fun, i live in Canada and i can’t not imagine having christmas without snow. But in january i would take the australian sun any time !!!!!
I love Mr Polar Bear 🙂 he has one of those sad faces that just makes you want to hug him….carefully of course 😉
Annie: Thanks! The snow just adds that extra magical dimension, santa going down chimneys in shorts isn’t quite the same hey?
Nic: Oh no! Mr Polar Bear isn’t suppose to look sad… It’s Christmas and Christmas should be a happy time for everyone 🙂
Ohhh howww cute!!! what an awesome class to go to!! i totally didnt know this existed will def have to check it out
Oh do so, it’s lots of fun! They even do cupcake classes
This looks terrific, Phuoc! Great job, as usual! 😀
Thanks dear!
What an amazing experience,and what a gorgeous cake you made! I love it all the way!!
Thanks Deeba!